Let there be a firmament

1:6 And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters.

Here's something new.  Instead of a word (like "God" or "heaven") where I worry about piles of preconceptions affecting my interpretation, we have a word "firmament" which means absolutely nothing to me.  I know the word only insomuch as I am familiar with this verse (and some which follow shortly).  To the best of my knowledge, I've never heard the word used outside of quoting Genesis.  Perhaps it was in everyday use back in King James' time, or perhaps the translators punted.

So, I'm going to hold off on doing much interpretation of this, since it's not yet clear what this firmament might be.

Ok, one thing we can say is we're repeating the style of the light creation.  God is speaking, "Let there be a firmament."  Here's it more drawn out, though.  Instead of just slapping on "and there was a firmament", instead we have God explaining where the firmament is, and what the purpose of the firmament is, at least at a basic level.  It's in the waters, and dividing them from themselves.  Again, this basically reads like God sketching firmament plans for a contractor: So we've got these waters over here, see?  And the firmament is gonna go right here, so that it divides these waters on this side from these other waters on the other side.  That way, the waters aren't just all right up against each other.  I hate the way my waters are touching like that.

So, dividing the waters from the waters seems to be the purpose of the firmament, although it's not made clear why one would want to divide the waters from the waters.

Oh, and what waters?  That's less than clear at this point.  The waters were there back in verse 2, when the earth was without form.  Since not much has happened since besides the creation of light, presumably the earth is still without form, and these are the same waters mentioned then.  Are they oceans?  What oceans are we separating from what other oceans?

Ok, 6 verses and 2 divisions.  God divided the light from the darkness; and now he wants the waters divided from the waters.  He's a divider, not a uniter.

Which brings us to the point that there's an astounding amount of repetition in these lines.  Every phrase begins with "and".  This is our second "And God said, Let there be...".  This line alone contains "the waters" three times.  Poetry?  Indoctrination?  Bad writing?  An accurate reflection of the way people speak?  God only knows.