these places is actually to teach that the clouds are contained in skin bottles, or something similar, and that they are emptied through hatches in a solid firmament. To found such a belief, however, on a few figurative statements, seems ridiculous, especially when we consider that the writers of the Scriptures show themselves to be well acquainted with nature, and would not be likely on any account to deviate so far from the ordinary testimony of the senses; more especially as by doing so they would enable every unlettered man who has seen a cloud gather on a mountain's brow or dissolve away before increasing heat to oppose the evidence of his senses to their statements, and perhaps to reject them with scorn as a barefaced imposture. But, lastly, we are triumphantly directed to the question of Elihu in his address to Job: "Hast thou with him stretched out the sky, Which is firm and like a molten mirror?" But the word translated sky here is not "_rakiah_," or "_shamayim_," but another signifying the _clouds_, so that we should regard Elihu as speaking of the apparent firmness or stability, and the beautiful reflected tints of the clouds. His words may be paraphrased thus: "Hast thou aided Him in spreading out those clouds, which appear so stable and self-sustaining, and so beautifully reflect the sunlight?"[72] The above passages form the only authority which I can find in the Scriptures for the doctrine of a solid firmament, which may therefore be characterized as a modern figment of men more learned in books but less acquainted with nature than the Scripture writers. As a contrast to all such doctrines I may quote the sublime opening of the poetical account of creation in Psalm civ., which we may also take here as elsewhere as the oldest and most authoritative commentary on the first chapter of Genesis: "Bless the Lord, O my soul! O Lord, my God, thou art very great: Thou art clothed with honor and majesty, Who coverest thyself with light as with a garment, Who stretchest out the heavens like a curtain (of a tent), _Who layest the beams of thy chambers in the waters, Who makest the clouds thy chariots, Who walkest upon the wings of the wind_."