This Bible reads the opening of Genesis 1:2 as “But the earth became formless and void.” The Hebrew is וְהָאָרֶץ הָיְתָה תֹהוּ וָבֹהוּ. תֹהוּ is a waste. בֹהוּ is an emptiness. Together they name a land with its order taken away. בֹהוּ occurs only here, in Jeremiah 4:23, and in Isaiah 34:11.

Background, circumstance, and parenthesis

Hebrew narrative takes its next step by putting the verb first, with waw-consecutive on the verb. That form means “and then.” Genesis 1:2 has the other order. The waw is followed by the subject, and only then by the verb: וְהָאָרֶץ הָיְתָה. Gesenius §142 says that when the subject stands first, the clause usually describes a state. It does not bring on the next event. Grammarians call that offline clause background, a circumstantial clause, and a parenthesis. The three names are one construction. Each name shows what verse 2 is doing between Genesis 1:1 and Genesis 1:3.

Background

A background clause gives the situation already in place, so that the sequel can be understood. The six days start at verse 3 with וַיֹּאמֶר, “And God said.” That is the first waw-consecutive verb in the account. Verse 2 is the scene that verb enters: the earth formless and void, darkness on the deep, the Spirit of God fluttering over the waters. The verse holds the setting. The deeds of the six days begin after it.

Circumstance

A circumstantial clause is joined to a main statement to name the situation that accompanies it. Gesenius says clauses that begin with the subject are added with waw for this, especially when the circumstance carries a contrast, and he points to the circumstantial clauses of §141. §154 adds that simple waw, in a circumstantial clause, can mean “but,” “yet,” or “whereas.” Verse 1 is the main statement: God created the heavens and the earth. Verse 2 is the circumstance of that earth, and the circumstance is a contrast. The earth he created is formless and void.

The rest of the verse stays offline with it. וְחֹשֶׁךְ עַל־פְּנֵי תְהוֹם is a noun-clause, darkness on the face of the deep, with no narrative verb. וְרוּחַ אֱלֹהִים מְרַחֶפֶת is the subject with a participle, the Spirit fluttering. Circumstance follows circumstance. The next act is still verse 3.

Parenthesis

Set outside the chain of “and then,” the verse reads as a parenthesis between the creation of verse 1 and the speech of verse 3. The line of the account is: God created the heavens and the earth — but the earth had become formless and void, and darkness was on the deep, and the Spirit of God was fluttering — and God said, “Let there be light.” Verse 2 is the aside. It tells the condition in which the six days begin. It is not the first of those days.

הָיָה means to be or to become. Either English verb can translate it. “Became” fits this parenthesis because verse 1 has already said that God created the earth, and because the prophets use תֹהוּ וָבֹהוּ for what judgment leaves behind.

The phrase in judgment

When the prophets describe catastrophic judgment on a land, a cluster of motifs recurs. The land is waste. Cities are burned or emptied. The people are gone. Fields fail. Animals and birds vanish. Darkness, or some disturbance in the heavens, may be named with them. The cluster is recognizable without every motif appearing each time. Isaiah 1:7 is the ordinary form: “Your country is desolate. Your cities are burned with fire.”

A sharper form tells the judgment as creation undone. Jeremiah 4:23–26 is the plain case. The prophet sees the earth, and behold, it is תֹהוּ וָבֹהוּ. The heavens have no light. There is no man. The birds of the sky have fled. The fruitful field is a wilderness. The cities are broken down at the presence of Yahweh, before his fierce anger.

The vision runs the opening of Genesis backward.

• An ordered world returns to תֹהוּ וָבֹהוּ.
• Light gives way to heavens with no light.
• Fruitful land becomes wilderness.
• Birds leave the sky.
• No man is left.
• Inhabited cities are broken down.

Isaiah 34:11 measures Edom with the same two words, once the land has been made uninhabitable: the line of תֹהוּ and the stones of בֹהוּ. This Bible prints that as “the line of confusion” and “the plumb line of emptiness.” Outside Genesis, the pair belongs to these judgment texts. Jeremiah keeps the two words together. Isaiah splits them across the line and the stones. In both places the phrase describes a land devastated by God’s judgment.

Not the condition God makes

Isaiah 45:18 says that Yahweh formed the earth and made it, established it, and did not create it a waste. The word for that waste is תֹהוּ. He formed it to be inhabited.

Isaiah 45:19 follows at once with how he works: “I have not spoken in secret, in a place of the land of darkness.” He does not hide his word in a dark land, and he does not send Jacob to seek him in vain. He speaks righteousness and declares what is right. That is the same character 1 John 1:5 names when it says that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all. Darkness belongs with judgment. The prophets set it beside a wasted land and heavens that have no light. The God who is light created the heavens and the earth in light. His first act was not the making of darkness. The darkness on the deep stands inside the parenthesis of verse 2, a circumstance already there when the six days open, and it is there because of judgment. The first word of the narrative is his answer to it: “Let there be light.” The days that follow are God speaking order back into that darkness.

Sources

• Wilhelm Gesenius, Hebrew Grammar, §141. A clause added with waw can describe an accompanying circumstance, often a contrast.
• Wilhelm Gesenius, Hebrew Grammar, §142, the verbal-clause. A subject before the verb describes a state, and such clauses are added to lay stress on a circumstance.
• Wilhelm Gesenius, Hebrew Grammar, §154, sentences connected by waw. Simple waw can introduce an antithesis, especially in a circumstantial clause.
• Genesis 1:1–3; Isaiah 1:7; Isaiah 34:11; Isaiah 45:18–19; Jeremiah 4:23–26; 1 John 1:5.