Page 38 - Genesis: Book of Beginnings and Science Behind it

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Now the word "expanse" is the Hebrew word raqia. It means “spread out thinness.” And looking in
the Old Testament to find its usage, in Exodus 39:3, when they were making things for the worship of
God in the Tabernacle, it says they got gold, and they hammered out - they hammered out sheets of
gold. They flattened it out, spread it out, and hammered it into thinness. They use the same verb as
the verb expanse. The picture is of a thin area that God just cuts right through the earth's waters. All
the way around the earth is this water, and God just cuts as if you would go in there with a knife and
just cut through that sphere of the undifferentiated mass of elements of the earth, separating it into
two parts. There's still the spherical part and the water surrounding it, but now there's water above it,
separated by this expanse. Expanse is intended to convey the idea of space.

The waters went up, and some of the waters stayed below; he created space in between. Another
way of saying this is that there was a sphere of water above the earth, separated by space until
reaching the ground of the earth.

Day 3 – Genesis 1:9-13 – Day 3 – Formation of Land and Plant Covering

9 And God said, "Let the waters under the heavens be gathered together into one place, and let the dry
land appear." And it was so. God called the dry land Earth, and the waters that were gathered together
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he called Seas. And God saw that it was good.

11 And God said, "Let the earth sprout vegetation, plants yielding seed, and fruit trees bearing fruit in
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which is their seed, each according to its kind, on the earth." And it was so. The earth brought forth
vegetation, plants yielding seed according to their own kinds, and trees bearing fruit in which is their
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seed, each according to its kind. And God saw that it was good. And there was evening, and there was
morning, the third day. (ESV)

God first separated the water on the earth from the land. So, you have the
tripartite universe by the time you get to where we are in verse 10.
Tripartite means three parts: earth, sea, and heaven - that's the created
universe. The creation was now at a point where it could contain and
sustain life. And so God moved into the second phase of creation on day
two, verse 11, "Then God said, 'Let the earth sprout vegetation, plants
yielding seed and fruit trees bearing fruit after their kind with seed in them
on the earth,' and it was so." It came because God said it; He spoke it into
existence (verse 11). Always and unmistakably, God speaks it into existence.

And this is vegetation. Verse 11, "Let the earth sprout vegetation." That's a general category, and
there are two parts to that category. There are plants (verse 11) and trees. Vegetation is divided into
two parts: plants and trees.

Down to verse 29, God said, "Behold, I have given you (speaking to man) every plant yielding seed that
is on the surface of all the earth, and every tree which has fruit yielding seed it shall be food for you and
for every beast." So God divides the vegetation into two parts: plants and trees.

And what is the difference? The difference is that the plant has the seed in it, and the tree has the
seed in its fruit. That is clearly indicated in verse 11. Plants were yielding seeds, and fruit trees
bearing fruit with seeds in them. That's the distinction. All the vegetation containing the seed would

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