O you servants of the Lord, bless you the Lord: praise and exalt him above all for ever.
All Commentaries on Daniel 3:85 Go To Daniel 3
Ambrose of Milan
AD 397
“Let a firmament be made in the middle of the water.” It should not astonish us … that above he speaks about the heavens and here about the firmament, because David also says, “The heavens narrate the glory of God and the firmament announces the work of his hands.” In other words, the created world, when it is introduced to our sight, gives praise to its Creator: his invisible majesty is acknowledged through the things that are seen. And it seems to me that the term “heavens” is a generic term, because the Scripture attests the existence of many heavens. The term “firmament,” however, is more specific since here also we read, “And he called the firmament heaven.” He seems to have said above, in a general sense, that in the beginning the heavens were created in order to comprise all the work of the creation of the sky and that here instead he has indicated the specific solidity of this external support that he calls firmament. This is called the firmament of the sky, as we read in the hymn of the prophet, “Blessed are you in the firmament of the sky.”
