Genesis 1 2 - The Earth Was Formless... - Verse-by-Verse Commentary PDF

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Home / Verse-by-Verse Bible Commentary / Genesis / Chapter 1

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Monday, November 30th, 2020

Verse-by-Verse Bible Commentary the First Week of Advent
Genesis 1:2
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Genesis 1:1 Genesis 1 Genesis 1:3
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.
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Adam Clarke Commentary Other Authors

Range Specific
The earth was without form and void - The original term ‫ תהו‬tohu and ‫בהו‬
Birdgeway Bible
bohu, which we translate without form and void, are of uncertain etymology; but in Commentary
this place, and wherever else they are used, they convey the idea of confusion and
Chuck Smith
disorder. From these terms it is probable that the ancient Syrians and Egyptians
Commentary
borrowed their gods, Theuth and Bau, and the Greeks their Chaos. God seems at
Dummelow's
first to have created the elementary principles of all things; and this formed the
Commentary on the Bible
grand mass of matter, which in this state must be without arrangement, or any
distinction of parts: a vast collection of indescribably confused materials, of Hole's Commentary
nameless entities strangely mixed; and wonderfully well expressed by an ancient Meyer's Commentary
heathen poet: - Gaebelein's Annotated
Gary Hampton
Ante mare et terras, et, quod tegit omnia, caelum, Commentary
Unus erat toto naturae vultus in orbe, Quem dixere Everett's Study Notes
Chaos; rudis indigestaque moles,
The People's Bible
Nec quicquam nisi pondus iners; congestaque eodem
Non bene junctarum discordia semina rerum. Keil & Delitzsch
Ovid. Kretzmann's Popular
Commentary of the Bible
Before the seas and this terrestrial ball, Wells of Living Water
And heaven's high canopy that covers all, Henry's Complete
One was the face of nature, if a face; Henry's Concise
Rather, a rude and indigested mass;
Preacher's Homiletical
A lifeless lump, unfashion'd and unframed,
Commentary
Of jarring seeds, and justly Chaos named.
Pulpit Commentaries
Dryden. ADVERTISEMENT
Chapter Specific
The most ancient of the Greeks have spoken nearly in the same way of this crude,
indigested state of the primitive chaotic mass.
When this congeries of elementary principles was brought together, God was pleased to spend six days in
assimilating, assorting, and arranging the materials, out of which he built up, not only the earth, but the whole of
the solar system.
The spirit of God - This has been variously and strangely understood. Some think a violent wind is meant,
because ‫ רוח‬, ruach often signifies wind, as well as spirit, as πνευµα, does in Greek; and the term God is
connected with it merely, as they think, to express the superlative degree. Others understand by it an
elementary fire. Others, the sun, penetrating and drying up the earth with his rays. Others, the angels, who
were supposed to have been employed as agents in creation. Others, a certain occult principle, termed the
anima mundi or soul of the world. Others, a magnetic attraction, by which all things were caused to gravitate to
a common center. But it is sufficiently evident from the use of the word in other places, that the Holy Spirit of
God is intended; which our blessed Lord represents under the notion of wind, John 3:8; and which, as a mighty
rushing wind on the day of Pentecost, filled the house where the disciples were sitting, Acts 2:2, which was
immediately followed by their speaking with other tongues, because they were filled with the Holy Ghost, Acts
2:4. These scriptures sufficiently ascertain the sense in which the word is used by Moses.
Moved - ‫ מרחפת‬merachepheth, was brooding over; for the word expresses that tremulous motion made by
the hen while either hatching her eggs or fostering her young. It here probably signifies the communicating a
vital or prolific principle to the waters. As the idea of incubation, or hatching an egg, is implied in the original
word, hence probably the notion, which prevailed among the ancients, that the world was generated from an
egg.
Copyright Statement
These files are public domain.
Bibliography
Clarke, Adam. "Commentary on Genesis 1:2". "The Adam Clarke Commentary". https:https://www.studylight.org/commentaries/acc/genesis-
1.html. 1832.
return to 'Jump List'
Albert Barnes' Notes on the Whole Bible

- II. The Land
‫ היה‬hāyah “be.” It is to be noted, however, that the word has three meanings, two of which now scarcely belong
to our English “be.”
1. “Be, as an event, start into being, begin to be, come to pass.” This may be understood of a thing beginning to
be, ‫ יהי אור‬yehiy 'ôr “be light” Genesis 1:3; or of an event taking place, ‫ מקץ ויהי ימים‬vayehı̂y mı̂qēts
yāmı̂ym “and it came to pass from the end of days.”
2. “Be,” as a change of state, “become.” This is applied to what had a previous existence, but undergoes some
change in its properties or relations; as ‫ גציב ותהי מלח‬vatehı̂y netsı̂yb melach “and she became” a pillar of
salt Genesis 19:26.
3. “Be,” as a state. This is the ultimate meaning to which the verb tends in all languages. In all its meanings,
especially in the first and second, the Hebrew speaker presumes an onlooker, to whom the object in question
appears coming into being, becoming or being, as the case may be. Hence, it means to be manifestly, so that
eye-witnesses may observe the signs of existence.
‫ תהוּ ובהוּ‬tohû vābohû “a waste and a void.” The two terms denote kindred ideas, and their combination marks
emphasis. Besides the present passage ‫ בהוּ‬bohû occurs in only two others Isaiah 34:11; Jeremiah 4:23, and
always in conjunction with ‫ תהוּ‬tohû If we may distinguish the two words, ‫ בהוּ‬bohû refers to the matter, and
‫ תהוּ‬tohû refers to the form, and therefore the phrase combining the two denotes a state of utter confusion and
desolation, an absence of all that can furnish or people the land.
‫ השׁך‬choshek “darkness, the absence of light.”
‫ פגים‬pānı̂ym “face, surface.” ‫ פנה‬panah “face, look, turn toward.”
‫ תהום‬tehôm “roaring deep, billow.” ‫ הוּם‬hûm “hum, roar, fret.”
‫ רוּח‬rûach “breath, wind, soul, spirit.”
‫ רחף‬rāchaph “be soft, tremble.” Piel, “brood, flutter.”
‫ והארץ‬vehā'ārets “and the earth.” Here the conjunction attaches the noun, and not the verb, to the preceding
statement. This is therefore a connection of objects in space, and not of events in time. The present sentence,
accordingly, may not stand closely conjoined in point of time with the preceding one. To intimate sequence in
time the conjunction would have been prefixed to the verb in the form ‫ ותהי‬vatehı̂y “then was.”
‫' ארץ‬erets means not only “earth,” but “country, land,” a portion of the earth‘s surface defined by natural,
national, or civil boundaries; as, “the land of” Egypt, “thy land” Exodus 23:9-10.
Before proceeding to translate this verse, it is to be observed that the state of an event may be described either
definitely or indefinitely. It is described definitely by the three states of the Hebrew verb - the perfect, the current,
and the imperfect. The latter two may be designated in common the imperfect state. A completed event is
expressed by the former of the two states, or, as they are commonly called, tenses of the Hebrew verb; a
current event, by the imperfect participle; an incipient event, by the second state or tense. An event is described
indefinitely when there is neither verb nor participle in the sentence to determine its state. The first sentence of
this verse is an example of the perfect state of an event, the second of the indefinite, and the third of the
imperfect or continuous state.
After the undefined lapse of time from the first grand act of creation, the present verse describes the state of
things on the land immediately antecedent to the creation of a new system of vegetable and animal life, and, in
particular, of man, the intelligent inhabitant, for whom this fair scene was now to be prepared and replenished.
