In the Hebrew Bible, the word for heavens is shamayim. This is plural - it means heavens, not heaven - but seems nevertheless to have a singular meaning: i.e., the older parts of the bible speak of heavens in the plural and Nehemiah 9:6 says, ... You made the heavens, even the highest heavens... Shamayim also meant sky, the atmosphere, as it does in modern English. The blue dome of the sky was called the raqia, and was believed to be a solid shield between the atmosphere and the true heaven where God lived. Heaven was the realm of God, Earth of mankind, and the underworld was for the dead, and travel between them was generally impossible, although God and his messengers frequently appear on Earth and the dead can be summoned up from the underworld as the Witch of Endor summons the shade of Samuel.