The waters below were also based on observations of the world since digging eventually reaches water. The “windows of heaven” here are windows in the sky, and the blessing that the Lord is pouring out is rain. The Hebrew word occurs seventeen times in the Old Testament (Genesis 1:6. This idea is at play in the famous verse in Malachi about tithing, where the Lord promises to “open you the windows of heaven, and pour you out a blessing” (Malachi 3:10). This word is translated as firmament in the KJV Bible and vault in the NIV Bible. We need to disregard modern translations and go back to the original Hebrew word raquia to understand the true meaning. Thus, the evidence for waters above is falling rain. The ancient Israelites were not stupid they based their perspective on the observational evidence of the world they saw. This is how Genesis understands the sky-a flat surface that separates the waters above from the waters below (see Genesis 1:6). According to the canopy theory, there was a canopy of water above the atmosphere until the cataclysm of Noah’s day. Raqia comes from a Hebrew root that means “to beat out.” The sense of the word raqia is something beaten out, like a metal plate or dome, over the earth. The canopy theory seeks to explain the reference in Genesis 1:6 to the waters above the firmament, assuming that firmament, or expanse, as the Hebrew word is alternatively translated, refers to our atmosphere. This word only appears seventeen times in the Hebrew Bible, with nine of those appearances being in Genesis 1. This unusual English word comes from a Latin word meaning “a support or prop” and is a translation of the rare Hebrew word raqia. The ancient Israelite view of the universe was different from our modern perspective, and the best way to understand that view is with the word firmament.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |