From death to life. From darkness to light. From hell to heaven.
No sinners’ prayer.
No commandments.
Only faith in a God who makes Promises and keeps them.
So the heavens and the earth were finished with all their forces.
Genesis 2:1 (John Goldingay, The First Testament)
What I love about this translation (John Goldingay, The First Testament, A New Translation, is it uses the word forces.
This opens up many lines of thought.
First Question: What forces is it talking about? I can think of many such as gravity, air currents, electricity, life (breathing and so on), photosynthesis… there are many.
Next the Scripture states that says God rested. but what is interesting is the forces He instituted did not stop. When He spoke them into existence they were always there. They never stop for the Sabbath. Mankind was told to take a Sabbath and in a different way the fields of the earth were told to be Sabbathed as well.
Some of you think heaven is greater than earth, due to the order of creation. You’re wrong.
Look.
This is the account of the heavens and the earth when they were created, when the Lord God made the earth and the heavens.
Genesis 2:4 (NIV)
I think I have an answer. The focus isn’t the separation of the waters (chaos above, chaos below)… but about the “vault.”
Some bibles say “firmament,” and some say “vault,” but the image is this space created between the waters that separates the waters above from the waters below. And it’s inside this separation where God separates water from land. Inside this special place.
I often think about working against the curses of Genesis 3 & 4, and how we’re meant to shine as lights in the darkness. A part of our Christian prayer is “on earth, as it is in heaven.” And it’s a prayer to create a protected space in this life where God can be seen clearly…
This protected space is like a vault that holds back the waters of chaos & darkness. It’s space where water is gathered away from land, which represents humanity. And life flourishes on that land.
When we pray “on earth, as it is in heaven,” we’re praying for the firmament.
So why does God not say “it is good?”
Perhaps it’s because it isn’t good *yet.* It represents the good we MUST DO later, after the curse of sin. It WILL be good.
Heaven (masculine word); earth (feminine word). Separate, but perhaps made of the same thing.
It echoes.
“Splitting to create order” is the prevalent theme: heaven/earth, light/dark, waters-above/waters-below, water/dry-land.
I think “in the beginning, God split heaven and earth” can be a reasonable additional view of the text.