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יֹ֥ום רְבִיעִֽי The fourth day A lot happened on the fourth day. The word רְבִיעִֽי ( rebiy`iy fourth) is is a form of אַרְבַּע ( arba` four). Both words are derived from רָבַע (raba` to lie stretched out). The usage of the derivatives may indicate that the verb is descriptive of four limbs stretched out. וַיִּתֵּ֥ן אֹתָ֛ם And He set them In the study of this day, the centrality of the earth is evident. In a special way (Hebrew:  נָתַן nathan , to give) the vast heavens were "populated" especially for the benefit of the planet made for mankind. The words introduced in these six verses were: [m a'or ] מָאוֹר luminary, lamp ['oth] אוֹת sign, signal [mo`ad] מוֹעֵד appointed place or time [shanah] שָׁנָה year [galod] גָּדוֹל great, large [qatan] קָטָן insignificant, small [memshalah] מֶמְשָׁלָה rule, realm [kolab] כּוֹכָב star [nathan] נָתַן to give, set, put [rabiy`iy] רְבִיעִי fourth, from רָבַע (raba` lie stretched out)

הַמַּ֔יִם אֲשֶׁ֖ר מֵעַ֣ל The waters which are above Proponents of a local firmament, that is the atmosphere, hold to one of two interpretations. The ambiguity allows either one. The most natural and expected is that the waters above are the clouds. Faced with evidence from the text of different conditions on the early texts and clues to a milder overall climate, others have proposed some kind of vaporous or ice layer in the upper atmosphere. However these waters above ( מֵעַ֣ל ) the firmament were possibly much further away. The format with both below and above appears to have the positions at extremes. The prefixes "m" and "l" are used in format " from here to there". Compare " מֵעַ֣ל לָרָקִ֑יעַ" with " מִתַּ֣חַת לָרָקִ֔יעַ". This leads some scientists to merge the text with observations of nature. The result works well both in nature and supernatural metaphor. The waters that once were together are now separated by insurmou...

רָקִ֖יעַ בְּתֹ֣וךְ An expanse within Left to itself, the new "water universe" was a competitive community of electrons, nuclea and photons with gravity overpowering the other forces. If God had not spoken again, His work so far would have collapsed in on itself. But once God starts something, He doesn't stop. He speaks again, beginning another day of creation . This time, he calls on the majority of the universal waters to be spread out (Heb: רָקַע raqa` ). The noun form in the text is רָקִ֖יעַ (raqi`a), an expanding wall of water coming from deep within ( תָּוֶךְ tevek) the sphere . God proves to be several steps ahead of nature from the very beginning. As the water is agitated, perhaps by microwaves of compressed light, it rises through the mass toward the voice that called it.

וַיַּ֣עַשׂ אֱלֹהִים֮ אֶת־הָרָקִי God formed an expanse Second to just speaking, that is programming the universe, the analogy to a potter with clay describes the work of God.  The verb used for this work is עָשָׂה (`asah) which means  to do, work, make, produce. It is often translated "to form". The second day of creation is the work of making a space to work. This includes building a "work bench". Given the nature of things, the sphere began to collapse upon itself at an exponential rate. But gravity was no match to the arm of God , which could provide an overwhelming "centrifugal force" that began at what would become the surface of the planet earth. In this miracle, the compact, stone hard water was softened and began spreading outward. In the space of one local rotation all that was left at the center was a spinning rock covered with water and an atmosphere.

בְּרֵאשִׁ֖ית בָּרָ֣א אֱלֹהִ֑ים אֵ֥ת הַשָּׁמַ֖יִם וְאֵ֥ת הָאָֽרֶ ץ   First, the Almighy created that which is stretched out and that which is dry.  I know, I know, the creation at this point is literally, the lofty realm and solid ground. However, the text defines the stretched stuff and the dry stuff as "heaven/sky/air" and "earth/land/ground". So, it is my contention that the building blocks of all that we see was original quite literally invisible, and the space containing it was much smaller. Space was bound by the "hand" of God as a place to organize the quanta (the truly indivisible particles). There apparently were at least 4×10^58 of these partcles in the singularity that God tore apart to make the expanding universe. Though quanta are so tiny, they are packed with all the potential energy that became all the matter in the vastness of space. This is my humble attempt to tie the theories of Isaac Newton and Albert Einstein to the raw data in Gen...

הַשָּׁמַ֖יִם The Heavens The first thing God created was what we now call space. The collective name in Hebrew is Ha Shamayim , as in the heading. Dual in form, for the single form  Shamah never being used, is apparently from an old root meaning "to be aloft". However, God names the so-called expanse by this name, so it is to 1:9 that one must go for a definition. Working from the specific to the general, and taking the name as synonymous with the thing named, the expanse ( רָקִיעַ) , that is stretched out fabric of space is the same a s heaven, or the heavens. Usage determines the translation of שָּׁמַ֖יִם. Often it is localized, sometimes it is global, but most often the space occupied by heavenly and spiritual beings. The ancient readers may have expected a tiny unseen world smaller than dust, but the Bible does not reveal anything along those lines. However, they understood that the heavens extended far above the mountaintops. ...