Here “the earth” is put first in the order of words, and therefore, according to the genius of the Hebrew
language, set forth prominently as the subject of the sentence; whence we conclude that the subsequent
narrative refers to the land - the skies from this time forward coming in only incidentally, as they bear upon its
history. The disorder and desolation, we are to remember, are limited in their range to the land, and do not
extend to the skies; and the scene of the creation now remaining to be described is confined to the land, and its
superincumbent matter in point of space, and to its present geological condition in point of time.
We have further to bear in mind that the land among the antediluvians, and down far below the time of Moses,
meant so much of the surface of our globe as was known by observation, along with an unknown and
undetermined region beyond; and observation was not then so extensive as to enable people to ascertain its
spherical form or even the curvature of its surface. To their eye it presented merely an irregular surface
bounded by the horizon. Hence, it appears that, so far as the current significance of this leading term is
concerned, the scene of the six days‘ creation cannot be affirmed on scriptural authority alone to have extended
beyond the surface known to man. Nothing can be inferred from the mere words of Scripture concerning
America, Australia, the islands of the Pacific, or even the remote parts of Asia, Africa, or Europe, that were yet
unexplored by the race of man. We are going beyond the warrant of the sacred narrative, on a flight of
imagination, whenever we advance a single step beyond the sober limits of the usage of the day in which it was
written.
Along with the sky and its conspicuous objects the land then known to the primeval man formed the sum total of
the observable universe. It was as competent to him with his limited information, as it is to us with our more
extensive but still limited knowledge, to express the all by a periphrasis consisting of two terms that have not
even yet arrived at their full complement of meaning: and it was not the object or the effect of divine revelation
to anticipate science on these points.
Passing now from the subject to the verb in this sentence, we observe it is in the perfect state, and therefore
denotes that the condition of confusion and emptiness was not in progress, but had run its course and become
a settled thing, at least at the time of the next recorded event. If the verb had been absent in Hebrew, the
sentence would have been still complete, and the meaning as follows: “And the land was waste and void.” With
the verb present, therefore, it must denote something more. The verb ‫ היה‬hāyâh “be” has here, we conceive,
the meaning “become;” and the import of the sentence is this: “And the land had become waste and void.” This
affords the presumption that the part at least of the surface of our globe which fell within the cognizance of
primeval man, and first received the name of land, may not have been always a scene of desolation or a sea of
turbid waters, but may have met with some catastrophe by which its order and fruitfulness had been marred or
prevented.
This sentence, therefore, does not necessarily describe the state of the land when first created, but merely
intimates a change that may have taken place since it was called into existence. What its previous condition
was, or what interval of time elapsed, between the absolute creation and the present state of things, is not
revealed. How many transformations it may have undergone, and what purpose it may have heretofore served,
are questions that did not essentially concern the moral well-being of man, and are therefore to be asked of
some other interpreter of nature than the written word.
This state of things is finished in reference to the event about to be narrated. Hence, the settled condition of the
land, expressed by the predicates “a waste and a void,” is in studied contrast with the order and fullness which
are about to be introduced. The present verse is therefore to be regarded as a statement of the needs that have
to be supplied in order to render the land a region of beauty and life.
The second clause of the verse points out another striking characteristic of the scene. “And darkness was upon
the face of the deep”: Here again the conjunction is connected with the noun. The time is the indefinite past,
and the circumstance recorded is merely appended to that contained in the previous clause. The darkness,
therefore, is connected with the disorder and solitude which then prevailed on the land. It forms a part of the
physical derangement which had taken place on this part at least of the surface of our globe.
It is further to be noted that the darkness is described to be on the face of the deep. Nothing is said about any
other region throughout the bounds of existing things. The presumption is, so far as this clause determines, that
it is a local darkness confined to the face of the deep. And the clause itself stands between two others which
refer to the land, and not to any other part of occupied space. It cannot therefore be intended to describe
anything beyond this definite region.
The deep, the roaring abyss, is another feature in the pre-Adamic scene. It is not now a region of land and
water, but a chaotic mass of turbid waters, floating over, it may be, and partly laden with, the ruins of a past
order of things; at all events not at present possessing the order of vegetable and animal life.
The last clause introduces a new and unexpected clement into scene of desolation. The sentence is, as
heretofore, coupled to preceding one by the noun or subject. This indicates still a conjunction of things, and not
a series of events. The phrase ‫ רוּח אלהים‬rûach 'ĕlohı̂ym means “the spirit of God,” as it is elsewhere
uniformly applied to spirit, and as ‫ רחף‬rı̂chēp “brooded,” does not describe the action of wind. The verbal form
employed is the imperfect participle, and therefore denotes a work in the actual process of accomplishment.
The brooding of the spirit of God is evidently the originating cause of the reorganization of things on the land, by
the creative work which is successively described in the following passage.
It is here intimated that God is a spirit. For “the spirit of God” is equivalent to “God who is a spirit.” This is that
essential characteristic of the Everlasting which makes creation possible. Many philosophers, ancient and
modern, have felt the difficulty of proceeding from the one to the many; in other words, of evolving the actual
multiplicity of things out of the absolutely one. And no wonder. For the absolutely one, the pure monad that has
no internal relation, no complexity of quality or faculty, is barren, and must remain alone. It is, in fact, nothing;
not merely no “thing,” but absolutely naught. The simplest possible existent must have being, and text to which
this being belongs, and, moreover, some specific or definite character by which it is what it is. This character
seldom consists of one quality; usually, if not universally, of more than one. Hence, in the Eternal One may and
must be that character which is the concentration of all the causative antecedents of a universe of things. The
first of these is will. Without free choice there can be no beginning of things. Hence, matter cannot be a creator.
But will needs, cannot be without, wisdom to plan and power to execute what is to be willed. These are the
three essential attributes of spirit. The manifold wisdom of the Eternal Spirit, combined with His equally manifold
power, is adequate to the creation of a manifold system of things. Let the free behest be given, and the universe
starts into being.
It would be rash and out of place to speculate on the nature of the brooding here mentioned further than it is
explained by the event. We could not see any use of a mere wind blowing over the water, as it would be
productive of none of the subsequent effects. At the same time, we may conceive the spirit of God to manifest
its energy in some outward effect, which may bear a fair analogy to the natural figure by which it is represented.
Chemical forces, as the prime agents, are not to be thought of here, as they are totally inadequate to the
production of the results in question. Nothing but a creative or absolutely initiative power could give rise to a
change so great and fundamental as the construction of an Adamic abode out of the luminous, aerial, aqueous,
and terrene materials of the preexistent earth, and the production of the new vegetable and animal species with
which it was now to be replenished.
Such is the intimation that we gather from the text, when it declares that “the spirit of God was brooding upon
the face of the waters.” It means something more than the ordinary power put forth by the Great Being for the
natural sustenance and development of the universe which he has called into existence. It indicates a new and
special display of omnipotence for the present exigencies of this part of the realm of creation. Such an
occasional, and, for ought we know, ordinary though supernatural interposition, is quite in harmony with the
perfect freedom of the Most High in the changing conditions of a particular region, while the absolute
impossibility of its occurrence would be totally at variance with this essential attribute of a spiritual nature.
In addition to this, we cannot see how a universe of moral beings can be governed on any other principle; while,
on the other hand, the principle itself is perfectly compatible with the administration of the whole according to a
predetermined plan, and does not involve any vacillation of purpose on the part of the Great Designer.
We observe, also, that this creative power is put forth on the face of the waters, and is therefore confined to the
land mentioned in the previous part of the verse and its superincumbent atmosphere.
Thus, this primeval document proceeds, in an orderly way, to portray to us in a single verse the state of the land
antecedent to its being prepared anew as a meet dwelling-place for man.
