FIRMAMENT. By this word the A. V., fol lowing the Vulg., translates the Heb. 3,PF; (Gen. i.
6, 7, 8, etc.) The original word, from vp-i, to stamp, beat out, expand, simply means the ex panse ; and it is not easy to conceive how the Greek translators came to render it by crepewaa, a word which is commonly used to designate some compact solid, such as the basis of a pillar, or a pillar itself, and which is used elsewhere by the LXX. as equivalent to the Heb. ;bp, a rock (Ps. xviii. 2), and by Symmachus and Theodotion as the rendering of the Heb. run, a stag: Basil (Hexam. Hom. 3) explains the term as not in tended to describe what is naturally hard, and solid, and weighty, which belongs rather to the earth ; but says that because the nature of the ob jects above it is fine and thin, and not perceptible by sense, it is called crepewpa, by a comparison between things of extreme rarity and such as can be perceived by sense (atryKplaet T(JP Xen-roTdran, rad rfj aio-OiicrEt racraX7prr&v). It is not very clear what his meaning here is, but probably he in tended that as a solid extension would be firo terly called a ampeutua, so this mass of light and vapoury substances might by analogy receive this name. Others have suggested that this term was employed to indicate that the 3,771 is the univer sitas TWV Nerropepitiv in regionem superam con globata et firinata,' along with the idea that this nihil habet uspiam inanitatis, sed ornnia sin gene ris naturm plena' (Fuller, Misc. Sac. Bk. t, c. 6). Fuller thinks also that the LXX. selected arebecoya rather than reracry.a or reptveracrya, in order to convey the idea of de.pilz as well as superficial ex pansion. A very general opinion is that the LXX. adopted this term rather than one exactly equiva lent to the original, because it conveys what was the Hebrew belief concerning the upper atmo sphere or visible heavens, which they regarded as a solid expanse encircling the earth. That such was a common notion in ancient times is probable ; the Greek obpavds, like our heaven,* signifying that which is heaved up or elevated, and the Latin calum, corresponding to the Greek KoiNc,p, signify ing that which is hollowed out (` cavernze ceeli,' Lucret. iv. 172 ; comp. Pott, Etymol. Forschungen, i. 23, 27), have their source in such a notion ; while such epithets as atahpeov (Oa'yss. xv. 328; xvii. 565), xaKeov (11. xvii. 425; Pital. Pyth. x. 42 ; Nem. vi. 6), and 7roXi4aXKop (R. v. 5o4 ; Odyss.
iii. 2), plainly enunciate it. It is remarkable, how ever, that only two of the ancient philosophers seem to have formally taught this. Einpedocles described the heavens as arcplyvtov and Kpvo-raX NoEtotjs, composed of air glacialised by• fire (Plut. Plac. Phil. ii. ti ; Stobzeus, .Eclog. Phys. i. 24; Diog. Lzert. viii. 77 ; Lactant. De Ofif c. 17 ; cf. Karsten, Phil. Gr. Vet. Opernm PeliquirE
ii. 422); and Artemiclorus taught that surnma ora solidissima est, in modum tecti clurata ' (Senec. Nizt. Quost. vii. 13). But that the same view was entertained by the Hebrews is by no means certain. It is hardly competent for us to take such highly poetical descriptions as those in which the heavens are compared to a mirror of shilling metal, or to a tent, or to a curtain stretched out (Job xxxvii. ; Ps. civ. 2 ; Is. xl. 22), and interpret them as scientific statements ; nor can we lay any stress on the fact that the sacred writers speak of the doors and windows of heaven, of its pillars, or its foundations (Gen. vii.
; Is. xxiv. 8 ; Mal. iii. io • Job xxvi. ; 2 Sam. xxii. S) ; for these may be mere poetical or pictorial forms of speech, such as even we with our exact scientific knowledg-e might delight to use. The descriptions in Exod. xxiv. to, and in Ezek. 22-26, have been adduced as proving that the Hebrews conceived the visible heavens as a solid though pellucid floor on which a person might stand, or a solid object rest • but in the former of these passages the paved work,' on which Jehovah appears standing, exists only in our version, the original simply stating that under his feet was a sort of work of glittering sapphire' (--ottri riti:?1,), without determining of what kind the work was ; and in the latter pas sage, though it is said that the throne of God was above the rakiah, it is not said that the throne was resting On it. There is more apparent force in the argunient derived from the purpose which the rakia was designed to serve, viz., the support ing of the waters which were above it, and the holding of the heavenly luminaries, both of which would seem to require a solid substance. But the waters above the rakia are merely the clouds, which need no solid support (Delitzsch on Gen. i. 6 ; Kurz, Bible and Astronomy, Hist. of the Old Covenant, i. 30) ; and the fixing- of the heavenly bodies in it is due to the imagination of the com mentator ; it has no sanction from the text, which merely says they were set or placed in it, without saying how (Gen. i. 14.-i8). There seems no rea son, then, for thinking that the sacred writers con ceived of the rakia as a solid substance ; they seem rather to have thought of it as a wide expansion, in which the clouds, and winds, and heavenly bodies had their place, and from which the rain came down. That they would not have applied to it such terms as we have cited from the Greek poets is evident from Dent. xxviii. 23, where a metallic heaven is spoke of as abnormal, and the result of a curse. The cosrnography of the He brews was far from being scientifically exact, but we need not make it less so than the exigences of a just exegesis demand.—W. L. A.