Understanding Genesis 1, the state of early earth

The word that is translated here as expanse is also translated as firmament or dome. The Hebrew word is raqia. Here’s a very good article from the BioLogos archives:

The Firmament is solid but that’s not the point

It was written in 2010 by Pete Enns, I believe.

What you are trying to do is called concordism – but that has never worked. It’s like pounding a square peg into a round hole.

No, this is not modern science. Besides, how did anything grow before the sun became observable by humans?