Gen 1:6  And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters.

Gen 1:7  And God made the firmament, and divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament: and it was so.

Gen 1:8  And God called the firmament Heaven. And the evening and the morning were the second day.

(Ver 1.3) The first three chapters of Genesis are very full of a literal and historical account of the events of God’s creation of our present world. These descriptions were masterfully designed using God’s specific selection of carefully chosen words that simultaneously teach us a potentially greater spiritual truth, through the usage of symbolism.  I believe the 6th verse of Genesis 1 is no exception.

In Genesis 1:6 God clearly speaks of natural things, but these things all appear to have simultaneous spiritual meanings that were hidden from man but also, they were very clearly hidden from Satan. Notice that God again deals with the subject of division on the 2nd day of creation. In this verse God seems to establish a separation between two bodies of water and He calls this expanse of separation the firmament.

It is interesting to note that our sky separates two very large bodies of water.  We of course know the oceans and the seas are very large bodies of waters, but we also know through scientific studies that the clouds and the atmosphere above contain a very large amount of evaporative waters.  Rain obviously falls from somewhere and waters the earth.  It is a process created by God to water the plants of the earth and to give us a fresh drinking water supply.  All of this was certainly good, and all this natural meaning is very interesting, provable scientific fact. But God also appears to be giving us some additional hidden information in this chapter that we might need to become aware of.

What does the symbolic term “waters” represent in the Bible? How does God define this symbol of “waters”?  It might surprise some of you, but the seas and large bodies of waters are often times referred to as a type of “peoples or nations”.  Isn’t that an interesting concept?  Let me quickly give you a scripture that supports what I just said.  In Revelation 17:15 God gives us a definition of the term “waters”.   In this verse God again uses the word “waters” in Revelation 17 and it is used to be something that must be understand symbolically and so please read this verse very carefully and observe what it says:

Rev 17:15  And he saith unto me, The waters which thou sawest, where the whore sitteth, are peoples, and multitudes, and nations, and tongues.

God specifically says that the symbolic “waters” are representative of many languages, people and nations.  So, if we look again at the 2nd day of creation, God says he has separated waters that are below from the waters that are above.  If we apply the definition we found in Revelation to these scriptures and apply them to the context of them being prophetic, what conclusions can we arrive at?

What happened 2000 years after Adam?  Looking at the Bible timeline we can discover God made a covenant with Abraham. This occurred approximately 2000 years after Adam. The establishment of the nation of Israel occurred on the 2nd day of God’s timeline.  In Genesis 15 God made a covenant with a specific group of people that he called the nation of Israel later.  He chose to marry this nation of people as is stated in Jeremiah 31:32. Notice that God chose not to “covenant” with the entire human race, just the descendants of one man named Abraham and then only with the descendants of one of his son’s Isaac.

What was the result of this sovereign act of God?  We had one smaller group of people now in covenant with the creator God and the rest of the descendants of Adam being separated or divided from the covenant. That represents a clear division which corresponds to the establishment of differences between two or more “waters” representing potentially nations of people or even angels. The waters from above were now different than the waters that were below.

It is very interesting to note that 7 times in the first chapter of Genesis, God says what He has done was either “Good” or “Very Good”.  But, on the 2nd day of creation there is no mention of anything being “good”. The first time we saw something that was stated to be good was the mention of Light being separate from darkness on day 1. The next time anything is said to be good is on day 3. I can only conclude based upon this evidence that whatever God did on day 2 of creation was necessary but was not something that God wanted to do or what He considered to be good for all the created humanity in our present world. I conclude this because of the verses of John 3:16 and 2 Peter 3:9. In John 3:16 God says, He loved the whole world to send Jesus to die for everyone that chooses to believe. Then in 2 Peter, God says “He is not willing that any should perish, but all be saved. Some might say that this was my opinion, but I find it fascinating.

Thank you for reading and studying the Bible with Agapegeek. God Bless, you all!

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