Copyright Statement
Bibliography
Barnes, Albert. "Commentary on Genesis 1:2". "Barnes' Notes on the Whole Bible". https:https://www.studylight.org/commentaries/bnb/genesis-
1.html. 1870.
The Biblical Illustrator
Genesis 1:2
And the earth was without form and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep
Genesis of order
I.
EXPLANATION OF THE PASSAGE.
1. The primeval chaos.

2. The organizing energy.
II. And now let us attend to THE MORAL MEANING OF THE STORY.
1. And, first: all life begins chaotically. It is true of physical life. Look at this bioplast; the most powerful
microscope fails to detect in it much sign of system, or structure: the most that it detects is a tiny
grouping of seemingly unarranged, chaotic material; in fact, so structureless does it seem, that the
microscope declines to prophesy whether it will unfold into a cedar, an elephant, or a man. Again, it is
true of intellectual life. Look at this newborn infant: how nebulous and chaotic its conceptions! Your little
one may grow into a Shakespeare; but at present, and intellectually surveyed--forgive me, fond mother,
for saying it--your little one is scarcely more than a little animal. Do we not apply indiscriminately to
infants and animals the impersonal pronoun “it”? Once more: it is true of moral life. That is not first
which is spiritual, but that which is natural: then that which is spiritual. Look at humanity as a whole,
and through the ages, ancient, mediaeval, modern, How vast but abortive its endeavours! How
besmeared its history with idolatries, barbarisms, wars, butcheries, oppressions, crimes, blasphemies!
Verily, humanity, compared with its latent, transcendent possibilities, is indeed a chaos, without form,
and void, and darkness is over its deep. And what is so sadly true of humanity as a whole, is as sadly
true of each member of humanity, at least in his natural, or rather unnatural, denatured state. For each
man is a microcosm, a miniature world of his own. And each man, compared with what is conceivable
concerning him, is a chaos.
2. Is there any hope here? Thank God, there is. That same breath of God which moved over the face of
those ancient fluids, is moving today over the soul of humanity. Ah, this is the blessed energy by which
the chaos of our moral nature is being organized into order and beauty. Observe: as, in shaping the
material earth out of the old chaos, the Spirit of God added no new elements, but simply fashioned into
order the old; so, in organizing the spiritual chaos, He adds no new faculties, but simply quickens and
organizes the old. What man needs is not creation, but re-creation; not generation, but regeneration.
And this it is which the Holy Ghost is achieving. Brooding, incubating as God’s Holy Dove over the
chaos of humanity, He is quickening its latent forces, arranging its elements, assorting its capacities,
organizing its functions, apportioning its gifts, perfecting its potentialities: in short, completing, fulfilling
consummating man in the sphere of Jesus Christ. (G. D. Boardman.)
An emblem of unrenewed man
I. EMPTINESS OF GOOD. Chaos was absolutely unproductive. Not a single tree, bush, or flower. Not even
the seeds of any useful herbs. So is man as a spiritual being till God’s Spirit begins to work on his fallen nature.
“In me, that is, in my flesh, dwelleth no good thing.”
II. DARKNESS. A meet covering for such an unsightly spectacle. The wicked man is said to “walk in
darkness” (1 John 1:6); “darkness blindeth his eyes” (1 John 2:11); his “understanding is darkened” Ephesians
4:18); his “foolish heart is darkened” (Romans 1:21); he “loves darkness rather than light” (1 John 3:21); “he
knows not nor understands, but walks on in darkness” (Psalms 82:5); and if he repent not he “shall be cast into
outer darkness” (Matthew 25:30). The children of God were “at one time darkness, but now are light in the Lord;
“ “they walk as children of light” (Ephesians 5:8); they are “called out of darkness into marvellous light” (1 Peter
2:9); they are “delivered from the power of darkness” (Colossians 1:13); they “cast off the works of darkness,
and walk honestly as in the day” (Romans 13:12-13).
III. CONFUSION. The chaos was a hideous mixture of all discordant materials--earth and water; mud and
rock; vegetable and mineral; mire, slime, lees, scum, clay, marl, crag, and pool. This is but a faint image of the
turmoil, struggle, and strife that go on continually in the heart of a man who is under the dominion of “lusts and
passions that war against the soul.” Was there a visible form? If so it may have been some white cloud like the
Shechinah. But if cloud there were, there was no vitality in that; it was only a symbol made use of by the
vitalizing Agent to intimate that He was present. This power was--
1. Silent in its operation.

2. Efficacious.
3. Instantaneous.
In one word, the chaotic state of man’s soul before God can only be restored to light, warmth, order, beauty,
and life by the working of the Divine Spirit, through applying “the truth as it is in Christ Jesus” as the means.
This work is done silently and gently. Zaccheus was thus awakened Luke 19:5-8); Nathanael (John 1:47-49);
the woman of Samaria John 4:9-29).
The teaching of chaos
I. THAT THE MOST ELEMENTARY AND RUDE CONDITIONS OF THINGS ARE NOT TO BE REJECTED
OR OVERLOOKED. “And the earth was without form and void.”
1. This may be true of the world of matter.

2. This may be true of the world of mind. Desolate. Not peopled with great thoughts. Not animated by great
and noble convictions.
3. This may be true of the world of the soul. The soul life of many lacks architecture.
II. THAT THE MOST RUDE AND ELEMENTARY CONDITIONS OF THINGS, UNDER THE CULTURE OF
THE DIVINE SPIRIT, ARE CAPABLE OF THE HIGHEST UTILITY AND BEAUTY.
1. This is true of the material world. The earth was without form and void; but now it is everywhere
resplendent with all that is esteemed useful and beautiful. It manifests a fertility most welcome to the
husbandman. Whence this transition? It was the gift of God. It was the result of the Spirit’s hovering
over the darkness of Nature. The world is under a Divine ministry.
2. This is true of the world of mind. The chaos of the human mind is turned into order, light, and intellectual
completion, by the agency of the Divine Spirit.
3. This is true of the world of soul. The chaos of the soul of man can only be restored by the creative
ministry of the Holy Spirit. He will cause all the nobler faculties of the soul to shine out with their
intended splendour. He will make the soul a fit world for the habitation of all that is heavenly. (J. S.Exell,
M. A.)
Without form and void
1. A type of many souls.

2. A type of many lives.
3. A type of many books.
4. A type of many sermons.
5. A type of many societies. (J. S. Exell, M. A.)
On looking back to original condition
The best way to judge of things aright is to consider them in their first original.
1. To bring down our pride.
2. To quicken our endeavours.
3. To fill our mouths with praises to Him that made us what we are, and might have continued, without His
free and infinite mercy. (J. White.)
The chaos
The text is easily divided into two parts: first, the earth was without form, and void, and darkness was upon
the face of the deep: second, the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.
I. The first subject then for our consideration is THE STATE OF THE WORLD IN THE BEGINNING OF TIME.
The earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep: that is, the earth lay a
hideous, barren, and desolate heap; as a waste, howling wilderness, earth and sea mingled together. How short
and wretched must have been the existence of creatures, if God had doomed any to dwell in such a state!--how
utterly impossible would it have been for them to fix a comfortable habitation, or to remedy one even of the
existing evils! Where should we have made our pleasant homes and warm firesides? Could we “have
commanded the morning, and caused the day spring to know its place”? Could we have driven away the
darkness, or “have shut up the sea with doors”?
