4/25/2024 0 Comments Firmament or sky pictures![]() And one of the curses was that "The sky over your head will be bronze" (Deut 28:23), meaning that the sky would not yield its rain and a secondary meaning that the prayers offered would not penetrate the sky of bronze. We know this because when Moses wrote about the curses for disobedience in Deuteronomy 28 he points out, "However, if you do not obey the LORD your God and do not carefully follow all his commands and decrees I am giving you today, all these curses will come on you and overtake you" (Deut 28:15). You may remember the astronaut in the Apollo 13 movie saying, "At this rate, we’re gonna skip right off of the atmosphere, and we’re never gonna get back!"īut which ever way the ancient people thought of the firmament we know that Moses, the traditional writer of the first five books of the Bible, did not think that the firmament was metal. Or bounce an object back into space if the entry angle is too shallow, be it a meteor or a spacecraft. Ancient people may not have thought of it that exact way but the blanket of gases that envelope planet earth are fairly solid if you think that they can burn up an object entering earth's atmosphere. If we think of the firmament as something strong and solid, we can see it that way by understanding air-pressures. The word “wrought” means to have been “worked.” But there are other ways the word can be used – we may say, “Puppy dog Alfie, did not seem sorry for the havoc he had wrought.”Īnother equivalent English word may be “beaten,” as in a “beaten brass dish.” But we use the word “beaten” in other ways too such as, “Felix was eventually beaten into submission by his overbearing spouse.” Iron that is hammered or otherwise worked is called wrought-iron. The root of the noun rāqîa is raqqəʿ a verb meaning to stamp, beat out or spread out, which is where the idea of “metal” comes into the picture because metal can be beaten and hammered into an extended surface.Īn English equivalent may be the word “wrought”. Strong’s Concordance says, “raqia: an extended surface, expanse,” and Brown-Driver-Briggs’ Hebrew and English Lexicon says, “extended surface, (solid) expanse (as if beaten out )". The Hebrew word translated as “firmament” is rāqîa. “And God said, 'Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters'” (Gen 1:6). I do, however, understand the question because the word "firmament" is used in Genesis chapter 1. ![]() Fausset's 1878.Question: I have been asked why Genesis states that the sky (or firmament) was made of metal, which was created to separate the waters above the earth from the waters below - not really what science teaches!Īnswer: True, that’s not what science teaches but I don’t think it’s what Genesis teaches either. Bibliography Information Fausset, Andrew Robert M.A., D.D., "Definition for 'firmament' Fausset's Bible Dictionary". ![]() Others say Israel's inspired writers used language of experience and appearance rather than language of precise scientific description. Others argue that such interpretations are unsound, in that they confuse poetic and figurative language with literal prose. The firmament was punctuated by grilles or sluices, "windows of heaven" through which rain was released. Above the firmament flowed the heavenly waters. Some scholars argue that the Hebrews had a primitive cosmology where the firmament was visualized as a rigid, solid dome-a celestial dam (Genesis 7:11 2 Samuel 22:8 Job 26:8 Job 37:18 Proverbs 8:28 Malachi 3:10). It is described as bright, transparent like crystal, revealing the handiwork of God, and signifying His seat of power (Psalms 19:1 Psalms 150:1 Ezekiel 1:22 Daniel 12:3). The firmament is mentioned nine times in Genesis, the Psalms, Ezekiel, and Daniel. In Genesis 1:6 the firmament separates the mass of waters and divides them into layers. At times the use of the word connotes the idea of extension or expansion-thus the expanse of the heavens at creation. God spreads out (verbal form of raqiaspro) the sky (Job 37:18). The original Hebrew word Gaqiacspode notes a strip of hammered out metal. There it is used to translate the Greek word stereomaoin the Septuagint rendering of Genesis 1:6-7. The word "firmament" comes from the Latin word firmamentum in the Vulgate. Into this expanse, God set the sun, moon, and stars (Genesis 1:14-18). Heaven in this sense is also referred to as the firmament or sky (Genesis 1:8). One use of "heaven" in the Bible is to refer to the ceiling or canopy of the earth. The firmament was created by God on the second day to separate the "waters from the waters" (Genesis 1:6-7). Fausset's Bible Dictionary A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z Firmament The great vault or expanse of sky that separates the upper and lower waters.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |