“Now no shrub of the field was yet on the earth, and no plant of the field had yet sprung up, for יהוה Elohim had not sent rain on the earth, and there was no man to till the ground, but a mist went up from the earth and watered the entire surface of the ground.” (Genesis 2:5-6) Some may claim that the divided waters are the rain and the bodies of water on earth, but this is not true. The big takeaway here is that the firmament or expanse as this translation calls it, is used to separate the two waters, indicating that it has physical properties. And Elohim called the dry land ‘earth,’ and the collection of the waters He called ‘seas.’ And Elohim saw that it was good.” (Genesis 1:6-10) And Elohim said, “Let the waters under the heavens be gathered together into one place, and let the dry land appear.” And it came to be so. And Elohim called the expanse ‘heavens.’ And there came to be evening and there came to be morning, the second day. “And Elohim said, “Let an expanse come to be in the midst of the waters, and let it separate the waters from the waters.” And Elohim made the expanse and separated the waters which were under the expanse from the waters which were above the expanse.
Let’s start at the beginning and see for ourselves what the creator has to say about His creation. I have heard many theologians and preachers say that the firmament is nothing more than the sky or is space itself, I’ve even heard one pastor say there’s nothing “firm” about the firmament.
No longer was YHWH trillions upon trillions of miles away or in a different dimension, but close to His creation and that brought so much joy to my heart! The time has come to dive completely into Biblical cosmology and let me tell you when I learned the truth about the earth, it sent me sprinting to know more about Biblical truths and what else the world had lied about. This one deals with the importance of Biblical Cosmology – specifically as it pertains to understanding the Firmament.īiblical Cosmology, The Firmament Biblical Earth Conceptualized This was the first of two presentations I did from my Genesis Revelation series. It is estimated that the sheet of water would have filtered out harmful sun rays and contributed to the longevity of life on earth before the flood. It is then possible that the “floodgates of heaven were opened,” at the beginning of the flood, is the collapse of this “hammered out sheet” of water. There are some scientists who have speculated that before the flood there was a thick sheet of water surrounding the earth up in the atmosphere. The word raqiya is the noun form of the verb raqa and is literally a “hammered out sheet”. The gold was hammered into thin sheets then laid over the surface of the alter. Numbers 16:39 reads “So Eleazar the priest took the bronze censers, which those who were burned had offered and they were hammered out as a covering for the altar.” Here, the phrase “were hammered out” is again the verb root raqa. Raqa is the process of hammering out a piece of gold or other metal into thin plates which was then applied to a carved or molten image. The word raqiya comes from the root word raqa which can be found in several passages including Isaiah 40:19 – “The idol! a workman casts it, and a goldsmith overlays it with gold, and casts for it silver chains.” The word “overlay” is the verb root raqa. It was the support also of the heavenly bodies ( Genesis 1:14 ), and is spoken of as having “windows” and “doors” ( Genesis 7:11 Isaiah 24:18 Malachi 3:10 ) through which the rain and snow might descend. The raki’a supported the upper reservoir ( Psalms 148:4 ). It formed a division between the waters above and the waters below ( Genesis 1:7 ).
It is plain that it was used to denote solidity as well as expansion. The language of Scripture is not scientific but popular, and hence we read of the sun rising and setting, and also here the use of this particular word.
They who rendered raki’a by firmamentum regarded it as a solid body. This word means simply “expansion.” It denotes the space or expanse like an arch appearing immediately above us. The Firmly Solid FirmamentĮxploring the etymology of the words only reconfirms this view:įrom the Vulgate firmamentum, which is used as the translation of the Hebrew raki’a. When we consider the following verses from Scripture, we come to the inevitable conclusion that the scriptural writers’ understanding of the Firmament was a solid, firm, tangible thing. “Let an expanse come to be in the midst of the waters, and let it separate the waters from the waters.”
0 kommentar(er)
