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Find the answers to all those questions you were too embarrassed to ask in Sunday School. Welcome to Weird Stuff in the Bible, where we explore scripture passages that are bizarre, perplexing or just plain weird. Hosted by Luke Taylor.
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The Firmament of Genesis 1
Genesis 1
Introduction
Before we were arguing over flat earth vs round earth, before we were arguing over creation vs evolution, before were were arguing over whether Tom Holland has surpassed Tobey Maguire as the best portrayal of Spider-Man, there was another debate within the church: did God create the earth with a canopy around it like a dome or protective shield?
Now, perhaps you’ve never heard of this, but it centers around this mysterious firmament that comes up in Genesis 1:6 and 7.
The NKJV says
6 Then God said, “Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters.” 7 Thus 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.
What even is a firmament? The American dictionary says a firmament is “the vault of heaven.” The British dictionary says it’s “the expanse of the sky.” I don’t quite know what that means, and to be honest, I find it to be weird, and all I really care about is what the Bible says it is.
If you want to find out, too, turn to Genesis 1, and let’s get weird.
[theme music]
Grossly Normal
Welcome to Weird Stuff in the Bible, where we explore scripture passages that are bizarre, perplexing or just plain weird. This is Luke Taylor, and today we’re going to be talking about the firmament of Genesis 1.
As I shared a few months ago, I had a surgery over the summer. It was a hernia repair on my upper thigh. And so I had a series of doctor’s appointments leading up to the surgery. One time the doctor examined me for about 10 minutes, took some notes, handed them off to the nurse, charged me a bunch of money, you know how it goes.
Turns out, those notes got uploaded to the patient portal, so I got curious and went and looked at what he’d written about me. And I was a little bit surprised at what he said when he thought I wasn’t lookin. He said—and this is a direct quote from the paperwork—he said, “Nose and ears appear grossly normal.”
Grossly normal. That’s what he called my nose. That’s what he called my ears. Grossly normal. He might as well have added “boom, roasted” on the end of my medical charts.
Well doc, sorry to disgust you with my average, everyday ears. I didn’t even think we were there to talk about my nose or ears.
But you know, if your ears are grossly normal, it’s better to know than to not know. As I was coming to terms with this new revelation about myself, I went into the living room to tell my wife about it. She said, “in the medical field, the word ‘grossly’ can mean ‘examined without the aid of a microscope.’”
Oh. Well, that’s good to know. People in the medical field have a little bit different vocabulary for some things. “Grossly” simply means that the doctor looked at my ears and nose without a microscope, and he was able to declare them normal based on visual confirmation alone. And frankly, I’m kinda glad he didn’t stick a microscope in my nose or ears, as that would have been grossly gross.
My point is: sometimes people use code words. They have their own unique definitions that they’re working off of to talk about things. Words that mean one thing in one context, but something unfamiliar in another context.
And as we’ve often discussed on this podcast, the Bible has a number of code words of its own. Words that have an ordinary meaning, and might even make sense in an ordinary way; but they can also have a second or spiritual meaning and point to a spiritual reality.
Scripture does this more often than we think. We have talked about the phrase “beasts of the field” as a code word for spiritual beings. We have talked about how “sea” is a code word for the Underworld. Recently we talked about the “waters” of creation in the first chapter of Genesis, and that’s where we’ll start for today.
The Waters and the Firmament
Let’s just start at the beginning.
Genesis 1 (New King James Version today)
In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. 2 The earth was without form, and void; and darkness was on the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters.
What are these waters that it speaks of? Back in July, I did an episode called “The Three Realms of God’s Creation,” and I explained my view of what these waters are. The “waters” means all of the stuff that God would use to form the rest of creation. You could think of this as atoms. Now, I’m not saying it was all just literally atoms; I just think atoms (a-t-o-m-s) is probably the best approximation of what was going on. God created everything; the world was covered in a sea of atoms, or the building blocks of matter. Everything started in a state of chaos, because it was all unformed and disorganized.
This sea of atoms is called the waters, which is a really good code word to describe it, because water is a substance that has no shape. Water is just a formless liquid. Formless. The earth was “without form.” So I don’t think the earth was literally covered with water; I think the word “water” here is a code word for something else. So call it atoms, building blocks—maybe it’s a spiritual substance that we don’t even have a word for.
And then God began to take these building blocks and, well, build with them. God used them to build the things of the world; the mountains, the hills, the dirt, the planet. And God took this material and used it to create the things of the rest of the universe as well.
