GENESIS AND POETRY

Hugo McCord

The word “firmament” in the translation of Genesis 1:14, “And God said, Let there be lights in the firmament,” is “poetical” because a firmament is “a solid arch or vault” (WEBSTER’S UNABRIDGED). How did a “poetical” word get into the Genesis account of creation?

To call Moses’ writing poetry is simply a modern attempt to justify an erroneous translation. The translators of the Greek Old Testament (LXX, c. 250 B.C.) apparently believed the ancient folklore that the sky is a solid vault with stars as chandeliers, for in Genesis 1:14 they placed the lights into a stereoma, a solid body.

Unfortunately, Jerome (340-420 A.D.) in his Latin Vulgate translation made the same error by placing the lights in a firmamentum, a solid body. Then in 1611 the King James translators simply changed Jerome’s firmamentum into its English equivalent, “firmament.” And so did the translators of the American Standard in 1901, and of the New King James in 1982.

However, Moses’ word raquia’, something spread out, an expanse, does not have to refer to something solid spread out, as gold overlays on idols (Isaiah 40:19) or “silver spread into plates” (Jeremiah 10:9). It can also refer to a “spread out” sky (Job 37:18), an expanse, which clearly is the meaning nine times in Genesis chapter one. The New American Standard Version and the New International Version use the word “expanse.”