A Genesis 1 flood?
Notes
1:2 The initial description of the earth as being without form and void, a phrase repeated within the OT only in Jer. 4:23, implies that it lacked order and content.
There is no reason to postulate that a long time elapsed between Gen. 1:1 and 1:2, during which time the earth became desolate and empty.
1:2 formless and void. This means “not finished in its shape and as yet uninhabited by creatures” (cf. Is 45:18, 19; Jer 4:23). God would quickly (in 6 days) decorate His initial creation (1:2–2:3).
1:2 formless and empty The Hebrew terms used here, tohu and bohu, describe material substance lacking boundary, order, and definition.
This same word pairing occurs in Jer 4:23, indicating that the meaning of tohu and bohu is not nonexistence but a nonfunctional, barren state. The Hebrew structure implies that this material existed in a formless and empty state when God began His creative work. This does not mean that God didn’t create this material prior to the time period recorded by the biblical text. Hence, Isa 45:18, which declares that God did not create the earth empty (bohu), does not contradict Gen 1:2, where God orders and fills an initially empty (bohu) creation.
The Bible begins with creation not to tell us about the creation, but to introduce us to the Creator.
1:2 The “earth” is first described in its pristine state at the inception of creation before it is transformed into a suitable habitation for human life. Six creation “days” are described from the terrestrial perspective of a person observing the transformation. Also while ʾereṣ, “earth,” stands opposite “heavens” in v. 1, together referring to the universe, in v. 2 ʾereṣ suggests by double entendre the “land” of Israel’s habitation. The term ʾereṣ commonly means a territorial holding, designating “land.” The recurring motifs of “land” and “blessing” introduced in 1:1–2:3 are thematic fixtures in the patriarchal narratives and the entire Pentateuch. For Israel the land was God’s good gift that he prepared for his people to possess. Creation prepared God’s good “land/ earth,” which was for man to enjoy (1:10, 12, 31) and for Israel to possess.
Three parallel clauses in v. 2 describe the conditions of the earth at its beginning:
“Now the earth was formless and empty (tōhû wābōhû)”
“darkness was over the surface of the deep (tĕhôm)”
“the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters (mayim)”
The rhyming couplet tōhû wābōhû (lit., “a wasteland and empty”) was shown earlier to be the foil by which God apportions his labor for the six days of creation. Three days are given to making the “uninhabitable” earth productive, and three days concern filling the “uninhabited” earth with life. There is no consensus about the precise meaning of the terms nor how the two words are to be understood when they occur in tandem. Some have taken the two terms as a hendiadys, meaning “formless waste,” while others treat them as a farrago, that is, two usually alliterative words that when taken together convey a different sense than when the two words appear independently. English equivalents such as “hodgepodge” and “mingled mass” have been suggested.
Some have taken the phrase tōhû wābōhû as a negative emptiness, a dark abyss, like that of the Greek idea of primeval chaos (Hesiod,Theogony 116) or, alternatively, a disordered conglomerate, a kind of watery mass, which opposes creation. The LXX’s “unseen” and “unformed” may have influenced the now-common understanding “chaos,” an undifferentiated mass or vacuous nonentity.69 We will find that tōhû and bōhû describe a “wasteland” and “empty” land. Bōhû is found only in tōhû wābōhû, occurring in 1:2 and in Jer 4:23; also the two terms are in parallel at Isa 34:11. The etymology of the word remains a mystery, and we are left with the meaning of tōhû to clarify the sense of the couplet.
Although the etymology is also unclear for tōhû, it occurs sufficiently in the Old Testament (twenty times) to indicate its meaning. It refers to an unproductive, uninhabited land or has the sense of futility and nonexistence.71 It is found once more in the Pentateuch, in the Song of Moses (Deut 32:10), where tōhû parallels “desert” (midbār), thus indicating a “desert-place.” The same word “hover” (rḥp) that occurs in Gen 1:2 is in the following verse of the Song (32:11), where God is likened to an eagle that “hovers” over its young. Since rḥp occurs in but one other place, there meaning “tremble,” Deut 32:10–11 is probably a deliberate echo of Gen 1:2. Moses’ Song is describing God’s care and provision for his people during their desert sojourn, where apart from God they could not have survived (32:10–14). Tōhû wābōhû has the same sense in Genesis 1, characterizing the earth as uninhabitable and inhospitable to human life. Despite the threatening desert, God protects and matures Israel during its troubled times. Similarly, although the earth, as it stood, could not support terrestrial life, it was no threat to God, whose “Spirit” exercised dominion over it. God’s purposes were not hindered by tōhû, for “he did not create it [earth] to be tōhû (i.e., desolate) but formed it to be inhabited” (Isa 45:18; cf. Job 26:7). Moreover, “hovering” (rḥp) has the nuance of motion. The movement of God’s “Spirit” indicates that the creative forces for change commence with God’s presence.
We have mentioned that Jer 4:23 has the only occasion other than 1:2, where the couplet tōhû wābōhû occurs. Its context is the prophet’s description of Judah’s demise at the hands of God’s anger. Likewise, in Isa 34:11, where both terms appear (in parallel lines), the passage describes divine condemnation against Edom. Jeremiah 4:23–26 clearly reflects the creation language of Genesis 1, and the prophecy has been commonly understood as a metaphorical “reversal” of creation that leads to primordial “chaos.” Thus Jeremiah announced that Judah would be “uncreated” as a consequence of God’s judgment. Rather than a primordial “chaos,” however, Jeremiah used the similar imagery of creation so as to announce that the “land” (ʾereṣ) of Judah will become a “desolate” place as was the “earth” (ʾereṣ) before its creation, that is, a land lifeless without the blessing of God. This is explicated in the following oracle (Jer 4:27–29), where the “whole land (kol-hāʾāreṣ) will be ruined.” Similarly, Isa 34:11 describes “desolate” (tōhû) and “empty” (bōhû) Edom, which as a desert place becomes unfit for habitation and hence absent of life, except that of the desert fowl. Moreover, the prophets’ use of tōhû wābōhû does not require us to conclude that the earth in 1:2, as a first creation, is under God’s judgment. Rather, Jeremiah drew on creation imagery to announce that God would dismantle the nation. Just as God made the earth habitable and alive, God had established Judah in the land alive and prosperous. But now God in his wrath would reduce Judah to barrenness by the expulsion of its people as when the earth at its inception had no light, no people, and no birds in the skies.