Genesis 1:6-8
6 Then God said, “Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters.” 7 Thus 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. 8 And God called the firmament Heaven.
So now we have this firmament, which is what we’ll mostly focus on today. The firmament divides the waters from the waters; the waters below from the waters above. The materials of the earth will emerge from the waters below; the waters above will be used to create the things of space.
So what is this mysterious “firmament” that we see here? It’s the Hebrew word raqia. It only shows up in Genesis, Psalms, Ezekiel, and the Book of Daniel, for a total of 17 times in the Bible. We’ll look at all those places today to get a comprehensive understanding of what the firmament is.
Theories on the Firmament
There are theories on what this firmament is. There are some who will tell you that this is a physical barrier, like a dome, that surrounds the earth. This is a very popular idea in the flat-earther crowd, and they will say that the dome still exists to this day.
There are others who believe that there was a physical barrier around the earth at the time of creation, but that it broke at the time of the flood of Noah, and that it released the waters above, which is what caused the earth to be filled with water.
And part of the reason for that is because the English word “firmament” carries the idea of firmness, so it’s understandable why some would think that this implies that there’s some kind of physicality to the firmament. And that comes from the Latin “firmamentum,” which actually carries the idea that it’s something “fixed,” not necessarily something “firm.”
The idea that the firmament is solid is not necessary in the raqia of the original Hebrew. And indeed, it doesn’t have to be translated as “firmament.” In some of the more modern translations, they call it “the expanse.”
Here’s another way you could look at it: that the firmament is just another word for heaven. That’s actually how it sounds in the eighth verse:
Genesis 1:8
And God called the firmament Heaven.
So you could look at the word “firmament” as just a synonym for the heavens; everything above the earth, from the atmosphere to Pluto to the distant stars to infinity and beyond.
The only problem with that view is that the bible itself doesn’t use the word consistently in that way in the 17 times where it shows up. Let’s unpack all that today, but we’ll start with surveying the firmament throughout the Bible.
The Firmament in the Scriptures
So we’ll start with Genesis 1. And this is where the most instances of firmament show up. Throughout Genesis 1, the firmament sounds like outer space. This is what the Bible would often refer to as “the heavens.”
Genesis 1:14-18
14 Then God said, “Let there be lights in the firmament of the heavens to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs and seasons, and for days and years; 15 and let them be for lights in the firmament of the heavens to give light on the earth”; and it was so. 16 Then God made two great lights: the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night. He made the stars also. 17 God set them in the firmament of the heavens to give light on the earth, 18 and to rule over the day and over the night, and to divide the light from the darkness. And God saw that it was good.
So right here, we see the firmament described as the place where the sun, moon and stars reside. Furthermore:
Verse 20 has this added word:
20 Then God said, “Let the waters abound with an abundance of living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth across the face of the firmament of the heavens.”
This is the only time the word firmament shows up with the qualifier “the face of” when describing it. It says the birds fly across the face of the firmament of the heavens. That means the birds aren’t in the firmament; they fly in front of it.
Then you don’t see the word “firmament” again until you get to the book of Psalms, where it appears twice. Psalm 19 uses it in a way that works perfectly with Genesis 1, thinking of the firmament as outer space, or the “heavens” beyond the earth.
Psalm 19:1
The heavens declare the glory of God;
And the firmament shows His handiwork.
The other place where you see this word show up is the 150th psalm, the very last psalm.
Psalm 150:1
Praise the Lord!
Praise God in His sanctuary;
Praise Him in His mighty firmament!
Doesn’t really tell us anything about where the firmament is, but you could look at it as saying we should praise the Lord from the earth to the heavens.
And then I’ll skip Ezekiel for a minute and go right to Daniel; we see this word show up one time in that book, once again equating the firmament with the heavens:
Daniel 12:3
Those who are wise shall shine
Like the brightness of the firmament,
And those who turn many to righteousness
Like the stars forever and ever.
Believers are said to shine like the stars, which are paralleled with the firmament, which is outer space. There is not anything in the description of the firmament in Genesis, Psalms or Daniel that would imply any physicality to this firmament as a domelike structure or canopy.
Again, I know some believe that this firmament may have been broken and released a bunch of water upon the earth in the flood in Genesis 7. The problem with that view is that the firmament is never mentioned in that chapter. It says the windows of heavens are opened, but it doesn’t say anything about the firmament being broken. And, of course, from the Psalms and Daniel references, that firmament is still there after the flood.
