Genesis 1:6

SECOND DAY HEAVENS, Genesis 1:6-8.

6. Let there be a firmament Hebrews, רקיע ; Sept . , στερεωμα ; Vulg . , firmamentum . The Hebrew word properly means something spread out; mar gin, expansion . It means the expanse, the open space above the surface of the land through which an observer looks away to what appears a vast concave surface above him . This open sky is metaphorically called the “firmament;” but we are not to suppose that the ancients, any more than the moderns, believed in a solid metallic firmament . The poetical language of Job 37:18; Isaiah 40:22; Psalms 78:23, etc . , no more implies such a belief than similar metaphors in the poetry of the present day.

In the midst of the waters Between the waters below and the waters above, as is immediately explained.

Let it divide Let it serve as a divider of the waters below, (namely, the deep,) and the waters that float in cloudy masses above the face of the deep. Psalms 148:4.