The words of Hebrews 2:5 imply that a past world had been subjected

to angels, and that before Adam.

When we examine the two occasions where tohu and bohu occur together other

than in Genesis 1:2, punishment is most evident.

Isaiah 34, where these words are found together, is set in a scene of

judgment.  Here is a collection of terms taken from this chapter: indignation,

fury, utterly destroy, slaughter, all the host of heaven shall be dissolved, and

the heavens be rolled together as a scroll, a sword bathed in heaven, curse,

judgment, for it is the day of the Lord's vengeance and the year of recompense

for the controversy of Zion, the streams turned to pitch, the dust to brimstone,

and the land thereof shall become burning pitch, it shall not be quenched night

nor day, it shall lie waste.  These words are all found within the compass of

the first ten verses of this chapter!  With such a vocabulary, nothing but

judgment can possibly be the theme.

In the eleventh verse, we meet with the words tohu and bohu `without form

and void':

`And He shall stretch out upon it the line of confusion (tohu), and the

stones of emptiness (bohu)';

and this judgment is followed by thorns, nettles and brambles, and the place

becomes an habitation of dragons, and a court for owls, together with wild

beasts, satyrs, screech owls, vultures and other unclean creatures.  It is

beyond the ability of a truthful witness to deny that these words tohu and bohu

are set in a context of dire judgment.  The other reference is Jeremiah 4 and

here the words are translated as in Genesis 1:2.  Jeremiah sees an evil that

threatens Zion from the north, likens it to a lion, and calls it `the destroyer

of the Gentiles' who brings desolation in his train, laying cities waste,

without inhabitant (Jer. 4:6,7).

The prophet continues:

`I beheld the earth, and, lo, it was without form, and void; and the

heavens, and they had no light.

I beheld the mountains, and, lo, they trembled, and all the hills moved

I beheld, and, lo, there was no man, and all the birds of the heavens were

I beheld, and, lo, the fruitful place was a wilderness, and all the cities

thereof were broken down at the presence of the Lord, and by His fierce

anger' (Jer. 4:23-26).

Here again the testimony of Scripture is clear.  `Without form and void'

are indubitably terms, not of creation, but of judgment; Genesis 1:2 therefore

must refer to an `overthrow', and the word katabole in Ephesians 1:4 must be so

While we do not attempt to make Scripture bend and bow to the findings of

`science', for these are continually changing, yet as the interpretation of

Genesis 1 does invade the territory of geological science, the reader may find

the following testimony of a scientist, of interest.  Lt.-Col. L.M. Davies,

M.A., F.G.S., F.R.S.E., F.R.A.I., writes: