The Waters of the Deep

God’s Chosen Foundation for Creation

In the opening verses of Genesis, the Bible presents a cosmos born not from chaos alone, but from the sovereign command of the Creator over a primordial “Deep” (tehom) of waters (Genesis 1:2). Before the formation of the firmament (raqia) on Day 2 and the supernatural stretching of the heavens that climaxed on Day 4, this vast spherical body of ordinary liquid water, roughly a few light-years in diameter according to Dr. Russell Humphreys’ interpretive framework, contained all the mass destined to become the observable universe, with the formless Earth at its center. As detailed in my earlier discussions, “The Hammered-Out Firmament and the Waters of the Deep” and “God ‘Stretched Out the Heavens,’” God hammered out a thin spherical shell of space-fabric within this Deep, dividing the waters above from the waters below. He then supernaturally stretched this raqia-brane, scattering its embedded material and organizing it into stars, planets, and galaxies under His direct command.

Far from a peripheral detail, the choice of water as the foundational raw material for all celestial bodies reveals profound scientific coherence within a young-earth biblical cosmology and carries rich theological significance. This essay explores the practical benefits of water as the primordial substrate, its theological impact, symbolic connections throughout Scripture (including ancient Jewish interpretive traditions), and its striking integration with the global Flood as both instrument of judgment and re-creation. The model remains interpretive and faith-affirming, yet it harmonizes ancient revelation with modern observational cosmology in remarkable ways.

The Physical and Scientific Benefits of Water as the Foundation Material

Using ordinary liquid water as the reservoir for the entire cosmos offers elegant advantages fully consistent with the hammered-raqia and stretching events described in Genesis. First, water (H₂O) is overwhelmingly composed of hydrogen, the most abundant element in the observable universe and the primary fuel for stellar nucleosynthesis. Under God’s sovereign command during Creation Week, the atomic components of this primordial Deep supplied the hydrogen (and, through accelerated divine processes, the heavier elements) needed to form stars, planets, and galaxies. As Humphreys notes in his cosmological model, the Deep served as a single, homogeneous medium containing all future mass, eliminating the need for diverse raw materials.

Second, the liquid nature of the Deep provided an ideal geometry for the Day-2 formation of the raqia. God marked off a thin spherical shell within this vast body of water, creating the boundary layer, the fabric of space itself, that could then be hammered thin (from the root raqa, “to beat or spread thin by hammering,” as in Exodus 39:3) and supernaturally stretched (natah, “to stretch out like a curtain or tent,” Isaiah 40:22). This process embedded primordial material within and around the newly formed brane-like structure, setting the stage for radial distribution. The uniformity of liquid water allowed for clean division and the creation of precise density fluctuations during the stretching event, producing the hierarchical cosmic web of clusters, filaments, and voids we observe today.

Third, water’s phase-change properties align with the extreme conditions of hammering and stretching. With an initially near-infinite or dramatically higher speed of light (c) and variable physical constants (as required to resolve the horizon problem and starlight travel-time issue), the enormous energies involved could dissociate water into plasma, enabling rapid gravitational instabilities and matter condensation. This is not naturalistic gradualism but divinely accelerated processes: nucleosynthesis, fusion, accretion, and orbital dynamics occurred at speeds incomprehensible under today’s laws, yet fully governed by the Creator who spoke the initial singularity into existence.

Modern cosmology offers intriguing partial analogies. In brane cosmology, developed within string theory and M-theory, our observable universe is modeled as a thin, three-dimensional brane (membrane) embedded in higher-dimensional “bulk” space. The Randall-Sundrum models (1999) describe such branes as boundary layers where familiar physics resides, while gravity propagates into extra dimensions. The hammered-and-stretched raqia functions precisely as such a sovereign brane: a thinned boundary forged from the Deep, separating domains (waters above and below), with our cosmos residing on or within it. Extra-dimensional aspects of the bulk align with the transcendent realm of God’s throne, where Kolob (Pearl of Great Price, Abraham 3) serves as the anchor nearest the interface.

