Raqia, Vault, Firmament

The word  raqia, shows up nine times in the Creation story in Genesis, beginning in Genesis 1:6-7 where, in the NIV, the Hebrew word is translated "vault." Other versions of the Bible translate the word as "firmament" or "expanse." We see the word again in our study of Job.

There is a tendency for modern Christians to attempt to force their modern cultural view on the Old Testament. This is a disservice to Scripture. One example of this forcing occurs in attempts to read a scientific viewpoint onto Genesis 1, a passage which is not a science text. (Indeed the concept of science does not appear in the Old Testament!) Old Testament scholar Denis Lamoureuz points out that the three letter root word for raqui is raqa, often translated "hammered". That word appears in Job 37:18 where YHWH hammers out the sky, creating a plate "hard as a mirror of cast bronze." The raqia itself was viewed as a firm, plate-like expanse over the earth.

Elaborating on that is this tweet from Denis O Lamoureux.

The astronomy of the ancient Near East was merely an observational one, from a very human point of view. The earth was, as it appears, a flat disk, with a vault above, in which were the stars and the moon and sun. Because YHWH is in charge of the earth, because He rules over chaos (even the raging sea), then He controls the earth and keeps it stable (see 1 Chronicles 16:30, for example) but He is also capable of shaking the earth if He so desires (Job 9:6, Job 38:13.) YHWH had complete control of earth, whether viewed as a flat square (Isaiah 11:22) or a circle. In Isaiah 40:22, YHWH sits above the "circle of the earth", in control of all. (One version of modern cultural-forcing attempts to rewrite "circle" as "sphere". In response to that. see this online article at GotQuestions.org, "What is the Circle of the Earth (Isaiah 40:22)".) The sky as a firmament, as a plate or bowl over the earth, fits naturally into the ANE view of the universe; the Old Testament makes no attempt to correct that ancient physics (a very modern term!) but simply insists that YHWH is in charge!

The Old Testament makes no attempt to teach modern astronomy any more than it promotes polygamy.

Old Testament scholar John Walton suggests we look at the Old Testament from a viewpoint that shows up in The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, by C. S. Lewis. In that fantasy world, Eustace meets a star that has come to earth. He is taken aback.

“In our world," said Eustace, "a star is a huge ball of flaming gas."

"Even in your world, my son, that is not what a star is, but only what it is made of.”

C. S. Lewis is pointing out that our modern emphasis is on what things are "made of", atoms, physical forces, things we can measure. We explain stars as massive amounts of hydrogen fusing under the influence of gravity because that explains the physical, material, properties of a star. We should not expect the ancient texts to say that; indeed, they do not have that viewpoint and do not intend to. (I will press further and suggest that the ANE is not as much a viewpoint of ignorance but as a viewpoint of intent, as representing a human point of view.)