1. Here, then, we are led to reflect, first, upon the wisdom and goodness of God manifested in His gracious
design in the creation. God had no design to form creatures for misery, but for happiness, as the
apostle declares when speaking of the Christian dispensation: “God hath not appointed us to wrath, but
to obtain mercy by Jesus Christ.” So here He had determined to make man; but to make him, not a
child of sorrow, but a comfortable and happy creature: He therefore first begins, with infinite goodness,
to prepare him a pleasant and goodly dwelling place. But which among the angels would have
supposed that He would form it from this gloomy chaos, this miserable and barren spot we have been
considering? They had no such power themselves, not the mightiest of them; and it is probable they did
not yet know the almighty power of God, or, at least, that they had not seen it so marvellously
displayed. When, therefore, He fixed the foundation of the earth, and formed the world, He tells Job
that then “the morning stars sung together, and all the sons of god shouted for joy”: they sung of the
mighty power and glory of God: they shouted for joy at the goodness and wisdom of their everlasting
Father, here displayed so gloriously. Thus, when we consider the works of the Holy Spirit, how lovely
does He himself appear to us!--how worthy of our highest adoration and gratitude! But, further, the word
here translated “moved,” literally means settled or brooded, and it is understood by some to express
that act of the Holy Spirit by which He imparted life and activity. This is the peculiar office of the Holy
Spirit, “it is the Spirit that quickeneth,” saith our Saviour: “the Spirit giveth life,” says St. Paul: it was the
Spirit that “raised Jesus from the dead”: it is the Spirit that shall breathe upon our dry bones, that they
may live; for in like manner it was the Spirit of God that entered Adam, and man became a living soul.
To this Holy Spirit of God then we are indebted, not only for our own life and preservation from day to
day and from year to year, but for all those living creatures which increase and multiply to supply us
with food and clothing, and many other comforts. As often, therefore, as we use them, should not our
hearts be grateful to Him who is the author of them, and take heed not to abuse them? Now, we have
considered the state of this world before the Word of God and the Spirit of God began their operations
upon it. You have seen its disorder and confusion, its barren, empty, and useless condition, and the
utter darkness in which it was buried. You have seen, then, an exact representation of the fallen state of
man, and what the Word and Spirit of God, and these only, can do for him. The whole soul and body of
man without these is without form, and void: his heart is a misshapen, hideous, and disordered mass of
empty, unprofitable, and good-for-nothing matter; and, when the Holy Spirit of God enters it, He finds it
lifeless, dark, and barren, and, like the unrestrained and troubled waters, all ruinous and in wild
disorder, as in chaos. This is the state of man, and therefore he is fit for nothing else but destruction,
except he is rendered “fit for a habitation of God through the Spirit.” There is, as in chaos, a continued
strife of elements within us, a continual war and confusion among “our lusts, which war in our
members”: we “are full of uncleanness,” ungodliness, intemperance, and sin: while the ungoverned
waters struggle for a vent, and rage and swell, the earth is rent and torn asunder, and at last
overwhelmed; and thus, while one desire, one lust, one inclination in our frame rages, and is indulged,
another part of us is convulsed and disordered, and at last perhaps “sudden destruction comes upon
us.” Here, then, we see the free mercy of God towards us, in His willingness to rescue us from this
chaotic state. It is plain, then, that a change must be wrought in us if we would be saved: for think not
that God will pollute His heavens with such creatures: think not that He will suffer the holiness and
harmony of heaven to be interrupted by unsubdued, deformed man. This change, then, from darkness
to light, from barrenness to fruitfulness, from confusion to peace, from sin to holiness and loveliness,
and happiness, in short “from the power of Satan unto God,” this change is needed in all, and none can
be saved without it; and it is the work of the Word and Spirit of God: none other can do it; none other
has any part in it. I say it is the work of the Word and Spirit: not the Word alone, nor the Spirit alone; but
it is the work of the two conjointly. (J. Matthews, M. A.)
The inability of chaos apart from God to evolve order
It would be unphilosophical to hold that chaos evolved from herself the order that everywhere appears. Can I
believe that the pile of rubbish that marks the site of Babylon will ever produce a city so beautiful and
magnificent as that which witnessed nightly the revels of the Chaldean Monarchs? Shall I see, as if by magic,
street after street arise, square after square occupy its ancient position, temple after temple point its glittering
canopy to heaven; shall I see the city enclosed by walls, filled with a busy, trading, pleasure-seeking population,
and be told that all this order, and magnificence, and life, has come of the pile of ruins? (G. Wight.)
The chaos of the earth illustrated by the chaotic condition of the moon
Of such a condition of the earth, a definite idea may be formed by an examination of the moon’s surface--a
very chaos of explosive action. Thousands of small pits are there, and, as certainly, immense chasms, whose
flattened interiors rival a congeries of English counties, while stupendous ridges and peaks encompass them,
standing out like the Apennines and Pyrenees, and sometimes transcending the loftiest eminences of the Alps.
He who has traversed the Great Schiedegg and the Wengun Alp, beneath the shadow of the almost vertical
steeps of the Wetterhorn and the Eiger, has been awe-struck by summits so towering, and descents so
profound; and yet feeble is their image of the heights and depths of the moon’s Himalayas. What evidences are
these of volcanic agency, while other elevations, due possibly to the same mighty power, astound him who
steadily contemplates them, by their rectilinear extent.
Yet, amidst these cindery plains, no river makes a path, no stream meanders; down those precipices neither
silver thread of water winds its way, nor is there the gushing, the tumbling, and foaming of some huge cascade;
and hence the great desert of Africa resembles the naked and arid wastes, where no life springs forth to relieve,
much less to cheer, this immense scene of unmitigated desolation. As, then, the moon is, so was this earth of
ours, when Moses described not its contents, of which he knew nothing, but its surface, as without form and
void. (C. Williams.)
And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters:--
The work of the Holy Spirit
It is a significant, suggestive fact, that the work of the Holy Spirit is historically coeval with the work of
creation. The Divine Being who inspired the Bible appears upon its first page, a mystic centre of light and
beauty in the midst of an universe of darkness. And St. Paul tells us that God the Holy Spirit, who first illumined
the dark world of matter, still illuminates the dark world of mind. All is midnight in the heart, mind, and soul of a
sinner, until He, the Light of Life, saith, “Let there be light.”
I. The work of the Spirit in the NATURAL man. The force of Paul’s allusion to the creation in Genesis implies
that man’s original earth, in its perennial darkness, waste, and submersion, is a type of man’s heart, as nature
moulds it, and sin corrupts it. “The earth was without form and void”; and the heart is without grace, or capacity
of spiritual discernment, till the Spirit of God moves in His creative, enlightening energy, upon both the one and
the other. This is equally true of every man, for “who maketh thee to differ? and what hast thou, O man, that
thou didst not receive? “It is our part to preach Christ, but it is the Spirit’s office to convince “of sin,
righteousness, and judgment.” The Spirit Himself is the foundation of all spirituality. “It is the Spirit that
quickeneth, and the Spirit giveth life: the words that I speak unto you, they are Spirit,” because He spake in the
Spirit, lived in the Spirit, and commanded His disciples “to wait” for the Spirit, before they commenced their
ministry, that they might be “endued with power from on high.” That is the only power still to convert souls. The
most powerful ministry is simply that which is the most spiritual, which most prays in the Spirit, preaches in the
Spirit, lives in the Spirit, and most constantly insists upon congregations seeking the Spirit, and resting on His
gifts and graces as their only source and secret of edification.