So from all of those references, we have a pretty clear picture of what the firmament is. It’s everything from the atmosphere and beyond. The birds fly “in the face of” the atmosphere. But they don’t fly beyond the atmosphere. It’s not until you look at this word in Ezekiel that things start to get more complicated.
The Firmament in Ezekiel
So let me revisit my view of Genesis 1 real quick, which I outlined in that episode I mentioned before: The Three Realms of God’s Creation. I think Genesis 1 is pulling double-duty by simultaneously talking about God’s creation of the physical realm AND God’s creation of the spiritual realm.
Genesis 1 describes the creation of the physical realm as being in three parts; the heavens, the earth, and the sea. However, my contention in this episode was that these three parts correspond to the three parts of the spiritual realm: the heavens correspond to the Heavenly realm where God rules; the earth corresponds to the Earthly realm where we are and where Satan rules; and the sea corresponds to the Underworld realm.
So therefore, on this view, there is a firmament in the physical realm; however, there’s also a firmament in the spiritual realm. And this spiritual firmament is what we see in the Book of Ezekiel.
This is going to be a bit more nuanced view of the firmament than what you’ve perhaps heard before. Kind of like how some people say that Tom Holland is the best Peter Parker, but Andrew Garfield was the best Spiderman. That’s a bit more nuanced take than simply asking which actor had the best portrayal. Not everybody is ready for that conversation. I want to have a little bit deeper conversation about the firmament as we look at it here in Ezekiel.
So turn with me to Ezekiel 1, if you’re following along in your Bible. In Ezekiel 1 and also chapter 10, these are the chapters where Ezekiel has a vision of God and the four-faced cherubim. These are spiritual beings with four faces- the face of a lion, an ox, a man, and an eagle. Really really weird. I talked about them back in episode 57.
So for most of this chapter, Ezekiel is describing this vision. He was sitting on the side of a hill. Suddenly there’s a whirlwind from the north, but only he can see it. The cherubim come out first. There are four of them, and they each have four faces. They’re on these whirling wheels that sound gyroscopic in their design. Each cherub has a wheel under it.
So the cherubim are moving around on these wheels, and then they also seem to be supporting the throne of God.
Ezekiel 1:22-26 says
22 The likeness of the firmament above the heads of the living creatures was like the color of an awesome crystal, stretched out over their heads. 23 And under the firmament their wings spread out straight, one toward another. Each one had two which covered one side, and each one had two which covered the other side of the body. 24 When they went, I heard the noise of their wings, like the noise of many waters, like the voice of the Almighty, a tumult like the noise of an army; and when they stood still, they let down their wings. 25 A voice came from above the firmament that was over their heads; whenever they stood, they let down their wings.
26 And above the firmament over their heads was the likeness of a throne, in appearance like a sapphire stone; on the likeness of the throne was a likeness with the appearance of a man high above it.
So, to recap, the cherubim are supporting a firmament. This is obviously not a huge canopy that encircles the earth; it’s more like a platform. On the platform is the throne of God.
Now, the firmament is said to be like crystal in verse 22, and then sapphire is mentioned in verse 26. Sapphire is a blue crystal; blue like the sky. Keep that in mind. Beautiful stone.
One last time the firmament is mentioned is when Ezekiel has a very similar vision in
Chapter 10 verse 1
And I looked, and there in the firmament that was above the head of the cherubim, there appeared something like a sapphire stone, having the appearance of the likeness of a throne.
So now we’ve covered every firmament appearance in the scriptures. We have—what I believe—is the firmament of the physical realm, which is the heavens—and the firmament of the spiritual realm, which is like a blue barrier between heaven and earth. Now, I know this is confusing because the spiritual firmament has a physicality to it. And you might say, “Luke, how can it be physical if it’s a spiritual object.” If that’s your question, I think that’s a good question; but I also have a good answer. When something is spiritual, that doesn’t mean it doesn’t have a physicality to it. Angels have physicality. Jesus’ spiritual resurrection body has physicality to it. When we say it’s spiritual, we mean that it comes from the spiritual realm. Spirits aren’t just vapors and ghosts. They can manifest physically.
So what we see in Ezekiel 1 and 10 is that when God descends from heaven to earth and enters our realm, a piece of the firmament is lowered, it’s physical, and His throne rests upon it.
The Sea of Glass
Now, I believe we see this in one or two other places in the Bible, even though the word “firmament” doesn’t appear. But before we wrap things up, I want to connect these potential dots, and I think it gives us a little bit of a clue as to how things work in the spiritual realm.
