 |  |
re-examination of Isa. 34: 11 another truth appears. We place Gen. 1: 2, with its
chaotic condition, at the junction between "the world that then was" and "the heavens and
the earth which are now" and the later parallel, confusion and desolation, which includes
the passing of the existing heavens, at the junction between the close of the present
system, and the beginning of the new heavens and new earth of Rev. 21: 1. In other
words, the earth, with its firmament, which was "called heaven", is bounded at either end
by the words tohu and bohu. Moreover, the heaven that is to depart as a scroll, is not the
heaven of heavens, the place of the throne of God, but is the limited "firmament", "called
heaven", which was made on the second day of the reconstruction of Gen. 1: 6.
It is somewhat unfortunate that we have such a word as firmament in Gen. 1: It
comes into our English Bible from the Latin. The Latin is an attempt to translate the
stereoma of the LXX, which in its turn, is an attempt to translate the Hebrew raqia,
which the margin of Gen. 1: 6 gives as "expansion". Now raqia by no means indicates
something "firm" or "hard", but rather something "spread out", and while it can refer to
"beaten gold" (Exod. 39: 3) it does not so much to the hardness of the metal as its
extreme thinness. It is used of "spreading forth" the earth. Moreover, to confirm the idea
that raqia in Gen.6 means an expansion, the Hebrew word natah, "to stretch out" as a
tent (Gen. 33: 19), is used by Isaiah alone five times in connection with the heavens.
The passages are as follows:
"That stretcheth out the heavens as a curtain, and spreadeth them out as a tent to dwell
in" (Isa. 40: 22).
"He that created the heavens, and stretched them out" (Isa. 42: 5).
"That stretcheth forth the heavens alone" (Isa. 44: 24).
"I, even My hands, have stretched out the heavens" (Isa. 45: 12).
"The Lord thy Maker, that hath stretched forth the heavens" (Isa. 51: 3).
To these can be added Job 9: 8; Psalm 104: 2 and Zech. 12: 1.
It is this stretched out heaven, the "firmament" of Gen. 1: 6, which is to be dissolved
and rolled up at the time of the end. We repeat, it does not include those heavenly places
"far above all heavens" where Christ sits, and where the Church of the One Body finds its
sphere of blessing. Therefore while these things remain Scriptural facts, criticism of our
emphasis upon the "super-heavens" must leave us unmoved.
Reference is made at the close of Isa. 34: to "the line", this time associating
it with "the lot" and so with dividing, as an inheritance. A very simple outline of
Isa. 34: which takes note of this twofold use of the line is as follows:--