4. As the words we have reviewed indicate the height and rotation of the heavens, so the two we have yet to examine exhibit another characteristic of equal promi- nence, the h-eadth and expanse of the celestial regions. These are pfll^, s/tac/i'a^- (generally used in the j3/«;-«r) and 5''p'^. They occur together in Job xxxvii, 18: "Hast thou with him spread out (5'^p'IFi) the sly or exjKinse of heaven?" — (D'^J^ndb, where h is the sign of the objective). We must examine them separately. The root pHd is explained by Gesenius to gj-ind to poivder, and then to exjnind by rubbing or beating. Meier {Hebr. Wurzel-w.-b. p. 44G) compares it with the Arabic shachaka, to make fine, to attenuate (whence the noun shachim, a thin cloud). ^Vith him agrees Flirst {Ilebr.- u:-b. ii, 433). The Heb. subst. is therefore M-ell adapted to designate the skyey region of heaven with its cloud- dust, whether fine or dense. Accordingly, the meaning of the word in its various passages curiously oscillates between sky and cloud. When Moses, in Deut. xxxiii, 2G,lauds Jehovah's "riding in his excellence on the sky;" and when, in 2 Sam. xxii, 12, and repeated in Psa. xviii, 1 1 (12), David speaks of " the thick clouds of the skies ;" when Job (xxxvii, 18) asks, " Hast thou with him spread out the sky?" when the Psahnist (Psa. Lxxvii, 17 [18 J) speaks of " the skies sending out a sound," and the proph- et (Isa. xlv, 8), figuratively, of their "pouring down righteousness ;" when, finally, Jeremiah (Ii, 9), by a fre • quently occurring simile [comp. Eev. xviii, 5, t/koXoii- Bi](Tav avTijg at apapriai dxpi Toi> ovpavov], describes the judgment of Babylon as "lifted up even to the skies," in every instance oiur word dipnd in the pforaZ is employed. The same word in the same form is trans- lated " clouds" in Job xxxv, 5 ; xxxvi, 28 ; xxxvii, 21 ; xxxviii, 37 ; in Psa. xxxvi, 5 (6) ; Ivii, 10 (11) ; Lxviii, 34 (35) [margin, "heavens"]; Ixxviii, 23; in Prov. iii, 20 ; viii, 28. The prevalent sense of this word, we thus see, is a nHfinrn/nr/irtd. one, and falls under our first head oi ra/iiiii iiiiJi'f niiu : its connection with the other two heads is mucli slighter. It bears probably an astronom- ical seme in Psa. Ixxxix, 37 (38), where " the faithful witness in heaven" seems to be in apposition to the sun and the moon (Bellarmine, ad loc.) , although some sup- pose the expression to mean the rainbow, " the witness" of God's covenant with Noah ; Gen. Lx, 13 sq. (see J. Ols- hausen, ad loc). This is perhaps the only instance of its falling under the class coehmi astriferum ; nor have we a much more frequent reference to the higher sense of the ccelum angelifenim (Psa. LxxxLx, 6 containuig the only explicit allusion to this sense) ; miless, with Gesc-
HEAVEN
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HEAVEN
nius, r/iw. s. v., we refer Psa. Ixviii, 35 also to it. More probably in Deut. xxxiii, 26 (where it is parallel with D""^"!::, and in the highly poetical passages of Isa. xlv, 8, and Jer. li, 9, our word D"^pnd may be best regarded as designating the empj-real heavens.
5. We have aheady noticed the connection between d"ipnd and oiu- only remaining word ^''p'^, raki'a, from llieir being associated by the sacred writer in the same sentence (Job xxxvii, 18) ; it tends to corroborate this connection that, on comparing Gen. i, 6 (and seven other passages in the same chapter) with Deut. xxxiii, 20, we find y'lp^ of the former sentence, and n^pri':^ of the latter, both rendered by the Sept. (rrepiwiui and iirmamentum in the Vulg., whence the word '\finnamenf' passed into our A.V. This word is now a well-under- stood term in astronomj^ synonymous with sky or else the general heavens, undivested by the discoveries of science of the special signification which it bore in the ancient astronomy. See Firmament. For a clear ex- position of all the Scripture passages which bear on the subject, we may refer the reader to professor Dawson's A r'chnia, especially chap, viii, and to Dr. M'Caul on The Mosaic Record of Creation (or, what is substantially the same treatise in a more accessible form, his Notes on the First Chapter of Genesis, sec. ix, p. 32-44). We must be content here, in reference to our terra ?"'p'^, to ob- serve that, when we regard its origin (from the root "P"i, to spread out or expand by beating; Gesen. s. v. ; Fidlor, Misc. Sacr. i, 6 ; Fiirst, Hebr.-u-.-h. s. v.), and its connection with, and illustration by, such words as d'^prt'j, clouds, and the verbs 113^: (Isa. xlviii, 13, "My right hand hath spread out the heavens") and n::3 (Isa. xl, 22, "JF/«o strefcheth out the heavens like a curtain" [literally, like fineness'], "and spreadeth them out as a tent"), we are astonished at certain rationalistic attempts to control the meaning of an intelligible term, which lits in easily and consistently with the nature of things, by a few poetical metaphors, that are them- selves callable of a consistent sense when held subordi- nate to the plainer passages of prose. — Kitto. The full- er expression is D';'"2t^"n ";^p"l (Gen. i, 14 sq.). That IMoses understood it to mean a solid expanse is clear from his representing it as the barrier between the up- per and lower waters (Gen. i, 6 sq.), i. e. as separating the reservoir of the celestial ocean (Psa. civ, 3 ; xxix, 3) from the waters of the earth, or those on which the earth was supposed to float (Psa. cxxxvi, 6). Through its open lattices (ma'nX, Gen. vii, 11 ; 2 Kings vii, 2, 19 ; compare KoaKivov, Aristophanes, Xub. 373) or doors (D^ribn, Psa. Lxxviii, 23) the dew, and snow, and hail are poured upon the earth (Job xxxviii, 22, 37, where we have the curious expression "bottles of heaven," " utres coeli"). This firm vaidt, which Job describes as being "strong as a molten looking-glass" (xxxvii, 18), is transparent, like pellucid sapphire, and splendid as crj'stal (Dan. xii, 3 ; Exod. xxiv, 10 ; Ezek. i, 22 ; Rev. iv, 6), over which rests the throne of God (Isa. Ixvi, 1 ; Ezek. i, 2G), and which is opened for the descent of an- gels, or for prophetic visions (Gen. xxviii, 17 ; Ezek. i, 1; Acts vii, 56; x, 11). In it, like gems or golden lamps, the stars are fixed to give light to the earth, and regidate the seasons (Gen. i, 14-19) ; and the whole magnificent, immeasurable structure (Jer. xxxi, 37) is supported by the mountains as its pillars, or strong foundations (Psa. xviii, 7 ; 2 Sam. xxii, 8 ; Job xxiv, 11). Similarly the Greeks believed in an oi'rtavtiQ ttoX- vxciKkoq (Hom. //. v, 504), or (jicr)pioQ (Hom. Od. xv, 328), or dSaiiaaroQ (Orph. Ilipnn. ad Ccelum'), which the philosophers called anpenviov or KpyrrraWotiSig (Em- pedocles, ap. Plut. de Phil. plac. ii, 11 ; Artemid. up. Sen. Nat. QucEst. vii, 13 ; quoted by Gesenius, s. v.). It is clear that very many of the above notions Avere meta- phors resulting from the simple primitive conception, and that later Amters among the Hebrews had arrived