In Exodus 24, Moses is conversing with God on Mount Sinai. In this section of Exodus, Moses keeps going up and down the mountain there and receiving instruction from God, such as the 10 Commandments. In the twenty-fourth chapter, God tells Moses to bring his brother Aaron, along with 70 elders of Israel, with him. All of these people witness God on His throne.
Exodus 24:9-10
9 Then Moses went up, also Aaron, Nadab, and Abihu, and seventy of the elders of Israel, 10 and they saw the God of Israel. And there was under His feet as it were a paved work of sapphire stone, and it was like the very heavens in its clarity.
Very similar. A sapphire stone, and it was like the heavens, meaning that when Moses and the others looked at it, it was like looking at the sky. When God sat on His throne, He was on some kind of platform, but it looked like He was sitting on a piece of the sky.
Well, I believe this is surely the same platform that Ezekiel was describing in his vision. Now, keep in mind, even though Moses and the others are up on a mountain, God is up in the sky, so He is positioned higher than they are. Now let’s look at another place in Scripture where we see God’s throne: John’s vision in the book of Revelation.
Revelation 4:2
2 Immediately I was in the Spirit; and behold, a throne set in heaven, and One sat on the throne.
I’ll skip a few verses down to
Verse 6
Before the throne there was a sea of glass, like crystal.
The NIV for this verse says
Also in front of the throne there was what looked like a sea of glass, clear as crystal.
And the Amplified Version says it this way:
and in front of the throne there was something like a sea or large expanse of glass, like [the clearest] crystal.
So the idea is that before God’s throne is a clear, glass-like crystal foundation. That’s what John is seeing. It was hard like crystal, but clear like the glass of a window. You could see through it below you.
So the idea that I get from putting this together is perhaps how things look in the spiritual realm. When God up in heaven is looking down at us, the ground before Him is clear. He can see right down into earth from heaven. Meanwhile, when we’re looking up at God from below- like Moses or Ezekiel do- they see God sitting on a blue surface- blue like the sky. It’s kind of like a two-way mirror. It’s blue from our vantage point; it’s clear from God’s vantage point.
Now, some people may say: “Luke, these are visions, you can’t take them so literally.” Sure, I understand that; I’m really just going off of how the Bible presents these glimpses of the spiritual realm. I don’t think that God has to literally look through a clear glass down into heaven to know what’s going on here on earth. God might just know all things that are happening and all things that will happen by virtue of being God. Just like God might not literally need to sit in a chair, yet the Bible often speaks about His throne. I don’t think God needs to sit down. But Scripture depicts Him sitting. I don’t think God needs to rest. But Scripture says He rested on the seventh day. God doesn’t need Lazyboys and naps, but God is God and He can do whatever He wants to. So I’m just going to interpret the Scriptures as they come. If there’s a clear sea of glasslike crystal before His throne, then I’ll take it that that’s what He’s got.
The Living Creatures
And one more note I’d like to share on viewing things from a spiritual reality as opposed to an earthly reality. In Revelation 4, John sees similar creatures to what Ezekiel saw in the first chapter of his book. It says when you read
Revelation 4:6 and 7
And in the midst of the throne, and around the throne, were four living creatures full of eyes in front and in back. 7 The first living creature was like a lion, the second living creature like a calf, the third living creature had a face like a man, and the fourth living creature was like a flying eagle.
I’ll assume you’re familiar with Ezekiel’s cherubim description. I didn’t share it all earlier, but in Ezekiel 1 and 10, when he sees his vision of God, Ezekiel goes into deep description of these creatures, and again: when Ezekiel describes them, they each have four faces. Their faces are a lion, an ox (or calf, depending on the translation), a man, and an eagle. Just like what John saw. When Ezekiel saw these four beings, he called them “living creatures,” and eat one of them had four different faces. When John sees these four beings, he calls them living creatures as well, but they each have one face. That’s the only thing that’s really different from one to the other.
So are these Living Creatures in Ezekiel 1 the same entities as the Cherubim in Revelation 4? I’ve never been totally sure, but here’s a theory: Yes they are the same. But they look a little different depending on your vantage point. Ezekiel is a three-dimensional being looking at what is perhaps a four-dimensional creature. He’s very freaked out by it and sees all these faces. But when John sees these beings up in heaven, he’s in a four-dimensional space looking at a four-dimensional creature; he just sees one face on each creature.
