The earth was formless and void
Genesis 1:1-2 No man or woman will ever be able to fully understand the mind of God in this life.
“In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was formless and void, and darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was moving over the surface of the waters.”
Genesis 1:1-2 NASB1995
I hope you’ve been enjoying this short series on Genesis 1:1-2 as much as I’ve enjoyed researching it. If you’re just joining us (we’ve had some new subscribers lately), and this is your first time seeing one of the Genesis posts, you can read the previous two here and here.
וְהָאָרֶץ הָיְתָה תֹהוּ וָבֹהוּ וְחֹשֶׁךְ עַל־פְּנֵי תְהוֹם וְרוּחַ אֱלֹהִים מְרַחֶפֶת עַל־פְּנֵי הַמָּיִם׃
Today we’ll tackle Genesis 1:2 — “The earth was formless and void, and darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was moving over the surface of the waters.” The first part of this sentence describes what the earth was like before God brought order to it. Why is it not describing the universe as a whole? In the original ancient Hebrew seen above, the word for “the earth” — אֶרֶץ (ereṣ) — is specifically defined as “the earth, as opposed to heaven”.
Looking at the rest of Genesis 1, the “formless, void” earth was created before God created light and dark (on day one) and the sun, moon and stars — the rest of the universe — on day four. So without light and day, and no beings (except God Himself) to view the earth, it was truly formless and void.
The Hebrew word תֹּהוּ (tôû) is defined as formlessness, confusion, unreality, emptiness, or nothingness and empty space, and בֹּהוּ (bôû) also means emptiness or void. So how could something — the earth — be defined as nothingness and emptiness? I don’t think we’ll really have an answer to this enigma of Genesis until we’re able to ask God directly.
There’s an interesting Biblical theory called “The Gap Theory” that interjects a very long time period between Genesis 1:1 and 1:2. Now, that’s probably of some comfort to science, which postulates an indefinite time gap between the creation of the universe and the earth as we know it. Some use this theory to explain fossils, placing the animals who lived, died, and became extinct in this gap. Biblically, this makes no sense, since death did not occur until Adam sinned, and fossils result from death and burial over millions of years — therefore fossils couldn’t have happened in this alleged time gap, as man (Adam) had not yet been created.
It was this type of contradiction that drove me away from Christianity in my early years. If I didn’t have an exact answer or things seemed contradictory, I didn’t want to believe them. It was only the passage of many years that showed me that the “scientific answer” was also very inexact and contradictory! Once again, I don’t think we’ll have a true understanding of creation until God gives us that knowledge.
One of the most coherent retorts to this contradiction comes from Enduring Word:
When God created the earth, He quite likely built an “old” earth, creating things in the midst of a time sequence, with either apparent or manufactured age built into creation.
i. For example, Adam was already of mature age when he was created; there was age purposefully built in. Likewise, the trees in the Garden of Eden had rings in them, and there were undoubtedly canyons and sandy beaches in Adam’s world.
In my current state of belief, I think David Guzik’s words here are the closest to an answer we have. It explains the apparent age of the earth and the universe, the existence of a vast fossil record, and it’s entirely within the power of our Creator to do this. I now like to think that God’s Creation was designed in part to encourage man to try to figure it all out and in the process, revel in the glory of the being who created it all.
The next phrase is “and darkness was over the surface of the deep”, which in my younger days I would have jumped on as another contradiction, as it is only after this point in Genesis 1:3-5 that God created light and darkness. So how could darkness be over the surface of the deep when it wasn’t created yet, and — wait a second — how could there be a “deep” when God didn’t separate the atmosphere from the waters until day two of creation, nor did He separate land and the waters. until day three?
The “God built an old earth” answer does help explain this, although it does then (for non-believers) call into question the inerrancy of the Bible. How can the Bible be the inerrant word of God when there are so many contradictions?
That’s where I like to point out that the Word of God is inerrant; it’s the transcription and translation of His Word over the millennia by a flawed mankind influenced by the world that has corrupted the Word and confused so many.
Getting back to “darkness was over the surface of the deep,” Enduring Word says:
This may describe a sense of resistance to the moving of the Holy Spirit on the earth. Some speculate this was because Satan was cast down to the earth (Isaiah 14:12; Ezekiel 28:16) and resisted God’s plan, though his resistance was futile.
This is as good an explanation as any, as it demonstrates just how difficult it can be to try to understand even a tiny portion of the mind of God in words, whether they be Hebrew, Greek, English, or any other language that has existed.
Finally we come to “the Spirit of God was moving over the surface of the waters.” Yeah, there’s another apparent contradiction there (how could the Spirit move over the surface of the waters when they hadn’t been separated yet?), which in my mind is another point in favor of the old earth creation theory.
Enduring Word and the great Charles H. Spurgeon have this to say about the Holy Spirit’s part in creation:
When God began to transform the earth into something beautiful and compatible with His great plan, He started with the work of the Spirit of God. The Holy Spirit begins every work of creation or re-creation.
i. “The first divine act in fitting up this planet for the habitation of man was for the Spirit of God to move upon the face of the waters. Till that time, all was formless, empty, out of order, and in confusion. In a word, it was chaos; and to make it into that thing of beauty which the world is at the present moment, even though it is a fallen world, it was needful that the movement of the Spirit of God should take place upon it.” (Spurgeon)
Whew. Mind blown, and I only looked at two verses out of 31,103 verses in the Bible! Now you know why I love studying the Bible — it really requires a deep faith to begin to understand it, and no man or woman will ever be able to fully understand the mind of God in this life.
Heaven On Wheels Daily Prayer:
Today’s prayer is from the good folks at Knowing Jesus:
Heavenly Father, thank You that You are our Creator God Who made the heavens and earth and filled them with such richness and beauty. Thank You for Your immutable Word and the truths that it contains. Thank You for my salvation by grace through faith in Jesus Christ, by Whom all things were made and in Whom all things hold together. In Jesus' name I pray, AMEN.