Genesis 1

Genesis 1

Verse 7

“And God made the firmament, and divided the waters which were under the firmament from waters which were above the firmament.”

The first times I read through this verse with an attentive intent, I glanced over this verse without wondering what it meant too much.  Maybe it was a typo, maybe it was talking about something else, maybe I misread.  I disregarded it for a while, but then the inevitable question came back.

Waters above the firmament?

What could it be talking about?

Is there really water above our sky or is this “firmament” refer to some other firmament?

The next verse confirms the meaning of this firmament.

Verse 8

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

I noticed that in the KJV, Heaven is spelled with a capital “H”; maybe it refers to a higher heaven?

So far up to the end of the universe maybe?

Is that what surrounds our universe? Water?

And what would such water be like?

What form would it take in such location?

Would it be an ethereal state of water and therefore have a metaphorical meaning, and not really a physical state of water?

Or is this just a cheap way to explain why the sky is blue?

I looked back to it a couple of times each time I thought about it, to make sure it actually said that.  Even now it surprises me when I read it.

For a while I believed that the mysterious contents of the ends of the universe was, therefore, water;

especially because in verse 14 and 15, God places “lights” in this firmament (the sun, the moon, and the stars… galaxies and such), and if there is water above the firmament, then the water is found above all of these.  In other words, at the ends of the universe.

Until I read Genesis 7:11 where it says that the ”windows of heaven were opened” and torrents of water poured out…  So I guess there is no more water at the ends of the Universe.  I still wondered whether all or only some of the water was flushed out.

Verse 22

“And God blessed them, saying, be fruitful, and multiply and fill the waters in the seas, and let fowl multiply in the earth.”

When I think of God’s words I think of something engraved in reality itself, this is how God is able to “speak things into existence”.  When God gave the command to be fruitful and multiply, I imagine it as a description of the manifestation that happened within the instinctual mind and physical anatomy and neuro-anatomy of these beings.  When God commands for something to happen, the universe morphs itself to match his command; when God commands us to do something, that command becomes part of us, so that if we decide to go against His command, we are ultimately going against something that is intrinsically and naturally part of our constitution and/or part of the design of the universe as well (and this is what is called chaos/darkness/evil/etc.).

June 15, 2012