#Firmament in hebrew windows#

Genesis 1 and the Latter-day Saint TempleĪll of this is to say that when reading about Creation, it’s helpful to take the cultural context into consideration. The firmament holds up the waters of heaven, and God dwells above in the highest heaven. The mountains, or pillars of heaven, hold up the firmament of heaven. Here’s a diagram of a possible ancient Near Eastern cosmology or worldview.

#Firmament in hebrew windows#

The windows of heaven are the firmament or rakiyah, and the blessings that pour forth represent the rainwater that nourishes life. We see this concept at play in Malachi 3:10:īring ye all the tithes into the storehouse, that there may be meat in mine house, and prove me now herewith, saith the Lord of hosts, if I will not open you the windows of heaven, and pour you out a blessing, that there shall not be room enough to receive it. When this firmament opened, rainwater fell, giving life to crops. Essentially, the sky was blue because it seemed to be made of water. Ancient Israelites conceptualized the sky as a massive, solid dome with an ocean of waters above it. The word “firmament” in Hebrew is rakiyah (רקיע) and refers to the dome or expanse of heaven. Sure, there are molecules of water in our atmosphere and in the clouds, but most of us wouldn’t categorize the air or sky as “water.” However, to ancient Israelites, this concept would have made perfect sense. To us today, it might seem odd to think about the sky being made of many waters. This firmament created a division between the ocean and its waters below and the sky and its water above.

7 And 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. The Firmament or Rakiyah in Genesis 1:6-8Īn example of this different cosmology can be found in Genesis 1:6–8:Īnd God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters. God taught them about His creation and plan in ways that would have made sense to them. God speaks to us in terms that we can understand, and the same was true of ancient Israelites. In the Book of Mormon, Nephi taught us that God “speaketh unto men according to their language, unto their understanding” (2 Nephi 31:3). It’s possible that God taught important truths about Creation through a framework or cosmology that ancient Israelites could relate to.Īfter all, the book of Genesis is first and foremost a religious text that teaches us about God and teaches us about our place in the God’s creation. The ancient Near East likely had a different cosmology, which means a different conception of the universe and how the world worked. Sure, the sky now and back then was still blue, but ideas about WHY the sky was blue may have been different in the ancient world than it is today, with our modern conceptions of physics, astronomy, and geology. The world and the universe were very different in the biblical world than it is today. Ancient Near Eastern Cosmology and the Creation in Genesis 1