![]() ![]() ![]() But the historian speaks as things would have appeared to a spectator at the time of the creation. We, describing it now, should speak differently we should say that it lay between, or separated, the clouds and the earth. Let us not fail to note the historical mindfulness with which the expanse is described as separating the waters from the waters. But it now first, at this time, existed as a separating expanse and now divested of the gross, murky particles with which it was charged, it became transparent and respirable, the medium of light and of life to the surface of the earth. The pall of dense vapor, which is supposed to have previously invested the earth, implies the existence of an atmosphere. It is perhaps not correct to say, as some do, that our atmosphere now first existed. It is thus easy to apprehend what is meant by the sacred historian, when he tells us that this firmament “divided the waters that were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament.” One portion of the dense watery shroud which had invested the surface of the earth-the lighter particles thereof-was exhaled, rarified and carried up into clouds, remaining suspended in the upper regions of ether the remaining and heavier portion was at the same time forced down, and merged into the waters that covered the earth and the expanse left void by their separation, is the expanse or firmament which formed the work of the second day. This word, as well as the Greek (στερέωμα) is, however, admissible, if by solidity is meant no more than that the fluid atmosphere has density or consistence sufficient to sustain the waters above it. But the word used by the Greek translators, together with the long prevalent notion, that the material heavens formed a solid hemispheric arch, shining and pellucid, in which the stars were set, led subsequent translators to render the word by firmament. We are told that on the second day of creation, “God made the firmament.” (Gen_1:7.) The primary meaning of the Hebrew word rendered “firmament,” is expansion, outstretching, attenuation, elasticity, which are the very properties of our atmosphere. ![]()
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