Scientific data further corroborate the feasibility of rapid, divinely orchestrated transformation. The 1998 paper by João Magueijo and Andreas Albrecht, “A time varying speed of light as a solution to cosmological puzzles,” demonstrated that a higher early-universe c naturally resolves the horizon problem, flatness problem, and CMB uniformity without ad-hoc inflation, precisely the conditions the biblical stretching model requires. Barry Setterfield’s extensive compilation of over 300 years of historical c-measurements shows a clear declining trend, consistent with the post-stretching stabilization of physical constants.

Observations from the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) provide dramatic empirical support. Multiple high-redshift galaxies (z ≈ 8–13, corresponding to mere hundreds of millions of years after the Big Bang in secular timelines) appear mature, chemically enriched, and far more numerous and luminous than standard ΛCDM models predicted. Studies such as those from the GLASS-JWST and CEERS programs, along with analyses by López Corredoira et al. (2024) in The Astrophysical Journal, document galaxies with stellar populations potentially 900–2,400 million years old at redshifts implying they formed when the universe was only 4–5% of its current age. These “impossibly early” structures fit perfectly within a Creation-Week timeline of accelerated divine organization rather than billions of years of slow natural processes.

The Theological Impact of Water as Primordial Substance

The choice of water is not incidental but profoundly theological. In Genesis 1:2, the Deep represents the initial formless, chaotic state (tohu wabohu) over which the Spirit of God hovers, yet God does not destroy it; He repurposes it. By hammering the raqia from within the waters and stretching the heavens, the Creator demonstrates absolute sovereignty: bringing exquisite order, beauty, and life-sustaining structure out of what ancient Near Eastern cultures viewed as threatening chaos. Everything, Earth, stars, galaxies, originates from one divinely provided substance, underscoring God’s efficiency, unity of creation, and intimate involvement as the sole efficient cause.

This theme echoes throughout Latter-day Saint scripture. Doctrine and Covenants 77:6-7 affirms the 7,000-year temporal history of the earth, while the Book of Abraham’s cosmic hierarchy (with Kolob nearest the divine throne) harmonizes with the brane-interface model, portraying God as transcendent yet intimately connected to His creation.

Symbolic Connections in Scripture and Ancient Jewish Tradition

Scripture repeatedly employs water imagery that resonates with this cosmology. Most explicitly, 2 Peter 3:5 declares: “by the word of God the heavens existed long ago, and the earth was formed out of water and through water.” This New Testament affirmation directly links the Genesis Deep to the formation of the cosmos.

Ancient Jewish interpreters reinforced these themes. Targum Onkelos renders Genesis 1:2-8 with precise fidelity to the Hebrew, preserving the separation of waters by the raqia without Hellenistic embellishment. Rabbinic sources in the Talmud (Chagigah 12a-b) describe the heavens as composed of fire and water combined by God on Day 2, with the firmament formed from their coagulation, echoing the “hammered-out” and congealing imagery (cf. Rashi on Job 26:11 and Genesis 1:6-8, where the heavens are likened to milk curdling upon the addition of a coagulant). Midrashic literature (Genesis Rabbah) similarly portrays the primordial waters as the raw material ordered by divine wisdom, not battled as in pagan myths.

Throughout the Bible, water symbolizes life, cleansing, and renewal: the Spirit brooding over the Deep (Genesis 1:2; cf. John 7:37-39), God’s mastery over chaotic waters (Psalm 29:3; Job 38:8-11; Isaiah 51:9-10), and eschatological fulfillment in Revelation 21:1 (“no more sea”). Jesus’ offer of “living water” (John 4:10-14) thus foreshadows the primordial Deep as the ultimate source of life, redeemed through the Creator Himself.

Water in the Global Flood: Judgment, Re-Creation, and Typology

The same element of water serves as both creative foundation and instrument of global judgment in the Flood (Genesis 6–9). Genesis 7:11 records that “all the fountains of the great deep burst forth, and the windows of the heavens were opened,” temporarily reversing the Day-2 separation and returning the earth to a chaotic, watery state reminiscent of Genesis 1:2. This “de-creation” underscores divine sovereignty: the identical substance used to build the cosmos is unleashed in righteous judgment upon a wicked world.

