God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And God separated the light from the darkness. And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters. The earth was without form and void, and darkness was over the face of the deep. Genesis 1:1-31 In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. And the evening and the morning were the second day. And God made the FIRMAMENT and divided the waters which were under the FIRMAMENT from the waters which were above the FIRMAMENT and it was so. And God said, Let there be a FIRMAMENT in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters. King James Dictionary – Firmament: Expanse or vault over the earth. It was the support also of the heavenly bodies (Genesis 1:14) and is spoken of as having “windows” and “doors” (Genesis 7:11, Isaiah 24:18, Malachi 3:10) through which the rain and snow might descend.
The raki’a supported the upper reservoir of water(Psalms 148:4). It formed a division between the waters above and the waters below (Genesis 1:7). It is plain that it was used to denote solidity as well as expansion. We read of the sun rising and setting and the use of this particular word.
They who rendered raki’a by firmamentum regarded it as a solid body. This word means “expansion.” It denotes the space or expanse like an arch appearing immediately above us. Firmament from the Vulgate firmamentum, which is used as the translation of the Hebrew raki’a. It is derived from the root raqa, meaning “to beat or spread out”, e.g., the process of making a dish by hammering thin a lump of metal. The word “firmament” is used to translate raqia, or raqiya` (raki’a), a word used in Biblical Hebrew.