Genesis 1:6–7
Genesis 1:6–7 — meaning in the ancient Hebrew
“And God said, ‘Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it separate the waters from the waters.’ And God made the firmament and separated the waters that were under the firmament from the waters that were above.”
The Hebrew behind the verse
| רָקִיעַ raqia | “firmament, expanse” — from the root raqa, “to beat out, to hammer thin,” the way a smith spreads metal into a sheet. The sky is stretched like a canopy over the deep. |
| מַיִם mayim | “waters” — the formless deep. God divides them, above and below — the same picture carried by the letter Mem. See the letter → |
| הִבְדִּיל hivdil | “to divide, to separate” — God's ordering work. Creation is chaos given boundaries. |
What it means
The firmament is God's next act of ordering the deep. From raqa, “to hammer out,” the raqia is a canopy stretched thin like beaten metal — space carved out over the waters. Before there was any place to stand, God made room.
Notice the pattern of the first chapter: God creates by separating. Light from dark, waters from waters, sky from sea. Order is not the mere absence of chaos — it is chaos given a boundary, a home hammered out of the formless.
This is the same God who, one verse earlier, hovered over the deep (Genesis 1:2). Into the mayim — the waters, the chaos — He speaks a boundary and a canopy, and suddenly there is somewhere to live. He still does this: He makes space in the deep.