I’ll explain it like this: imagine a two-dimensional cartoon person in a two-dimensional world, and he’s never even known about a third dimension. He probably couldn’t even understand it. If a two-dimensional cartoon saw a three-dimensional being, they’d probably be quite overwhelmed. They’d say, “I never saw anything like that before! The way it turned and kept changing was like nothing I’d ever seen.” Like, we know a 3D being only has one face; but they can change their face and turn their head in ways that 2D beings can’t really comprehend. A two-dimensional being could not comprehend an entire 3D being; they could only grasp glimpses of it.
Well, we’ve talked before about how UFOs and spiritual beings seem to be higher-dimensional. We are 3D beings looking perhaps at 4D things. Therefore, 3D Ezekiel sees these rotating wheels of eyeballs and 4D beings with four faces; John who is himself in the fourth dimension in Revelation 4 sees something similar and, while I’m sure it’s very fascinating, perhaps it’s not quite as freaky. He sees one face per creature where Ezekiel saw many.
That is 100% just my theory. I’m just trying to figure out how to put these pieces together. It makes sense to me that things might look different in heaven than they do on earth. And man, it’s gonna be so exciting to get to heaven and perceive a whole new dimension of reality. The real reality; not this limited reality we live in now.
Closing Thoughts
So let’s recap our main ideas for today:
Point #1- I’ve always said Tom Holland was the best portrayal of Spider-Man, ever since Homecoming, and I’m glad the rest of you are finally catching up to me.
Point #2- the firmament in Genesis—as well as Psalms and Daniel—is a general term that encompasses everything from the atmosphere to outer space. It’s not one specific thing.
Point #3- you definitely do not have to interpret the firmament as a shell or canopy around the earth. I understand why some people interpret it that way in English. You could interpret it that way if you wanted to. But the Hebrew text doesn’t force you to, and I wouldn’t interpret it that way based on what we know scientifically about the earth.
And those three points—especially point #1—are pretty easy to establish. I would not probably take counterarguments to them very seriously. Two more points I made today which are more debatable, or more of my personal theory:
Point #4- the firmament in Ezekiel is not the same as the firmament in Genesis 1. Ezekiel is showing us right there a spiritual firmament, a platform which God’s throne rests upon.
Now, some are going to say: Luke, you can’t do that with the word firmament. You can’t say that the firmament in Ezekiel is something different than the firmament in Genesis 1. It’s the same word in both places.
And I get that, because firmament is not a very common word, so for some reason, since it’s such a rare word, we think it has to be the same thing every time it shows up. But here’s the thing about Genesis 1. There are several words that don’t mean the same thing right there that they mean in the rest of the Bible. Words like water, stars… Water is not always physical water throughout he Bible. The word “star” can mean angel. The word heaven can have multiple meanings, depending on the context. I would say “heaven” has multiple meanings in Genesis 1 itself. I would argue that “sea” is a code word here for the Underworld; that becomes very plain when you look at how Revelation speaks of the sea as well. So the raqia in Genesis 1 doesn’t necessarily have to mean the same thing as raqia in Ezekiel 1. In fact, they seem very different; trying to make them equate each other seems logically impossible.
And one more point from today—Point #5—We cannot properly perceive higher-dimensional beings—such as cherubim—from our three-dimensional space.
Like, if you could take a 2D being and turn them into a 3D being, imagine how amazing they would find it? I know this is just an imaginary scenario; we can’t really do all that; but just imagine for a moment that we did. That 2D guy would be able to perceive the world in a whole new way. It would blow his mind to look around and see things in a three-dimensional atmosphere.
And likewise, when we get to heaven, we’ll have such a deeper perception of reality. It will be awesome.
I John 3:2 (NKJV) says
Beloved, now we are children of God; and it has not yet been revealed what we shall be, but we know that when He is revealed, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is.
Someday we’ll go from being three-dimensional beings to experiencing and understanding a four-dimensional reality—and seeing God as He is.
It’ll be amazing. It’ll be weird. And it will be NORMAL. Because we’ll perceive reality the way angels, demons, and living creatures perceive it. Right now we see through a glass darkly. What we see now is not normal. It’s limited. It’s incomplete.
But someday in the spiritual realm, we’ll see all things as they actually are.
So if being four-dimensional someday sounds weird, it’ll actually be normal; and I hope you’re ready to be normal someday, too.
In fact, I hope you’re ready to be grossly normal.
Thanks for listening, God bless you for sticking around until the end, and we’ll see you next time on Weird Stuff in the Bible.
[citation for dictionary definitions: https://www.dictionary.com/browse/firmament]