Perhaps 1 Kings 8:27--"But will God really dwell on earth? The heavens, even the highest heaven, cannot contain you. How much less this temple I have built!" (NIV, thanks to the Bible Gateway. Maybe the people who like "systems", as the OED put it, use this as a justification for levels of heaven.

Tim, does the OED give a date for the first use? I'll bet it was a common expression when Jolson used it. (If not, there's no need to imagine him getting it from blacks who got it from slaves who got it from Muslim West Africa. Jolson was Jewish.)