To: Biblical Hebrew <b-hebrew AT franklin.oit.unc.edu>
Subject: Re: b-hebrew digest: April 20, 1999
Date: Thu, 22 Apr 1999 12:08:04 -0700
Andrew wrote, <<it seems to me that the "expanse of the heavens" in
Genesis 1 which was created on day 2, was in fact interstellar space.>>
I tend to agree with this statement. It seems to me that the idea that
some have of a brass-like firmament is only one way of looking at raqia.
This conception of the Hebrew view came from the LXX which translated
raqia with the Greek stereoma, or stone vault. But it seems that the
process of pounding out metal could indicate stretching out just as
easily.
This idea of the heavens being an expanse, or a stretching out, is
repeated in Isaiah 40:22 where the author says that God stretches out the
heavens like gauze, and Ezekiel 1:22 where it speaks of raqia as shining
like transparent ice. Not as clear is Psalm 150:1 which may refer to
more of an outstretched expanse than a fixed point.
At any rate, to assume that the Hebrews saw the heavens as a vault is
applying the second Century B.C.E. Greek cosmology used in the
Septuagint, not earlier Hebrew meaning.