Gen 1:6 | Clarke | STEP | Verse 6. And God said, Let there be a firmament ] Our translators, by following the firmamentum of the Vulgate, which is a translation of the στερεωμα of the Septuagint, have deprived this passage of all sense and meaning. The Hebrew word rakia , from raka , to spread out as the curtains of a tent or pavilion , simply signifies an expanse or space , and consequently that circumambient space or expansion separating the clouds, which are in the higher regions of it, from the seas, &c., which are below it. This we call the atmosphere, the orb of atoms or inconceivably small particles; but the word appears to have been used by Moses in a more extensive sense, and to include the whole of the planetary vortex, or the space which is occupied by the whole solar system .

Genesis 1:6

Verse 6. And God said, Let there be a firmament] Our translators,

by following the firmamentum of the Vulgate, which is a

translation of the στερεωμα of the Septuagint, have deprived this

passage of all sense and meaning. The Hebrew word rakia,

from raka, to spread out as the curtains of a tent or

pavilion, simply signifies an expanse or space, and consequently

that circumambient space or expansion separating the clouds, which

are in the higher regions of it, from the seas, &c., which are

below it. This we call the atmosphere, the orb of atoms or

inconceivably small particles; but the word appears to have been

used by Moses in a more extensive sense, and to include the whole

of the planetary vortex, or the space which is occupied by the

whole solar system.