"The work of the second day of Creation is to erect the vault of Heaven (Heb. _Rakia_; Gr. στερέωμα _Lat. Firmamentum_,) which is represented as supporting an ocean of water above it. The waters are said to be divided, so that some are below, and some above the vault.... No quibbling about the derivation of the word _Rakia_, which is literally 'something beaten out,' can affect the explicit description of the Mosaic writer contained in the words 'the waters that are above the firmament,' or avail to shew that he was aware that the sky is but transparent space." (pp. 219, 220.) "The allotted receptacle [of Sun and Moon] was not made until the Second Day, nor were they set in it until the fourth." (p. 221.) Surely I cannot be the only reader to whom the impertinence of this is as offensive, as its shallowness is ridiculous! In spite of Mr. Goodwin's uplifted finger, and menacing cry,--"No quibbling!" I proceed with my inquiry. For first; Why does Mr. Goodwin parody the words of Inspiration? The account as given by Moses is,--"And GOD said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters[108]." But surely, to make the "open firmament of Heaven" in which every winged fowl may fly[109], is not _"to erect the vault of Heaven,"--"a permanent solid vault,"--"supporting an ocean of water!"_ The Hebrew word here used to denote "firmament," on which Mr. Goodwin's indictment turns, ("_rakia_,") is derived from a verb which means to "beat." Now, what is beaten, or hammered out, while (if it be a metal) it acquires _extension_, acquires also _solidity_. The Septuagint translators seem to have fastened upon the latter notion, and accordingly represented it by στερέωμα; for which, the earliest Latin translators of the Old Testament coined an equivalent,--_firmamentum_. But that Moses by the word "_rakia_" intended rather to denote the _expanse_ overhead, than to predicate _solidity_ for the sky, I suspect will be readily admitted by all. True that in the poetical book of Job, we read that the sky is "strong, as a molten looking-glass[110]:" but then we meet more frequently with passages of a different tendency. God is said to "_stretch out_ the heavens _like a curtain[111]_," "and _spread them out as a tent_ to dwell in[112]:" to "bind up the waters in His thick clouds[113]," and "_in a garment[114]_," &c., &c.[115] It is only needful to look out the word in the dictionary of Gesenius to see that _spreading out_, (as of thin plates of metal by a hammer,) is the _only_ notion which properly belongs to the word. Accordingly, the earliest modern Latin translation from the Hebrew, (that of Pagninus,) renders the word _expansio_. And so the word has stood for centuries in the margin of our English Bible.