"The pillars of the earth are the Lord's,
And He hath set the world upon them."
And Asaph represents the Lord as saying:—
"The earth and all the inhabitants thereof are dissolved:
I bear up the pillars of it."
Yet again, just as we speak of "the celestial canopy," so Psalm civ. describes the Lord as He "who stretchest out the heavens like a curtain," and Isaiah gives the image in a fuller form,—"that stretcheth out the heavens as a curtain, and spreadeth them out as a tent to dwell in." The same expression of "stretching out the heavens" is repeatedly used in Isaiah; it is indeed one of his typical phrases. Here, beyond question, extension, spreading out, is the idea sought to be conveyed, not that of solidity.
The prophet Amos uses yet another parallel. "It is He that buildeth His stories in the heaven." While Isaiah speaks of the entire stellar universe as the tent or pavilion of Jehovah, Amos likens the height of the heavens as the steps up to His throne; the "stories" are the "ascent," as Moses speaks of the "ascent of Akrabbim," and David makes "the ascent" of the Mount of Olives. The Hebrews cannot have regarded the heavens as, literally, both staircase and reservoir.
The firmament, i. e. the atmosphere, is spoken of as dividing between the waters that are under the firmament, i. e. oceans, seas, rivers, etc., from the waters that are above the firmament, i. e. the masses of water vapour carried by the atmosphere, seen in the clouds, and condensing from them as rain. We get the very same expression as this of the "waters which were above" in the Psalm of Praise:—
"Praise Him, ye heavens of heavens,
And ye waters that be above the heavens;"
and again in the Song of the Three Children:—