The passages below are presented in two English translations: the King James Version (1611) and the Geneva Bible (1560).
The Geneva Bible was the first English Bible translated directly from the original Hebrew and Greek. It was the Bible of the Reformation — the version that went on the Mayflower, the version used by the Puritans, and the version from which the King James translators worked. Where the KJV and Geneva differ, both are shown. Where they agree (as they do in most cases here), the text is presented once with both attributions.
The Geneva Bible also contained extensive marginal notes — approximately 300,000 words of translator commentary. These notes were removed from the KJV by royal instruction. Where a marginal note is relevant to the cosmological reading, it is included here in its original spelling.
These verses are not presented as isolated proof texts. Individually, any single verse can be reinterpreted. Together, across multiple books, multiple authors, and multiple centuries of composition, they describe a single, consistent cosmological model.
The question this page invites is not "can these verses be reinterpreted?" — they can. The question is: "what did they mean to the people who wrote them, received them, translated them, and preserved them for two thousand years?"
KJV: "It is he that sitteth upon the circle of the earth, and the inhabitants thereof are as grasshoppers; that stretcheth out the heavens as a curtain, and spreadeth them out as a tent to dwell in:"
Geneva (1560): "[It is] he that sitteth vpon the circle of the erthe, and the inhabitants thereof are as grashoppers; that stretcheth out the heauens as a curtaine, and spreadeth them out as a tent to dwell in:"
The Hebrew word is chûgh (חוּג) — a disk, a circle seen from above. This is not the word for a sphere (which does not exist in Hebrew). The image is of God looking down upon a flat, circular expanse. The inhabitants are small — grasshoppers — because the vantage point is from above, looking down upon a plane.
Both the Geneva and the KJV render this identically. The KJV translators did not change the Geneva's reading here. They agreed on what the text says.
KJV: "Have you reached unto the ends of the earth? declare, if you have all their knowledge. ... That the earth may present her sealed things as clay; and that its inhabitants may stand as a garment?"
The earth is compared to clay under a seal — a flat, stamped disc. The "ends" are the edges of that disc, where dawn first appears. The inhabitants "stand" upon it as a garment drapes — a surface, not a curve.
KJV: "When he prepared the heavens, I was there: when he set a compass upon the face of the depth."
Geneva (1560): "When he prepared the heauens, I was there: when he set a compass vpon the face of the depth."
The Hebrew "compass" (chawm) is the same word used for a mason's measuring line or a potter's tool for drawing a circle. God set a boundary — a circular horizon — upon the face of the waters.
KJV: "He hath compassed the waters with a boundary, to the end of light and darkness."
A boundary is drawn on the face of the waters. Light and darkness meet at that boundary — the horizon. This is the edge of the inhabited world, where the light ends.
KJV: "And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters. 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 called the firmament Heaven."
Geneva (1560): "Again God said, Let there be a firmament in the middes of the waters: and let it separate the waters from the waters. Then God made the firmament, and parted the waters, which were under the firmament, from the waters which were above the firmament, and it was so. And God called the firmament, Heaven."
Geneva marginal note (v.7): "As the sea & riuers, from those waters that are in the cloudes, which are vpholden by Gods power, lest they shulde ouerwhelme the worlde."
Geneva marginal note (v.8): "That is, the region of the air, and all that is above us."
The Hebrew word is rāqîa — from the verb rāqāh, "to beat out, to spread thin," as a metalworker beats metal into a sheet. The firmament is an expanse, a vault, that separates two bodies of water. The sun, moon, and stars are placed "in" the firmament (Genesis 1:14-17). The waters "above" are above that structure.
The Geneva translators' own note describes the waters above as "upheld by God's power, lest they should overwhelm the world." That is the language of a held-back reservoir, not a vapor cycle. The structure has a function: it holds back the waters above. When the flood comes, "all the fountains of the great deep burst forth, and the windows of heaven were opened" (Genesis 7:11) — the structure is breached, and the waters above come down.
KJV: "Praise him, ye highest heavens, and ye waters that are above the heavens."
The waters are above the heavens — above the firmament, above the celestial sphere. They are held in place by divine authority, above the structure in which the sun and stars are set.
Psalm 104:5 — "He laid the foundations of the earth, that it should not be moved forever."
Psalm 75:3 — "The earth and all the inhabitants thereof are dissolved: I bear up the pillars of it. Selah."
Psalm 93:1 — "The world also is established that it cannot be moved."
Isaiah 45:18 — "Which formed the earth and made it; he hath established it, he created it not in vain, he formed it to be inhabited: I am the LORD, and there is none else."
Job 9:6 — "He shakes the earth out of her place, and the pillars thereof tremble."
Job 38:4-6 — "Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth? ... Who laid the foundations thereof, or who laid the corner stone thereof? ... There the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy."
The earth has foundations. It has pillars. It has a corner stone. It was "laid" — a construction term. It is "established" — fixed in place, not floating, not spinning through void. These are not poetic flourishes. They are the language of a builder describing a structure.
Revelation 7:1 — "And I saw four angels standing on the four corners of the earth, holding the four winds of the earth."
The earth has ends. It has corners. It has edges. These are physical boundaries of the inhabited world. The four corners are the four extremities: north, south, east, west. The winds are held at those boundaries.
KJV: "He stretcheth out the North over the empty place, and hangeth the earth upon nothing."
Geneva (1560): "He stretcheth out the North over the emptie place, and hangeth the earth vpon nothing."
Geneva marginal note: "He causes the whole heaven to turn about the North pole."
This is perhaps the most direct statement in the entire English biblical tradition. The translators of the Geneva Bible — working from the Hebrew, in 1560, before the Copernican model was widely accepted in England — wrote in the margin, as a matter of straightforward explanation: the heaven turns about the North pole. Not the earth around the sun. The heaven around the pole.
The "empty place" (Hebrew: tōhû — the same word used in Genesis 1:2 for the formless void) is not the vacuum of interstellar space. It is the emptiness beneath and beyond the edges of the earth — the nothing that surrounds the bounded world. The earth is "hung" or "suspended" over this void, not spinning within it.
The "North" is stretched out over this open space. The northern sky is the far edge of the firmament, where the vault meets the void.
The Bible does not say the earth is a sphere.
The Bible does not say the earth orbits the sun.
The Bible does not say the earth spins on an axis.
The Bible does not say the earth is suspended in a void of interstellar space.
The Bible does not say the "firmament" is a metaphor for atmosphere.
The Bible does not say the "waters above" are clouds.
These are modern readings imposed on the text. They are not found in it. The Geneva translators, working in 1560, did not impose them. The KJV translators, working in 1611, did not impose them. The reading presented here is the reading they gave us.
The 1560 Geneva Bible (full text with marginal notes)
The KJV text with interlinear Hebrew for key passages
Original language word studies: rāqîa, chûgh, tōhû, chawm
Church Fathers on the form of the earth (Origen, Augustine, Bede, and others)
You do not have to agree with what you have read. You do not have to accept the interpretation presented here. But you should look at the text. You should read the Hebrew. You should read the Geneva notes. You should ask: "what did this mean to the person who wrote it, in the culture in which they lived, using the language they spoke?"
And then you should ask: "what did it mean to the people who translated it into English, in 1560, and again in 1611 — and what did they write in the margins to help their readers understand?"
The text is open. The notes are preserved. The answer is yours to find.