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The Revised Version reads:
"And the earth was waste and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep."
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 four, or the plural were in verse seven. In the phrase "it was so"
(Gen. 1: 7) the word "was" is in ordinary type. In the phrase "and God said 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 Gen. 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 Gen. 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 indicated 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
Gen. 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 Gen. 1: 1. In this the LXX concurs, using de "but" instead of kai "and",