No 8
(Day 2 of creation)
« 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. On day two, God created a firmament or an
expanse between the « waters ». What exactly does this mean? Literally speaking, the God made a space
between the waters on the earth and the waters in the air. The waters on the earth we all know to be the
vast oceans but the waters in the air have three possibilities. They are : 1) Actual water held up by
some special means; 2) Regular rain clouds; 3) Water vapor; all three have
positive and negative arguments. It is
very interesting that the Lord did not use the same word « barah » [create (Ex Nihilo, from nothing) in the
Hebrew] in this verse as He did in verse one; instead, He used the word « assa » which means made from
something that is already present. All
indications point towards # 3, a water vapor or canopy which would, as you can
imagine, create a greenhouse effect on the surface of the earth and all vegetation
would’ve grown in a perfect environment.
This would be in sync with the long aging of the people living before
the flood, because this vapor barrier protected them from the harmful rays of
the sun. The vapor canopy would also
account for all the water that fell during the flood; because let’s face it,
even if it rained 40 days and 40 nights today,there would never be as much
water as during the flood of Noah’s time.
There would be a lot of water on the earth but never 15 cubits (22 ˝
feet) over the highest mountain (Genesis