54. Bereshit — Abarbanel on the Torah, Section 54

The Waters That Are Not Water

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The ninth witness also presents a difficulty. Bereishit Rabbah states:

“‘These are the generations of the heavens and the earth’ (Genesis 2:4) refers to what is above. Everything that you see as the generations of heaven and earth proceeds from them. Thus, ‘In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth’; on the second day He created from the upper realms, as it says, ‘Let there be a firmament’; on the third day He created from the lower realms, as it says, ‘Let the earth bring forth vegetation’; on the fourth day He created from the upper realms, as it says, ‘Let there be lights.’”

This clearly shows that the firmament created on the second day belongs to the heavenly bodies, just as the luminaries created on the fourth day belong to the heavenly realm, and not to the atmosphere, which belongs to the lower world¹.

All of this demonstrates that this fourth opinion is a fabricated falsehood².

As for the arguments by which its proponents sought to support it, I shall show, in my commentary on the passage itself, that they misunderstood the texts upon which they relied.

What astonishes me is that such eminent men as Maimonides and Ibn Ezra allowed themselves to be drawn into this mistaken opinion on the basis of so slight and weak a consideration. They were led to it merely because they found it impossible to accept the existence of waters above the heavens, as though the name mayim (“waters”) could refer only to the elemental waters known to us³.

But this is not so.

For we find the word mayim applied to prophecy and to the wisdom of the Torah, as in: “Ho! All who thirst, go to water” (Isaiah 55:1)⁴.

It is also applied to overwhelming power, as in: “Behold, the Lord is bringing up on them the mighty and massive waters of the river—the king of Assyria and all his wealth”⁵ (Isaiah 8:7).

Indeed, we even find the name mayim applied to God Himself: “They have forsaken Me, the fountain of living waters” (Jeremiah 2:13; 17:13).

Surely the prophets did not call God, His Torah, or the might of kings “waters” because they possessed the physical nature of water, but because of a figurative resemblance.

In the same way, they ought to have understood the “waters above the heavens.” Thus the falsity and untenability of this fourth opinion are likewise established.

The fifth opinion is that the rakia (“firmament”) mentioned here is a solid, spherical body created on the second day within the element of water. It is fixed in the middle of the universe, with certain waters established above it and other waters beneath it, although human beings are unable to perceive it.

This was the opinion of Saadia Gaon, and it was also held by some of the philosophers among the nations.

This opinion, however, deserves no consideration.

For nothing in observable reality confirms it, nor has any demonstration been offered in its support. It is merely the product of human imagination. When people find themselves unable to understand something, they invent false notions to soothe the ear and quiet the objections raised by their doubts⁶.

Accordingly, Abraham ibn Ezra wrote concerning this view: “The Gaon said things about the firmament that are not so.”

Since all five opinions that I have presented concerning the firmament prove untenable in light of Scripture and the words of the Sages, the question still remains: What, then, is the true nature of this rakia, and of the waters above it?

Would that I knew!⁷

(Parashat Bereshit — Genesis 1:6, The Waters That Are Not Water in the Commentary of Don Isaac Abarbanel)

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