6 and let it be a separator between water and water.
וִיהִ֣י מַבְדִּ֔יל בֵּ֥ין מַ֖יִם לָמָֽיִם׃
let it be a separator between water and water וִיהִ֣י מַבְדִּ֔יל בֵּ֥ין מַ֖יִם לָמָֽיִם
The cupola will indeed literally be “in the middle of the water,” somehow completely separating the water into two parts. This is hard to visualize, but two things are important here.
First, there will be water above the cupola just as there is below it. This may explain why the Hebrew of our “between” phrase here is different from the phrase in Gen 1:4, which literally says “between the light and between the darkness” (בֵּ֥ין הָא֖וֹר וּבֵ֥ין הַחֹֽשֶׁךְ). Our verse literally says “between water to water” (bein mayim la-mayim). The cupola is not keeping two opposites apart, but splitting one thing into two parts.
Much more on this when we get to Gen 7:11, in the Flood story, when the cupola is breached and the water above it begins to inundate the earth. For now, we’ll just remember that תהום tehom of Gen 1:2 seemed to be a hint at the name of Tiamat, whom Marduk split in two in the Enuma Elish, making part of her into the sea and part into the sky. Our cupola is somehow silently performing this same action in a way that completely eliminates any thought of a theogony (a “battle of the gods”).
Second, the “separator” here is a מַבְדִּ֔יל (mavdil), another form of the same word used when God “distinguished” light from darkness, וַיַּבְדֵּ֣ל (va-yavdel). As I said in my comment to v. 4, “making distinctions of this kind is a characteristic theme of the Torah when priestly concerns are mentioned.” It is essential to holiness, and God’s creation of the world seems to be an action that is bringing holiness into a world of tohu-bohu.
And now for the shocker.
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