“the earth was a formless void and darkness covered the face of the deep, while a wind from God swept over the face of the waters…”
Here is a case in which a tiny point of grammar makes a difference for theology. In the Hebrew of this verse, the noun comes before the verb (in the perfect form). This in now known to be the way of conveying the PAST PERFECT IN BIBLICAL Hebrew. The point of grammar means that this verse does not mean “the earth was shapeless and formless/formless void” – referring to the condition of the earth starting the instant after it was created. This verse rather means that “the earth HAD BEEN shapeless and formless/formless void” – that is, it had already existed in this shapeless condition prior to the creation.
Creation of matter in the Torah is not out of nothing (creatio ex nihilo), as many have claimed. And the Torah is not claiming to be telling events from the beginning of time.
Literary device: “hendiadys”
1:2 “shapeless and formless/formless void” – the two words in the Hebrew, ‘Tohu va vohu (תֹ֙הוּ֙ וָבֹ֔הוּ),’ are understood to mean virtually the same thing. This is the first appearance in the Torah of a phenomenon/literary device in the biblical language known as “hendiadys,” in which two connected words are used to signify one thing. (“Wine and beer” [Lev.10:9] may be a hendiadys as well, or it may be a ‘merism,’ a similar construction in which two words are used to signify a totality; so that “wine and beer” means all alcoholic beverages). The hendiadys of “‘Tohu va vohu,” plus references to the deep and the water, yields a picture of an undifferentiated, shapeless fluid that had existed prior to creation.
1.2 “God’s spirit/wind hovering on the face of the water”
a. Words for “soul” or “spirit” in Hebrew frequently denote wind or breath (likewise in Greek: ‘pneuma’ means both wind and spirit. In the ancient world, life was associated, in the first place, with respiration, as opposed to later determinations of life in terms of blood circulation or brain activity.
b. “wind hovering on the face of the water” – the parallel with the ancient Babylonian creation myth of the wind god (Enlil, or Marduk) defeating the goddess of the waters (Tiamat; compare Tehom (Hebrew: תְּהוֹם), [Greek Septuagint: ábyssos], translated “the deep,” in this verse is striking. The difference between the two is striking, too: in the Torah the water and all other components of the universe are no longer regarded as gods (Natural disasters are therefore acts of nature, not “acts of God.” God has indeed established certain laws and principles that govern nature, but God remains sovereign over these laws).. Nature is demythologized.
TheHammer 