Above it was the firmament, a transparent but solid dome resting on the mountains, allowing men to see the blue of the waters above, with "windows" to allow the rain to enter, and containing the Sun, Moon and stars. In the Biblical story (Genesis 2:1-3) this day was the end of Creation, since God rested on the seventh day, the first Sabbath.

When God forbids the man to eat from the tree of knowledge he says that if he does so he is "doomed to die": the Hebrew behind this is in the form used in the Bible for issuing death sentences. During the same period, Michelangelo painted the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, which took approximately four years to complete (1508–1512).The unusual intensity of the ending may be the result of Haydn's piling of coda upon coda, each occurring at a point where the music seems about to end.

There were also waters above the Earth, and so the raqia ( firmament), a solid bowl, was necessary to keep them from flooding the world. or symbolic accounts that tell, in story form, the profound truth that God brought the universe and all that is in it into being, and sustains his creation. Michelangelo persuaded Pope Julius to give him a free hand and proposed a different and more complex scheme, representing the Creation, the Fall of Man, the Promise of Salvation through the prophets, and the genealogy of Christ. This cameo offers an alternative theory for those scholars who have been dissatisfied with the theory that Michelangelo was mainly inspired by Lorenzo Ghiberti's Adam in his Creation of Adam.The Bible tells us that God actually breathed life into Adam, and created him is His own image, which is something He did not do with the rest of creation. Haydn agreed with the proposal of his patron, Gottfried, Freiherr (baron) van Swieten, that the piece should be reset in German, a task that the baron undertook personally. Registered Office: 4th - 6th floor Wellington Buildings, 2-4 Wellington Street, Belfast, BT1 6HT (Northern Ireland - company number NI032565). It is likely that Haydn wanted to try to achieve results of comparable weight, using the musical language of the mature classical style. God's creation by speech also suggests that he is being compared to a king, who has merely to speak for things to happen.