Rotherham renders the passage:

`Now the earth had become waste and wild, and darkness was on the face of

the roaring deep'.

The first item which calls for attention is the true rendering of the verb

`was'.  The Authorized Version, it will be noticed, uses `was', but in the same

verse where `was' is repeated, this is found to be in italics.  If we glance

down the chapter we shall see this italic was in verse 4, or the plural were in

verse 7.  In the phrase `it was so' (Gen. 1:7) the word `was' is in ordinary

type.  In the phrase `and God saw that it was good' (Gen. 1:10) the word `was'

is in italics.

What is the reason for the interchange of type?  `Was' and `is' are parts

of the verb `to be', and this has no equivalent in the Hebrew.  Where the word

is printed `was', it is a rendering of the verb `to become' and not `to be', so

Genesis 1:3 could read:

`And God said, Let light come into being, and light came into being'.

That the word so translated does not mean that Genesis 1:2 represents the

way in which creation came into existence, but rather, that it subsequently

`became' as it is there described, other examples will illustrate:

`And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into

his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul' (Gen. 2:7).

`I shall be a fugitive and a vagabond in the earth; and it shall come to

pass, that every one that findeth me shall slay me' (Gen. 4:14).

`I will remember ... and the waters shall no more become a flood to

destroy all flesh' (Gen. 9:15).

`But his wife looked back from behind him, and she became a pillar of

salt' (Gen. 19:26).

The pages of Scripture are filled with examples of the use of these two

words `was' and `is' printed in italics, which represent the verb `to be', and

the words `was', `is' and `become' printed in ordinary type, which indicate a

subsequent event.

Man was not a living soul until he breathed, then he became one.  Cain was

not looking back, but forward to the possibility of the future, and Lot most

surely did not marry a pillar of salt, his wife of many years `became' one.  We

must therefore revise Genesis 1:2 and read:

`And the earth became without form, and void'.

Some scholars moreover translate the word `and' at the beginning of this

sentence by the adversative `but' as introducing an opposite state of affairs to

that found in the primal creation of Genesis 1:1.  In this the LXX concurs,

using de `but' instead of kai `and', which shows that those early translators

looked upon Genesis 1:2 as something distinct from initial creation.

What the earth `became' is revealed by the two Hebrew words that are

translated `without form' and `void'.  They are tohu and bohu.