II. The work of the Spirit in the REGENERATE man. “The path of the just is as a shining light, that shineth
more and more unto the perfect day,” for He who gives the first convicting and converting impulse, “giveth more
grace.” As the original motion of the Spirit of life and light was followed by the creation of the sun, the moon,
and the stars, each in their appointed orbits, fulfilling their Creator’s munificent purposes of love and goodness;
so the work of the quickening Spirit in individual regeneration is succeeded by ampler revelations of Christ as
the “Sun of Righteousness,” the centre of His redeeming system; of the Church, as His satellite, “fair as the
moon,” borrowing all her light and influence upon many waters from the Lord, whose fainter image she is, a light
shining in dark places: and of Christ’s ministers and sacraments, as stars in His right hand, by whose “lesser
lights” He deigns to carry on His gracious offices of mercy to “a world lying in darkness, and in the power of the
wicked.” But it is the Spirit which gives the weight and efficacy to all these means of grace, and channels of
edification, by which the child of God is built up in his most holy faith, and rendered more and more conformed
to the image of God’s dear Son. At every step there is the scriptural impress of the Spirit, from first to last. (J. B.
Owen, M. A.)
The Spirit of God considered as the chief agent in the work of the new creation
In fulfilment of this process of new creation, the Spirit of God descends upon the benighted surface of the
human soul.
1. In order to dissipate the darkness in which it is naturally involved. The mind of man, as disordered,
corrupted, and clouded by sin, may well be compared to that confused and rayless obscurity which
rested over the face of the abyss. It is enveloped in a thick, impenetrable mantle of ignorance,
prejudice, and unconcern. And it is only when the Spirit of God begins to move upon the stagnant
waters of his cold and damp indifference, that light breaks in upon his mind.
2. Another function equally necessary and important, which the Spirit of God performs in the new creation
of the soul, is that of purification. The mind of each one of us, by nature, is full of all impurity and
pollution. In this condition we are utterly unfit for the service of God here, and the presence of God
hereafter--unfit for communion with God by prayer and devout meditation--unfit for the suitable and
acceptable discharge of any one of the duties of God’s worship--unfit for life--unfit for death. Under
these circumstances it becomes a question of supreme and paramount importance, whether a
renovating process has been commenced upon us--whether, under the influence of the salutary
motions of the Spirit of God, we have made it our endeavour to cleanse ourselves from all impurity of
flesh and spirit, and to perfect holiness in the fear of God--whether the various streams of thought,
feeling, and conduct, are gradually purifying from their drossy and turbid aspect, and whether our whole
character from day to day becomes more thoroughly assimilated to the Divine image, and assumes
more of the complexion and the hue of heaven.
3. In connection with the effects already specified, the human soul requires to be reduced to order, and to
be harmonized in its various principles and habits. By the fatal shock which it received in Eden, the
whole system has been disorganized. In relation to the character and attributes of Jehovah--to His
revealed will and the whole range of His service--to the objects and pursuits connected with a spiritual
and eternal world, it is altogether out of joint. By the original apostasy from God, in fact, the whole
nature of man went to wreck. The various elements of his being forsook their proper combination and
position in the system, and entered into new and most destructive relations. The wild and tumultuous
anarchy of his affections is like the troubled sea when it cannot rest, whose waters cast up mire and
dirt. The scene of chaos, in which heaven and earth, fire and water, were commingled together into one
vast ocean of jarring elements, was not more replete with confusion than is the mind, when let loose
unto itself, and freed from the soothing restraints, and the controlling and regulating impulses, of that
Spirit which moved upon the face of the waters. It is this Spirit alone, who can rectify the deep disorders
of our nature. It is He alone who can separate, direct, soothe, and harmonize the warring elements of
our carnal and unsubdued mind, and reduce every faculty and affection into the cheerful and meek
obedience of the faith. It is He alone who can restrain the aberrations of the judgment--who can check
the wanderings of the imagination--who can curb the impetuosity of the passions, and attemper the
whole soul and spirit into one harmonious and well-balanced scheme of Christian character and
conduct. Other means may be used, indeed, and ought to be used. The Bible should be read--the
ordinances of religion should be attended--the duties of prayer, and devout meditation and reflection,
should be solemnly and uninterruptedly discharged; but other means, without the accompanying and
moving energies of the Spirit, will be found ineffectual.
4. Nor is the Spirit merely the author of light, purity, and order, in the formation of the new creature, but life
itself: that which is essential to the exercise and enjoyment of all other endowments in His special gift.
While He moved upon the face of the waters, the command went forth, and they were at once seen to
teem with animated existence. Impregnated with His vital energies, the great deep became instinct with
life and motion. The various forms of vegetable and organized existence--the tenants of the ]and, and
those that wing their flight through the regions of air, were seen to burst forth from its capacious bosom,
until every quarter of the universe became peopled with its appropriate inhabitants. The great Spirit,
who was thus the primary agent in kindling material nature into life, is also the author of that higher life
which pervades the new creation. (J. Davies, B. D.)
The creation
I. THE SPIRIT OF GOD BROUGHT ORDER AND DEVELOPMENT TO THE MATERIAL WORLD. How did
that shapeless mass become such a world as this? What account of the transition does science give? It says,
“Change succeeded to change, in strict accordance with physical law, very slowly but surely, with no sudden
transitions, till, step by step, the one condition passed into the other.” Those regular changes were all that
appeared; and they are all which appear now, though the same changes are still going on. We cannot see the
intelligence, the mind, which directs the works of nature; but it is equally true that we cannot see them in the
works of man. Yet the mind of man is at work, though invisible, animating his body; and it is truer to speak of his
mind as planning the house he builds, and the steam engine he sets to work, than to say that the materials
came together into their right places, though that is all that we see. And so it is truer to say that the Invisible
Mind, the unseen Spirit of God, moved upon the formless earth, and brought it to its present ordered form, than
to say it happened so. Science mentions only what appeared; but Genesis tells the deeper truth, that the
informing mind accomplished all--Genesis, which was written centuries before science was born. There is
special fitness in the words employed, “The Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.” It indicates the
quiet untiring ways in which God works in the heavens and the earth.
II. THE SPIRIT OF GOD MUST BRING ORDER AND DEVELOPMENT TO THE SPIRITUAL WORLD. The
moral and spiritual nature of man forms quite another world from the material universe, and yet how closely the
two are linked in the human body and soul! Look at the moral and spiritual nature of men. How high they can
rise! so high that there is fitness in speaking of God’s image in them as a real kinship of nature with God. What
noble examples there have been among men, of righteousness, faithfulness, and love--the very attributes of
God--yet we feel man has not realized the greatness and goodness that he may. But how low men can sink! to
what extremes of wrong, and treachery, and selfishness, and cruelty! We cannot picture it all; to do so would be
to have present to the mind what human society has been and is--the crimes, the woes, the degradation, and
shame, of generations of human lives and hearts. To picture human society as it is--I mean especially its evils--
would be more, not only than imagery could realize, but more than any feeling heart could bear. The material
chaos is but a faint image of this deeper spiritual chaos; but taking it as such, we may ask, Does God leave the
world in this chaos of degradation and woe? Turn to another Bible picture: “I beheld, and, lo, a great multitude,
which no man could number, of all nations, and kindreds, and people, and tongues, stood before the throne,
and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes” (emblems of purity), “and palms in their hands” (emblems of
victory). (T. M. Herbert, M. A.)
Copyright Statement
Text Courtesy of BibleSupport.com. Used by Permission.
Bibliography
Exell, Joseph S. "Commentary on "Genesis 1:2". The Biblical Illustrator. https:https://www.studylight.org/commentaries/tbi/genesis-1.html. 1905-
1909. New York.
Coffman's Commentaries on the Bible
"And the earth was waste and void; and darkness was upon the face of the waters: and the Spirit of
God moved upon the face of the waters."
"And the earth was waste and void ..." This refers to the state of the earth in the first phase of its creation,
and it is also an apt description of the other planets as they are observed to continue in our solar system to the
present time. Mars, Venus, Mercury, etc. are still waste and void. It is not necessary to postulate billions of
years between Genesis 1:1 and Genesis 1:2 in order to help God find the time to do all that He did for our earth.
