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which shows that those early translators looked upon Gen. 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.
Tohu. Gesenius says that this word is derived from an unused Chaldee verb meaning
"to be waste, desert" which gives us the word that appears twenty times in the Hebrew
Old Testament. It is variously translated "without form", "waste", "vain", "vanity",
"nothing", "wilderness", "empty place", "confusion" and "things of naught". It never
refers to anything constructive, but always something wasted and spoiled. Moses, the
writer of Gen. 1: 2 uses the word to describe "the waste howling wilderness" of Israel's
wanderings (Deut. 32: 10) and we can believe that he did not employ the word tohu in
Deuteronomy in a meaning entirely opposite to that of Gen. 1: 2. The fact that so many
times tohu is translated "vain" again indicates the conditions obtaining in Gen. 1: 2.
Bohu also comes from an unusual root which means to be "empty", as a house that is
unoccupied. This word occurs but three times in the Scriptures, and on each occasion it
is paired with tohu. In Isa. 45: 18 we read:
"For thus said the LORD that created the heavens; God Himself that formed the earth
and made it; He hath established it, He created it NOT IN VAIN, He formed it to be
inhabited."
Here we learn from God Himself the Creator, that He did not create the earth tohu; if
He did not create it so it must have become so as a subsequent event. Moreover, we can
learn from the parallelism of the verse, that tohu indicates an uninhabited condition "a
waste, empty confusion".
In Isa. 24:, the prophet speaks of "the city of confusion" tohu (verse 10), and this in
a context that speaks of the earth being made "empty", "waste", "turned upside down",
"utterly spoiled", "utterly broken down", and "clean dissolved" (Isa. 24: 1, 3, 10, 19).
It will also be observed that the prophet extends the meaning of tohu until it resembles
the companion word bohu by adding "every house is shut up" (verse 10).
Now this state of desolation is definitely said to be a "punishment". "The earth shall
reel to and fro like a drunkard . . . . . the LORD shall punish the host of HIGH ONES
THAT ARE ON HIGH, and the Kings of the earth upon the earth" (Isa. 24: 20, 21).
Here, this state of confusion is seen to be a judgment that falls upon the earth, not only
for the evils wrought by kings on earth, but by "high ones on high". This word "high" is
used not only of high places on the earth, but as here in contrast with the earth, with
heavenly heights even the dwelling place of the Lord Himself (Isa. 57: 15).
Already we have read enough to warrant the thought that: