8.  “And God called the firmament heaven.” Gen. i. 8.  The nature of right belongs to another, and the firmament only shares it on account of its resemblance to heaven.  We often find the visible region called heaven, on account of the density and continuity of the air within our ken, and deriving its name “heaven” from the word which means to see. The derivation of οὐρανός from ὁράω is imaginary.  Aristotle (De Cœl i. 19, 9) derives it from ὅρος, a boundary.  cf. ῾Ορίζων.  The real root is the Skt. var=cover.  M. Müller, Oxford Essays, 1856.  It is of it that Scripture says, “The fowl of the air,” Ps. viii. 8. “Fowl that may fly…in the open firmament of heaven;” Gen. i. 20. and, elsewhere, “They mount up to heaven.” Ps. cvii. 26.  Moses, blessing the tribe of Joseph, desires for it the fruits and the dews of heaven, of the suns of summer and the conjunctions of the moon, and blessings from the tops of the mountains and from the everlasting hills, cf. Deut. xxxiii. 13–15, LXX. in one word, from all which fertilises the earth.  In the curses on Israel it is said, “And thy heaven that is over thy head shall be brass.” Deut. xxviii. 23.  What does this mean?  It threatens him with a complete drought, with an absence of the aerial waters which cause the fruits of the earth to be brought forth and to grow.