It is true, of course, that no revelation has been given with reference to the time-lag between these verses; but
men's imagining that billions or trillions of years elapsed here or there does nothing to diminish the mysterious
miracle visible in Genesis. If it should be supposed that God launched a waste and void earth upon a journey
that required billions of years to accomplish His wise designs, then, God's power in doing a thing like that is one
and the same thing as His ability to have spoken the perfect and completed earth into existence
instantaneously.
"And darkness was upon the face of the deep ..." This is a reference to the state of the earth when it was
waste and void. The melancholy waste of the mighty seas; and it is not necessary to understand this as a
reference to the molten, superheated earth, in which metals, earth and all elements, with the abundant waters
might be referred to collectively as "the deep." In such a condition all waters would have been driven into the
earth's atmosphere. The big thing that appears in this verse is the abundant water supply, one of the principle
prerequisites of life in any form. This water supply was evidently part of the special creation benefiting our earth,
making the passage a further detail of God's creating the earth (Genesis 1:1).
"And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters ..." Significantly, the Third Person of the
Godhead appears here alongside God Himself. Whitelaw assures us that the term for "moved" actually means
"brooded" as in the older versions; and it means "to be tremulous with love."[2] The Spirit here is the Blessed
Holy Spirit, concerning whom much more information appears in the N.T. The primeval chaos that characterized
this early phase of our planet is most significant. The complex, systematic order that characterized it later could
never have evolved from chaos. Without the fiat of Almighty God, the unaided chaos would have become more
and more chaotic. The Second Law of Thermodynamics is absolutely irreversible. Only creation could have
changed chaos into order and symmetry. God made all things "ex nihilo."
Copyright Statement
James Burton Coffman Commentaries reproduced by permission of Abilene Christian University Press, Abilene, Texas, USA. All other rights
reserved.
Bibliography
Coffman, James Burton. "Commentary on Genesis 1:2". "Coffman Commentaries on the Old and New Testament".
https:https://www.studylight.org/commentaries/bcc/genesis-1.html. Abilene Christian University Press, Abilene, Texas, USA. 1983-1999.
John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible
And the earth was without form, and void,.... It was not in the form it now is, otherwise it must have a form,
as all matter has; it was a fluid matter, the watery parts were not separated from the earthy ones; it was not put
into the form of a terraqueous globe it is now, the sea apart, and the earth by itself, but were mixed and blended
together; it was, as both the Targums of Jonathan and Jerusalem paraphrase it, a waste and desert, empty and
destitute of both men and beasts; and it may be added, of fishes and fowls, and also of trees, herbs, and plants.
It was, as OvidF11 calls it, a chaos and an indigested mass of matter; and HesiodF12 makes a chaos first to
exist, and then the wide extended earth, and so OrpheusF13, and others; and this is agreeably to the notion of
various nations. The Chinese make a chaos to be the beginning of all things, out of which the immaterial being
(God) made all things that consist of matter, which they distinguish into parts they call Yin and Yang, the one
signifying hidden or imperfect, the other open or perfectF14: and so the Egyptians, according to Diodorus
SiculusF15, whose opinion he is supposed to give, thought the system of the universe had but one form; the
heaven and earth, and the nature of them, being mixed and blended together, until by degrees they separated
and obtained the form they now have: and the Phoenicians, as SanchoniathoF16 relates, supposed the principle
of the universe to be a dark and windy air, or the blast of a dark air, and a turbid chaos surrounded with
darkness, as follows,
and darkness was upon the face of the deep: the whole fluid mass of earth and water mixed together. This
abyss is explained by waters in the next clause, which seem to be uppermost; and this was all a dark turbid
chaos, as before expressed, without any light or motion, till an agitation was made by the Spirit, as is next
observed:
and the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters, which covered the earth, Psalm 104:6 the earthy
particles being heaviest sunk lower, and the waters being lighter rose up above the others: hence ThalesF17 the
philosopher makes water to be the beginning of all things, as do the Indian BrahmansF18: and AristotleF19
himself owns that this was the most ancient opinion concerning the origin of the universe, and observes, that it
was not only the opinion of Thales, but of those that were the most remote from the then present generation in
which he lived, and of those that first wrote on divine things; and it is frequent in Hesiod and Homer to make
Oceanus, or the ocean, with Tethys, to be the parents of generation: and so the Scriptures represent the
original earth as standing out of the water, and consisting of it, 2 Peter 3:5 and upon the surface of these
waters, before they were drained off the earth, "the Spirit of God moved"; which is to be understood not of a
wind, as Onkelos, Aben Ezra, and many Jewish writers, as well as Christians, interpret it; since the air, which
the wind is a motion of, was not made until the second day. The Targums of Jonathan and Jerusalem call it the
spirit of mercies; and by it is meant the Spirit of the Messiah, as many Jewish writersF20 call him; that is, the
third Person in the blessed Trinity, who was concerned in the creation of all things, as in the garnishing of the
heavens, so in bringing the confused matter of the earth and water into form and order; see Job 26:13. This
same Spirit "moved" or broodedF21 upon the face of the waters, to impregnate them, as an hen upon eggs to
hatch them, so he to separate the parts which were mixed together, and give them a quickening virtue to
produce living creatures in them. This sense and idea of the word are finely expressed by our poetF23. Some
traces of this appear in the νους or mind of Anaxagoras, which when all things were mixed together came and
set them in orderF24; and the "mens" of Thales he calls God, which formed all things out of waterF25; and the
"spiritus intus alit", &c. of Virgil; and with this agrees what Hermes says, that there was an infinite darkness in
the abyss or deep, and water, and a small intelligent spirit, endued with a divine power, were in the chaosF26:
and perhaps from hence is the mundane egg, or egg of OrpheusF1: or the firstborn or first laid egg, out of which
all things were formed; and which he borrowed from the Egyptians and Phoenicians, and they perhaps from the
Jews, and which was reckoned by them a resemblance of the world. The Egyptians had a deity they called
Cneph, out of whose mouth went forth an egg, which they interpreted of the worldF2: and the Zophasemin of
the Phoenicians, which were heavenly birds, were, according to SanchoniathoF3, of the form of an egg; and in
the rites of Bacchus they worshipped an egg, as being an image of the world, as MacrobiusF4 says; and
therefore he thought the question, whether an hen or an egg was oldest, was of some moment, and deserved
consideration: and the Chinese sayF5, that the first man was produced out of the chaos as from an egg, the
shell of which formed the heavens, the white the air, and the yolk the earth; and to this incubation of the spirit,
or wind, as some would have it, is owing the windy egg of AristophanesF6. (Thomas Chamlers (1780-1847) in
1814 was the first to purpose that there is a gap between verse 1 and 2. Into this gap he places a pre-Adamic
age, about which the scriptures say nothing. Some great catastrophe took place, which left the earth "without
form and void" or ruined, in which state it remained for as many years as the geologist required.F7 This
speculation has been popularised by the 1917 Scofield Reference Bible. However, the numerous rock layers
that are the supposed proof for these ages, were mainly laid down by Noah's flood. In Exodus 20:11 we read of
a literal six day creation. No gaps, not even for one minute, otherwise these would not be six normal days. Also,
in Romans 5:12 we read that death is the result of Adam's sin. Because the rock layers display death on a
grand scale, they could not have existed before the fall of Adam. There is no direct evidence that the earth is
much older than six thousand years. However, we have the direct eyewitness report of God himself that he
made everything in six days. Tracing back through the biblical genealogies we can determine the age of the
universe to be about six thousand years with an error of not more than two per cent.