Yet the Flood also prefigures redemption. The waters destroy the ungodly while preserving Noah’s family in the ark, a typology explicitly affirmed in 1 Peter 3:20-21: “Baptism, which corresponds to this, now saves you.” Just as the primordial waters brought order and life, and the Flood waters brought death followed by re-creation and covenant (Genesis 9), baptism pictures death to sin and new life in Christ. The symmetry is breathtaking: the God who formed the universe from water also judges and redeems through water, pointing forward to the new heavens and new earth where every chaotic aspect of the original Deep is fully transformed.

Conclusion: A Unified Biblical Cosmology

The primordial waters of the Deep, hammered into the raqia, stretched across the cosmos, and sovereignly organized into celestial bodies, demonstrate God’s absolute authority over every detail of creation. Scientific data, from VSL theories and historical c-decline to JWST’s “impossibly early” galaxies, provide striking corroboration when interpreted through the lens of biblical history. Ancient Jewish traditions and Latter-day Saint revelations further enrich our understanding, revealing a coherent tapestry across millennia.

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References

Ancient Jewish Interpretive Traditions

Genesis Rabbah. Translated by H. Freedman and Maurice Simon. 10 vols. London: Soncino Press, 1939. (Midrashic commentary on Genesis 1.)

Rashi (Rabbi Shlomo Yitzchaki). Commentary on the Torah and Commentary on Job. Standard editions (e.g., Mikra’ot Gedolot). (Comments on Genesis 1:6-8 and Job 26:11.)

Talmud Bavli (Babylonian Talmud). Tractate Chagigah 12a-b. Vilna edition. (Discussion of the creation of the heavens from fire and water.)

Targum Onkelos. Aramaic translation of the Torah. Standard critical editions (e.g., Sperber edition). (Rendering of Genesis 1:2-8.)

Author’s Previous Works 

Wright, Robert L. “The Hammered-Out Firmament and the Waters of the Deep: A Biblical Synthesis of Raqia with the Divine Stretching of the Heavens and Brane Cosmology.” 2025.

Wright, Robert L. “God ‘Stretched Out the Heavens’: Biblical Truth Resolves Redshift, Declining Light Speed, and the Apparent Age of the Universe.” 2025.

Scientific and Cosmological Sources

Albrecht, Andreas, and João Magueijo. “A Time Varying Speed of Light as a Solution to Cosmological Puzzles.” Physical Review D 59, no. 4 (1999): 043516. https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevD.59.043516. (arXiv:astro-ph/9811018, originally submitted November 1998.)

Finkelstein, Steven L., et al. (CEERS Team). “CEERS Key Paper I: An Early Look into the First 500 Myr of Galaxy Formation with JWST.” The Astrophysical Journal Letters 946, no. 1 (2023): L13. https://doi.org/10.3847/2041-8213/acade4. (Representative of the CEERS survey results referenced in the essay.)

Humphreys, D. Russell. Starlight and Time: Solving the Puzzle of Distant Starlight in a Young Universe. Green Forest, AR: Master Books, 1994. (Primary source for the interpretive framework of the primordial Deep as a spherical body of water and the relativistic cosmology model.)

López-Corredoira, M., F. Melia, J.-J. Wei, and C.-Y. Gao. “Age of Massive Galaxies at Redshift 8.” The Astrophysical Journal 970, no. 1 (2024): 63. https://doi.org/10.3847/1538-4357/ad4f86. (Key JWST-based analysis of “impossibly early” mature galaxies.)

Randall, Lisa, and Raman Sundrum. “A Large Mass Hierarchy from a Small Extra Dimension.” Physical Review Letters 83, no. 17 (1999): 3370–3373. https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.83.3370. (arXiv:hep-ph/9905221.)

Randall, Lisa, and Raman Sundrum. “An Alternative to Compactification.” Physical Review Letters 83, no. 23 (1999): 4690–4693. https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.83.4690. (arXiv:hep-th/9906064.)

Setterfield, Barry. “Setterfield Light Speed Research: Historical Measurements of the Speed of Light.” Ongoing compilation and analysis, last updated post-2000s. Available at https://www.barrysetterfield.org. (Primary reference for the historical decline in measured values of c, building on the 1987 technical report The Atomic Constants, Light, and Time co-authored with Trevor Norman.)

Additional Supporting JWST Program References

The essay draws on early results from the GLASS-JWST (Grism Lens-Amplified Survey from Space with JWST) and CEERS (Cosmic Evolution Early Release Science) programs.