In the Beginning: Light and the Firmament

In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.

And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.

And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.

And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness.

And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day.

And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters.

And God made the firmament, and divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament: and it was so.

And God called the firmament Heaven. And the evening and the morning were the second day.

— Genesis 1:1–8 (KJV)

Genesis opens with a single sentence that neither argues nor explains. What follows is an ordered account, day by day.

On the first day light appears — though the sun is not made until the fourth. On the second day a firmament is set in the midst of the waters, dividing them: some below it, some above.

The word for that firmament is the Hebrew raqia. Its root, raqa, is used elsewhere for beating something out thin — hammering metal into a sheet. The Greek Septuagint chose stereoma, “something solid,” and the Latin Vulgate followed with firmamentum, from which the English word comes.

The text leaves water on both sides of it. Long after the flood, Psalm 148:4 still speaks of “the waters that be above the heavens.” We will read it slowly, and let the old wording stand on its own.