Copyright Statement
The New John Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible Modernised and adapted for the computer by Larry Pierce of Online Bible. All Rightes
Reserved, Larry Pierce, Winterbourne, Ontario.
A printed copy of this work can be ordered from: The Baptist Standard Bearer, 1 Iron Oaks Dr, Paris, AR, 72855
Bibliography
Gill, John. "Commentary on Genesis 1:2". "The New John Gill Exposition of the Entire Bible".
https:https://www.studylight.org/commentaries/geb/genesis-1.html. 1999.
Geneva Study Bible
And the earth was b without form, and void; and c darkness [was] upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of
God d moved upon the face of the waters.
(b) As an unformed lump and without any creature in it: for the waters covered everything.
(c) Darkness covered the deep waters, for the waters covered everything.
(d) He maintained this disordered mass by his secret power.
Copyright Statement
Bibliography
Beza, Theodore. "Commentary on Genesis 1:2". "The 1599 Geneva Study Bible". https:https://www.studylight.org/commentaries/gsb/genesis-
1.html. 1599-1645.
Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
the earth was without form and void — or in “confusion and emptiness,” as the words are rendered in Isaiah
34:11. This globe, at some undescribed period, having been convulsed and broken up, was a dark and watery
waste for ages perhaps, till out of this chaotic state, the present fabric of the world was made to arise.
the Spirit of God moved — literally, continued brooding over it, as a fowl does, when hatching eggs. The
immediate agency of the Spirit, by working on the dead and discordant elements, combined, arranged, and
ripened them into a state adapted for being the scene of a new creation. The account of this new creation
properly begins at the end of this second verse; and the details of the process are described in the natural way
an onlooker would have done, who beheld the changes that successively took place.
Copyright Statement
These files are a derivative of an electronic edition prepared from text scanned by Woodside Bible Fellowship.
This expanded edition of the Jameison-Faussett-Brown Commentary is in the public domain and may be freely used and distributed.
Bibliography
Jamieson, Robert, D.D.; Fausset, A. R.; Brown, David. "Commentary on Genesis 1:2". "Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole
Bible". https:https://www.studylight.org/commentaries/jfb/genesis-1.html. 1871-8.
Hawker's Poor Man's Commentary
Mark! what a resemblance there is between the empty void of nature, before the lights of heaven were
introduced into the creation, and that of the human soul before the light of grace hath passed upon it. No
expression can more strikingly point out the state of an unawakened, unregenerated soul, than that of darkness
covering it. Isaiah 60:2.
Copyright Statement
Bibliography
Hawker, Robert, D.D. "Commentary on Genesis 1:2". "Hawker's Poor Man's Commentary".
https:https://www.studylight.org/commentaries/pmc/genesis-1.html. 1828.
Wesley's Explanatory Notes
And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit
of God moved upon the face of the waters.
Where we have an account of the first matter, and the first Mover1. A chaos was the first matter. 'Tis here called
the earth, (tho' the earth, properly taken, was not made 'till the third day, Genesis 1:10) because it did most
resemble that which was afterwards called earth, a heavy unwieldy mass. 'Tis also called the deep, both for its
vastness, and because the waters which were afterwards separated from the earth were now mixed with it. This
mighty bulk of matter was it, out of which all bodies were afterwards produced. The Creator could have made
his work perfect at first, but by this gradual proceeding he would shew what is ordinarily the method of his
providence, and grace. This chaos, was without form and void. Tohu and Bohu, confusion and emptiness, so
those words are rendered, Isaiah 34:11. 'Twas shapeless, 'twas useless, 'twas without inhabitants, without
ornaments; the shadow or rough draught of things to come. To those who have their hearts in heaven, this
lower world, in comparison of the upper, still appears to be confusion and emptiness. And darkness was upon
the face of the deep-God did not create this darkness, (as he is said to create the darkness of affliction, Isaiah
45:7.) for it was only the want of light2. The Spirit of God was the first Mover; He moved upon the face of the
waters - He moved upon the face of the deep, as the hen gathereth her chicken under her wings, and hovers
over them, to warm and cherish them, Matthew 23:37 as the eagle stirs up her nest, and fluttereth over her
young, ('tis the same word that is here used) Deuteronomy 32:11.
Copyright Statement
These files are public domain and are a derivative of an electronic edition that is available on the Christian Classics Ethereal Library Website.
Bibliography
Wesley, John. "Commentary on Genesis 1:2". "John Wesley's Explanatory Notes on the Whole Bible".
https:https://www.studylight.org/commentaries/wen/genesis-1.html. 1765.
Calvin's Commentary on the Bible
2.And the earth was without form and void. I shall not be very solicitous about the exposition of these two
epithets, ‫תוהו‬, (tohu,) and ‫בוהו‬, (bohu.) The Hebrews use them when they designate anything empty and
confused, or vain, and nothing worth. Undoubtedly Moses placed them both in opposition to all those created
objects which pertain to the form, the ornament and the perfection of the world. Were we now to take away, I
say, from the earth all that God added after the time here alluded to, then we should have this rude and
unpolished, or rather shapeless chaos. (44) Therefore I regard what he immediately subjoins that “darkness
was upon the face of the abyss,” (45) as a part of that confused emptiness: because the light began to give
some external appearance to the world. For the same reason he calls it the abyss and waters, since in that
mass of matter nothing was solid or stable, nothing distinct.
And the Spirit of God Interpreters have wrested this passage in various ways. The opinion of some that it
means the wind, is too frigid to require refutation. They who understand by it the Eternal Spirit of God, do
rightly; yet all do not attain the meaning of Moses in the connection of his discourse; hence arise the various
interpretations of the participle ‫מרחפת‬, (merachepeth.) I will, in the first place, state what (in my judgment)
Moses intended. We have already heard that before God had perfected the world it was an undigested mass;
he now teaches that the power of the Spirit was necessary in order to sustain it. For this doubt might occur to
the mind, how such a disorderly heap could stand; seeing that we now behold the world preserved by
government, or order. (46) He therefore asserts that this mass, however confused it might be, was rendered
stable, for the time, by the secret efficacy of the Spirit. Now there are two significations of the Hebrew word
which suit the present place; either that the spirit moved and agitated itself over the waters, for the sake of
putting forth vigor; or that He brooded over them to cherish them. (47) Inasmuch as it makes little difference in
the result, whichever of these explanations is preferred, let the reader’s judgment be left free. But if that chaos
required the secret inspiration of God to prevent its speedy dissolution; how could this order, so fair and distinct,
subsist by itself, unless it derived strength elsewhere? Therefore, that Scripture must be fulfilled,
‘Send forth thy Spirit, and they shall be created, and thou shalt renew the face of the earth,’ (Psalms 104:30;)
so, on the other hand, as soon as the Lord takes away his Spirit, all things return to their dust and vanish away,
(Psalms 104:29.)
Copyright Statement
Bibliography
Calvin, John. "Commentary on Genesis 1:2". "Calvin's Commentary on the Bible". https:https://www.studylight.org/commentaries/cal/genesis-
1.html. 1840-57.
Scofield's Reference Notes
without form and void
Jeremiah 4:23-27; Isaiah 24:1; Isaiah 45:18 clearly indicate that the earth had undergone a cataclysmic change
as the result of divine judgment. The face of the earth bears everywhere the marks of such a catastrophe.
There are not wanting imitations which connect it with a previous testing and fall of angels.
See Ezekiel 28:12-15; Isaiah 14:9-14 which certainly go beyond the kings of Tyre and Babylon.
Copyright Statement
These files are considered public domain and are a derivative of an electronic edition that is available in the Online Bible Software Library.
