Bit at a Time Bible Hebrew -- Genesis 1:7

Genesis 1:7

ז וַיַּעַשׂ אֱלֹהִים אֶת־הָרָקִיעַ וַיַּבְדֵּל בֵּין הַמַּיִם אֲשֶׁר מִתַּחַת לָרָקִיעַ וּבֵין הַמַּיִם אֲשֶׁר מֵעַל לָרָקִיעַ וַיְהִי־כֵן:

 

Transliteration: Va-yaas elohim et-haraqia vayavdel ben ha-maim asher mitachat laraqia uven ha-maim asher me-al laraqia va-y’hi khen.

Translation:    Gd made the raqia and separated the water that is under the raqia from the water that is above the cover and it was so.

Letters in this lesson:  שׂ

 

Vocabulary in this lesson:

 

יַּעַשׂ	make, do
מִ, מֵ	from, away from, toward
אֲשֶׁר	that, which
תַּחַת	under
מֵעַל	above
כֵן	thus, true

 

Here’s that word yaas that I told you about.

 

Notice that tav of mitachat has a dagesh and the letter before it has hiriq under it.

 

Here is vav with dagesh and in this case, it’s pronounced “oo”.  with a patach under it. 

 

Notice that mi seems to have contradictory meanings. In this verse, you have to translate it as “from” because the idea is that the raqia is a dividing line and there is water both above and below it.  That is another disagreement with Aristotelianism, making “firmament” a bad translation.  There is nothing solid above the raqia in Jewish scripture.

 

We have another idiom using the lamed, and now it becomes obvious that adverbs like “below” and “above” take the lamed between them and the noun which is in the phrase.

 

Notice that the hah “the” before raqia is spelled with qamats, not with patach.  This goes along with the qamats with the lamed. 

 

Notice that Gd makes the raqia but in the case of light, He said “let it exist” and it did.  I looked at two sets of aggadah or moralistic/folkloristic commentaries on Torah and neither one addresses that issue. 

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