The firmament was originally composed of many more layers than it is now. One layer in the midst transformed into something like obsidian, completely black, and melted causing the inner layers to separate.
Foundations of Sapphires
The Brightness of the Firmament
The creation of gravity and formation of the firmament was to establish a place, heaven, where God would dwell in perpetual light because the firmament is bright like the sun, as we see from Daniel.
Firmament: רָקִ֖יעַ – raqia
The Hebrew word translated as "firmament" is raqia. A simple definition is "expanse" so most translations render the meaning as "the expanse of the sky."
A Sea of Glass
Accepting the firmament as a sphere of rigid crystal on the edge of space solves many scriptural and physical problems. The King James Version is the only Bible from which an accurate cosmological model may be deduced.
Rolled Together as a Scroll
Is the phrase "the heavens shall be rolled together as a scroll" flowery poetic language or accurate physics? If the firmament is a rigid sphere of crystal on the edge of space, it's accurate physics.
The Firmament
Many people have struggled with interpreting creation of the firmament. The simple definition is "expanse," so most translations render the meaning as "the expanse of the sky."
Voyager Found the Firmament
The Voyager spacecraft have been on their missions since 1977 and have flown far past the orbits of the planets in our solar system. They took a solar system family portrait and found the firmament.