6 God thought, Let there be a cupola in the middle of the water
וַיֹּ֣אמֶר אֱלֹהִ֔ים יְהִ֥י רָקִ֖יעַ בְּת֣וֹךְ הַמָּ֑יִם וִיהִ֣י מַבְדִּ֔יל בֵּ֥ין מַ֖יִם לָמָֽיִם׃
God thought וַיֹּ֣אמֶר אֱלֹהִ֔ים
Those who expected to read “God said” as my translation of va-yomer elohim are encouraged to go back to our discussion of the same phrase in Gen 1:3. Just one additional point should be made here. This is another “consecutive” verb, describing the first thing that happened after Day One of creation. It’s possible to imagine that God had not yet thought of what he would do after creating light. But v. 1’s introducing this as the story of when God began to create sky and earth encourages us to read it as part of a procedure: God is now somehow “mentally” evoking the next stage in that procedure.
in the middle of the water בְּת֣וֹךְ הַמָּ֑יִם Wait a minute, what about the cupola?
Don’t worry, we’ll come back to it next time. That strange word will require a bit longer discussion than there’s space for today. For now, we’ll go on to deal with the “easy” phrase at the end of v. 6a, the first half of the verse.
The background information we got in Gen 1:2 told us that, as the curtain rose on the process of creation, there were three things: a God-wind, water, and darkness. The first day’s work consisted of creating light and distinguishing it from darkness. Now it is the water’s turn to be subject to this process.
You remember from our discussion of the phrase “darkness over Deep” in Gen 1:2 that the Akkadian story of creation, the Enuma Elish, understood the existence of our world as the outcome of a battle between Marduk, the creator god, and Tiamat, whose name is related to a Semitic word for water. There was a similar Canaanite story, much closer to Israel in geography, in language, and perhaps in time as well, that we’ll talk more about when we get to the first thing that God actually “created” using the verb ברא, in v. 21.
For now, the important thing to notice is that, just as “darkness” had to be controlled by the creation of light, now the second primordial element will be brought under control by the creation of this strange thing that I am calling a “cupola.” Why is it necessary?
It’s good to remember two things that are implicit in God’s putting something “in the middle of the water.”
First: No one but God is acting in this story. God is alone and, therefore, implicitly unchallenged.
Second: The challenger in the alternative creation stories that some Israelites knew about is a god of, or somehow representing, water. In Genesis 1, there is no power in the water – it is simply the “stuff” that is lying around the lab for God to work with.
But that stuff must be organized. Next time, we’ll discuss how God puts it under control — by calling for the existence of something quite unusual that he will shortly name “Sky.”