would have done quite as well as `one small stone'.  Further, the word

translated `grain' is the Hebrew tseror, from tsarar `to vex', `to be in a

strait', `narrow', and is found in Amos 5:12 where it is translated `afflict'.

The one small `grain' is one that is oppressed and has passed through

affliction, yet being one of the elect cannot fall upon the earth and be lost.

It will be seen that there are many lessons to be learned from `the fig tree',

but we are concerned in this analysis particularly with those that have a

dispensational bearing, and must be content with what we have seen.  (See Olive

Tree in article on Romans4).

Firmament.  Many who oppose the teaching of the first chapter of Genesis on

scientific grounds, are often guilty of a very unscientific approach to this

part of the Scriptures.  The chapter is dismissed as myth and legend, because

it is supposed to teach that God created the universe in six days!  This,

however, is not the teaching of Genesis 1.  At Genesis 1:2, a great gap occurs,

and this has been discussed in the articles devoted to Ephesians1 and

Overthrow3,7.  The work of the six days was not a creation, in the sense of

Genesis 1:1, but a reclamation and a reconstitution of the earth for man.  For

example, all that is said of the work of the third day is that upon the

gathering together of the waters which are now called `seas', `the dry land'

appeared -- but the land was there all the time even though submerged.  It is

this dry land that is `called' earth, and this stated fact every truly

scientific reader must note and credit -- otherwise misunderstandings and

misinterpretations are bound to occur.  It is the same with the `heaven' of the

second day.  There, in Genesis 1:6 -8, we have a `firmament' which is `called'

heaven, but this must not be confused with the heaven of Genesis 1:1.  The

present `firmament' is temporary.  It spans the ages, but is to pass away as

Isaiah 34:4 and 2 Peter 3:10 make clear.

Some have been stumbled by the word `firmament' as though the book of

Genesis endorsed the mythology of the heathen and taught that over our heads

was a solid vault.  Our translators were influenced by the Latin Vulgate which

reads firmamentum.  By this word it sought to translate the Greek of the

Septuagint, which used the word stereoma.  Yet it may be as unfair to these men

of old to import into the terms they employed such a conception of solidity, as

it would to affirm that reasonable men today actually believe that over their

heads is a `sky' which is `blue', for most know that the azure colour we see is

produced by refracted rays of light; but who among us, knowing all this, would

wish to alter such terms as `above the bright blue sky' etc.?

The Hebrew word which is used in Genesis 1:6 is raqia, which is derived

from the root word raqa meaning `to spread out'.  This word is used of the thin

plates of gold that were beaten and used in the work of the tabernacle (Exod.

39:3), and of spreading abroad the earth (Isa. 44:24).  Riq, ruq and raq

likewise give us the idea `to empty' (Gen. 42:35), `to draw out' (Lev. 26:33),

`lean' (Gen. 41:19), and so by a recognized transition this root becomes a

`particle of extenuation' being translated `only' (Gen.  6:5), `save' in the

sense `except' (1 Kings 8:9), and referring to the `thinness' of the os

temporis the Hebrew raqqah is used in Judges 4:21, for the bone of the temples.

Finally the Hebrew word raqiq is translated `wafer' seven times in the book of

the law (e.g.  Exod. 29:2).  Something extended is the basic meaning of all

these derived uses, and that is what is meant by the firmament of Genesis 1:6.

The entire point of this revelation has been missed by the interposition

of mere human cleverness.  Had men but humbly enquired the purpose of this

attenuated firmament over their heads, they might have learned something of the