Fear No Fear

(All scripture from the World English Bible, ebible.org, all rights reserved)

“God said, “Let there be an expanse in the middle of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters.”“

Genesis 1:6

God is continuing the pattern of his creation: He thinks it, He speaks it which enables it to be imbued with power which creates its form, and He names it to give it permanence. Here He creates an expanse and He creates a boundary.

Spiritually, this expanse is the separation between Heaven and earth. The waters below are the physical waters of this material existence. The waters above are the waters which are in Heaven (Revelation 22:1-2). In a sense, then, the expanse is the sea which separates the physical from the spiritual.

Physically, there are two possibilities and perhaps it is both at once. First, it is the air. The atmosphere. Rotation of the globe (possibly begun on Day One, but definitely on Day Four) is not required for the retention of the atmosphere – that is created by MASS. Without a doubt, the Earth may not be completely formed, but it is a THING being dealt with physically and therefore would have a MASS. This view of the expanse is further shown because of the ‘waters above’ and that the birds (once created) fly in the ‘expanse’ and it is the same Hebrew word. When Elihu is telling Job of the glories of the Lord, he mentions the ‘waters above’ using the same words, but referencing clouds (Job 37:16). He mentions a few verses later the same imagery of the expanse being ‘hammered out’ (Job 37:18), which is implied in the language of today’s verse (and echoed in Psalm 104:2, 136:6; and Isaiah 40:22). The Psalmist also calls the weather the ‘waters above’ (148:4), noting their division from below. The prophet Amos clearly means clouds and the water cycle (the sea {waters below} birth the clouds which rise {waters above} and then pour forth their rain on the Earth – Amos 5:8). So we have atmosphere around the globe of a planet, air to fly through, clouds for upper water, and ground water – like oceans, lakes, etc – for lower water, and we have the water cycle itself described later in scripture using these same words.

It is noteworthy that some believe that ‘waters above’ mean a layer of water around the Earth existed at this point. Protecting it like a gigantic greenhouse and protecting it from solar radiation and some of the detrimental effects of physical light. People have done experiments blocking partial elements of the light spectrum and getting results of overlarge growth because of that protection. Which could account for longer living human beings, greater sized human beings, and the plethora of plant and animal life on the globe in the early years after the Fall. I’m not saying this is so, but it is an interesting interpretation.

The second physical possibility in the word ‘expanse’ is a VAST spreading out like a tent or pavilion (again, echoed in Psalm 104:2 and Isaiah 40:22). This MASSIVE wording is more than the air in which the clouds are separated from the ground or the atmosphere of the Earth. This would include the whole of what we call ‘space’. The universe as we see it through our telescopes. Everything physical on this side of the spiritual Heaven: the visible or observable universe.

The framing of the Hebrew wording for ‘Let there be an expanse‘ can be taken as a form of rebuke. A firm directive signalling ‘Enough!’. As if when creating the heavens and the earth (vs 1), they began to expand in pure potential until God told them to stop and keep within their borders. This idea is echoed in Job 26:11 “The pillars of heaven tremble and are astonished at his rebuke.”; where fluidity is halted and position firmly established.

One of the sages (Kli Yakar) references this boundary drawing when he writes it is in humanity’t nature ‘to always long for his actions to extend without end and without limit and that everything should be permissible in his eyes; ‘everything he wants he does;’ and if a man relies on his nature, then there will be no boundary and end to the chariot of the lusting of his desire; and anarchy [would seem] good for him, such that there should be no limiting and stop to any action; up until G-d rebuked us through this Torah {the scriptures}, which gives us a boundary and measure to all [our] actions; [to inform us] how far they can extend, according to the divine Will, and up until where it is permitted for [man] to send out the rein of his desire.’ It is a good lesson to take from the boundaries God places here (and throughout creation), since it is the rejection of such boundaries that caused the Fall (Adam), the wickedness before the Flood (Noah’s day), and that Jesus told us would be the mark of the end times (Matthew 24:37-39). Boundaries and borders, as set by God, are ALWAYS beneficial for us. They are the marks of true freedom.