The Sky in Between

Where are we in the story up until now?

We were introduced to the main character of this great epic: God. In his first action, he creates the heavens and the earth. It is a very fast action, and we are brought up to the point of creation where the earth is created, but it is covered in water and dark—a chaotic, unformed, shapeless, watery place.

Then our narrator slows down, because he wants to focus our attention on these six days of action by our main character. In Genesis 1, it is not just about the thing that our character does; it is not just about creation. It is about characterizing this main character, giving us an overture into his identity.

That is where we are. In the first slowing-down action, on the first day, we get the creation of light. Then, on the second day, we have this:

And God said, “Let there be an expanse in the midst of the waters, and let it separate the waters from the waters.” And God made the expanse and separated the waters that were under the expanse from the waters that were above the expanse. And it was so. And God called the expanse Heaven. And there was evening and there was morning, the second day.

Here is what God does: you have these waters covering the whole globe, and God separates them. In between these waters he puts an expanse. We are first told that it is an expanse, but later we are told that God names this expanse.

It is fascinating what he names it, because he names it after something that already exists: heaven.

What Does “Heavens” Mean?

We have to talk about this word heaven, because we didn’t unpack it earlier. In the first verse, the text says, “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.” What does “heavens” mean there?

If you open up any standard Bible dictionary or Hebrew lexicon, you will see that the word has two distinct meanings. It either means the physical sky—just the realm up above—or it means that invisible place where God lives: God’s invisible throne room, the center of his rule, his reign, and his kingdom.

In Genesis 1:1, the text opens with what literary scholars call a merism: “the heavens and the earth.” A merism is a figure of speech where two extremities encompass the whole. If you were at a carnival and said, “Everyone was there, young and old,” you wouldn’t mean that young people and old people were present while middle-aged people were excluded. You mean everyone was there. That is what this phrase is doing: “heavens and earth” denotes the totality of existence.

It is not merely pointing to the stuff up high and the stuff down low. It is pointing to the heavens—that invisible reality—and the earth, the visible reality, with “earth” functioning as a metonymy where a part stands in for the whole physical realm. In that opening verse, we are told that God creates the entire totality of things.

Yet when we arrive at the second day, God names a specific place in the physical world after that non-physical throne room of God. Why does he do this?

The Sky as an Earthly Throne Room

To understand that, we have to remind ourselves of the imagery of the sea and the waters. We started with waters covering the whole earth because deep waters are symbolic of chaos, of unformed matter that God is going to bring order to. You have these chaotic waters, and God separates these two undesigned, chaotic spheres. In the middle, he places heaven.

On day two, he is referring to the sky, but he deliberately uses the same word. The reason is to communicate something vital about God’s character and his ongoing activity.

Think about it like this: I grew up in Deerfield, Illinois. 99.9% of people have never heard of it, but the 0.1% who have probably know it because that is where the Berto Center is located—the former training facility for the Chicago Bulls. If I were building an addition onto my house and told you, “I’m putting on this addition and naming it the Berto Center,” you would know immediately what it was. It would probably be a gym or a basketball court.

That is exactly what is happening here. God names the sky with the same name as his invisible throne room: heaven (in Hebrew, shamayim). The sky is an earthly copy, an image and symbol of that throne room which is invisible to us.

There are several clear symbolic resonances here. In the invisible realm, God is the supreme authority; in the sky, you have a dominant governing figure in the sun, along with the lesser stars, just as heaven is populated by angels later in the biblical narrative. Furthermore, the sky is physically and geographically above us. Throughout the Bible, height is intimately linked with authority, reflecting how God is hierarchically and authoritatively above us.

Here is the big picture we are meant to learn about our main character on day two: he separates chaotic realms, and in between them, he establishes his rule, his reign, and his kingdom. That is the kind of work he does. The physical sky stands as a visual model of what he will do throughout redemptive history.

Two Biblical Echoes

We see extraordinary examples of this motif throughout the biblical narrative. You might naturally think of obvious stories like Noah’s flood or Jonah in the sea, but consider two examples you might not immediately expect.

The first is the crossing of the Red Sea. Israel is enslaved in Egypt; God plagues the Egyptians, delivers his people, and brings them to the Red Sea (or the Sea of Reeds). There, God performs a miraculous act: he parts the waters, separating them so the Israelites can walk through on dry ground, while guiding them in a pillar of cloud and fire.

The allusion to the second day of creation is unmistakable. You have chaotic waters that bring death to anyone who inhabits them—crashing back down upon the Egyptians—yet God separates those waters for his people and leads them safely through. His cloudy, heavenly presence accompanies them in that pillar of fire and cloud.

This event is also a microcosm of Israel’s wider journey. In the wilderness, Israel is suspended between two chaotic, hostile spheres: Egypt behind them, where they were enslaved, and Canaan ahead of them, where endless battles await. Between these two threatening poles, what does God do in the middle?

He gives them the wilderness years, centered on Mount Sinai. At Sinai, God gives his great revelation: he enters into covenant with them, reveals the law, and commands them to build a tabernacle—a tent, a movable house for his presence—so he can dwell among his people. God establishes his heavenly kingdom right in the middle of their journey.

The second example occurs in the Jacob narrative. Jacob’s life is split between two main geographical locations where most of the narrative action transpires: his father Isaac’s household in Canaan, and his uncle Laban’s household in Paddan-aram.

Both spheres are defined by strife and chaos. In his father’s house, Jacob deceives Isaac, prompting Esau to seek his life and forcing Jacob to flee. When he arrives at Laban’s house, Laban deceives him in turn, switching his brides and functionally reducing Jacob to a servant.

Right between these two chaotic poles, Jacob experiences his famous dream at Bethel. While sleeping out in the open between these two worlds, he sees a ladder reaching up to heaven, with the angels of God ascending and descending upon it. God appears and reaffirms the covenant promises first made to Abraham. When Jacob awakes, he exclaims that this place is nothing other than the house of God and the gate of heaven.

God injects heaven—his direct presence and reign—right into the middle of two chaotic spheres of Jacob’s life.

What does this teach us about our main character? When God reveals his heavenly kingdom in the middle of our narratives, that revelation infuses his people with energy, life, and grace so they can endure and live faithfully between chaotic realities.

And that, my friends, is why the Bible is art.

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