The Scriptures repeatedly term the sky or atmosphere in which the birds fly as heavens. Thus at creation God said 'Let flying creatures fly over the earth in the bosom of the expanse of the heavens.' And the divine Record states that at the time of the Deluge God wiped out every existing thing from man to flying creature of the heavens. These are the heavens into which associated ascension with saying 'a fiery war-chariot and fiery horses, and they proceeded to make a separation between them both and Elijah went ascending in the windstorm to the heavens. This could not have been the heavens where God is, because many centuries later Jesus said that no man has ascended into heaven but he that descended from heaven, the Son of man.
The term heavens is also used throughout the scriptures to refer to the celestial bodies, the universe of the stars. Thus we read that in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Also that God promised Abraham saying 'I shall surely multiply your seed like the stars of the heavens.' These milky ways, starry galaxies, testify eloquently to the majesty of the great Creator and therefore the psalmist well exclaimed 'The heavens declare the glory of God.'
The scriptures also speak of God’s invisible creation, his host of spirit creatures as well as their abode, as heavens. Incidentally, there does not seem to be any distinctions made between the singular or plural form of heaven(s). Some speculate as to whether these heavens are merely a condition or mental state or have a location, but the Scriptures clearly indicate that we are to associate a special location with the spiritual heavens.
The Scriptures also speak of heavens as the exalted or lofty part of a world. The term world occurs in the KJV some 200+ times where hundreds of these translates to the Greek word kosmos. A renown Greek philosopher defined the term kosmos as 'A system composed of the heaven and the earth, and of the creatures contained in them; otherwise the orderly and beautiful arrangement of the world is called kosmos.'
So we can identify that in the Scriptures the term *heavens is used to apply to both the atmosphere and the starry heavens. It is also used to designate the very presence of God as well as the location of his myriads of spirit creatures. Further, heavens also denotes the lofty, invisible part of a world or system of things.
The second creative day, states that God created an expanse (Hebrew, ra·qi'a') come to be in between the waters and let a dividing occur between the waters and the waters. Then God proceeded to make the expanse and to make a division between the waters that should be beneath the expanse and the waters that should be above the expanse. And God began to call the expanse Heaven. Later the record speaks of luminaries appearing in the expanse of the heavens, and still later of flying creatures flying over the earth upon the face of the expanse of the heavens.
The Greek Septuagint used the word ste·re'o·ma(meaning; firm and solid structure) to translate the Hebrew term (ra·qi'a') and the Latin Vulgate used the Latin term firmamentum, which conveys the notion of something solid and firm. The KJV and many others follow suit in translating ra·qi'a' by the word firmament. However, in its marginal reading the KJV gives the alternate reading expansion, and the American Standard Version gives expanse in its footnote. Other translations support such renderings as expanse, expansin, étendue(extent or expanse).
The expanse produced on the second creative day, no solid substance is described as being beaten out but, rather, the creation of an open space, or division, between the waters covering the earth and other waters above the earth. It describes the formation of the atmospheric expanse surrounding the earth and indicates that at one time there was no clear division or open space but that the entire globe was previously enveloped in water vapor. This also coincides with scientific reasoning on the early stages of the planet’s formation and the view that at one time all of earth’s water existed in the form of atmospheric vapor because of the extreme heat of the earth’s surface at that point.
Though the formation of the expanse or atmosphere surrounding earth did not involve a beating out of something as solid as often illustrated, it should be remembered that the gaseous mixture forming earth’s atmosphere is just as real as land and water and has weight in itself(in addition to water and particles of solid materials). The weight of the surroundings of the earth is estimated at more than 5,200,000,000,000,000 metric tons. The World Book Encyclopedia, 1987, Vol. 1, p. 156 claims that air pressure at sea level runs about 1 kg per sq cm(15 lb per sq in.). It also exercises resistance so that most meteors hitting the immense jacket of air surrounding the earth are burned up by the friction created by the atmosphere. Thus the force implied in the Hebrew word ra·qi'a' proves to be in harmony with modern scientific facts.
In the Psalms the expanse(firmament), along with the heavens, is said to tell of God’s works and praise.
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