Bibliography
Scofield, C. I. "Scofield Reference Notes on Genesis 1:2". "Scofield Reference Notes (1917 Edition)".
https:https://www.studylight.org/commentaries/srn/genesis-1.html. 1917.
Sermon Bible Commentary
Genesis 1:2
We should be sure we understand both Nature and Scripture before we pronounce certainly on their agreement
or disagreement, and it can hardly be said that either is quite understood. To attempt to reconcile all the
expressions in this chapter with the details of science is a mistake. It has certain true things to declare, facts of
nature which have a religious bearing, and are a needed introduction to the revelation which follows; and these
facts it presents in the poetic form natural to the East, and most suited to impress all kinds of readers. The "six
days" are fit stages in a poetical account of the great evolution, even as a play acted in a few hours represents
the events of years. Three great lessons are impressed in this chapter: (1) that God is the Maker of heaven and
earth; (2) that by means of His operation on dead and formless matter the order and beauty of the varied and
living world were produced; (3) that the change was gradual. The Spirit of God brought order and development
to the material world. We cannot see the Intelligence, the Mind which directs the works of nature; but it is
equally true that we cannot see them in the works of man. It is truer to say that the Invisible Mind, the unseen
Spirit of God, moved upon the formless earth and brought it to its present ordered form, than to say it happened
so. The Spirit of God moved, i.e., brooded as a bird over her young. This indicates the quiet, untiring ways in
which God works in the heavens and the earth. The Spirit of God must bring order and development (1) to the
spiritual world, (2) to the individual soul. The Spirit of God must move or brood upon the worse than darkness of
sinful and godless hearts.
T. M. Herbert, Sketches of Sermons, p. 1.
References: Genesis 1:2—R. M. McCheyne, Additional Remains, p. 88; Sermons for the Christian Seasons, 2nd Series, vol. ii., p.
593; R. W. Evans, Parochial Sermons, p. 237; Bishop H. Browne, Old Testament Outlines, p. 2; A. P. Stanley, Good Words
(1875), p. 273; B. Waugh, Sunday Magazine (1887), p. 63. Genesis 1:3—A. P. Stanley, Church Sermons, vol. i., p. 171 (see
also Old Testament Outlines, p. 3); B. Waugh, Sunday Magazine (1887), p. 61. Genesis 1:4.—Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xxi.,
No. 1252; Spurgeon, Morning by Morning, p. 5; Spurgeon, Evening by Evening, pp. 5, 192; Parker, Pulpit Notes, p. 148;
Christian World Pulpit, vol. ii., p. 113.
Copyright Statement
Bibliography
Nicoll, William R. "Commentary on Genesis 1:2". "Sermon Bible Commentary". https:https://www.studylight.org/commentaries/sbc/genesis-1.html.
Thomas Coke Commentary on the Holy Bible
Genesis 1:2. And the earth was without form, and void— In its first state the earth, or the whole of the
terraqueous globe, was a mere confused chaos, without any regular form, or without any of its present furniture,
plants, trees, animals, &c.
Darkness on the face of the deep— Every thing was yet in a stagnant, black, and unformed state; and the
whole face of the deep, or vast abyss of primordial matter, was inveloped in total darkness: there was an
absolute privation of all light.
And the Spirit of God— ‫ רוח‬ruach, i.e.. The Holy Spirit, the third person in the Trinity; or, as some of the
ancient Jews called him, the Spirit of the Messiah, who was the first mover in this creative operation: which
explains the Evangelist St. John, who, in the beginning of his Gospel, says, that all things were made by the
eternal ΛΟΓΟΣ, or Word of God, (the same with the νους , or mind of the ancient philosophers,) whose
Almighty Spirit agitated the vast confused mass of matter, and put it into form.
Moved— The word ‫ ףּרח‬rechep, whence ‫ מרחפת‬mera-chepeth, seems properly to signify to make a
tremulous or fluttering motion, such as that of an eagle fluttering over her nest; in which sense it is used,
Deuteronomy 32:11 fluttereth over her young.
Face of the waters— The same with the face of the deep, the abyss just mentioned, the terraqueous unformed
mass: which perhaps may the rather be called waters, as the earthy particles, being the heaviest, would
naturally sink to the center; and the watery, in consequence, would occupy the superficies of the mass. It may
be worth while to observe here, how much the heathens have borrowed of their theogony from the account
given by Moses: Chaos and darkness, according to them, were in the beginning:
Love, or a plastic spirit, brooded over this chaos, as over an egg: and from water, many of their greatest
philosophers derived the beginning of all things.
REFLECTIONS.—Such as appeared the material world before the Spirit of God quickened the lifeless lump;
such is now the spiritual world, till the same Divine Power interposes. 1. The soul of man by sin, is become a
heap of confusion: as dead to God, and incapable of producing any fruits of holiness, as the unformed chaos to
produce trees or flowers. 2. Darkness covers it: we have neither the faculty of vision to descry, nor light to
illuminate spiritual objects. We know nothing of ourselves, our God, our Saviour, our proper work, our
happiness, as we ought to know. 3. The whole world, which now lieth in wickedness, presents to the
enlightened mind a lively image of this original confusion and emptiness. Darkness surrounds it, no beauty
appears, God is forgotten; the jarring elements of corrupt nature breed wild uproar; and universal desolation
seems diffused around. The heart that hath been taught its true rest, daily cries after that new heaven and new
earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness. 4. As incapable as this chaos was, of forming itself into order; as
impossible as it was for this darkness to produce the light, or kindle up the sun; so impossible is it for man, by
any powers or ability of his own, to restore his fallen soul to the image of God, or to produce one beam of
heavenly light, or spark of spiritual life. 5. It is the office of the Spirit of God alone to produce light and order in
the dark and chaotic soul. 6. Be our mortal bodies however dissolved in earth, fire, water, air, He who first
moved upon the face of the waters, can by the same energy recall the scattered particles of our dust, and from
the dissipated and disjointed atoms raise up a glorious body, bright as the sun when it shineth in its strength.
Copyright Statement
Bibliography
Coke, Thomas. "Commentary on Genesis 1:2". Thomas Coke Commentary on the Holy Bible.
https:https://www.studylight.org/commentaries/tcc/genesis-1.html. 1801-1803.
Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible
The same confused mass or heap is here called both
earth, from its most solid and substantial part; and the
deep, from its vast bulk and depth; and waters, from its outward face and covering. See Psalms 104:6 2 Peter
3:5.
Without form and void; without order and beauty, and without furniture and use.
Upon the face, the surface or uppermost part of it, upon which the light afterward shone. Thus not the earth
only, but also the heaven above it, was without light, as is manifest from the following verses.
The Spirit of God; not the wind, which was not yet created, as is manifest, because the air, the matter or
subject of it, was not yet produced; but the Third Person of the glorious Trinity, called the Holy Ghost, to whom
the work of creation is attributed, Job 26:13, as it is ascribed to the Second Person, the Son, John 1:3
Colossians 1:16-17, Hebrews 1:3, and to the First Person, the Father, every where.
Upon the face of the waters, i.e. upon the waters, to cherish, quicken, and dispose them to the production of
the things after mentioned. It is a metaphor from birds hovering and fluttering over, and sitting upon their eggs
and young ones, to cherish, warm, and quicken them.
Copyright Statement
Bibliography
Poole, Matthew, "Commentary on Genesis 1:2". Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible.
https:https://www.studylight.org/commentaries/mpc/genesis-1.html. 1685.
Expository Notes of Dr. Thomas Constable
2. Conditions at the time of creation1:2
Genesis 1:2 probably describes what we now call the earth before God created it. Here "earth" refers to the
whole planet, though the same English word also refers to the earth and the heavens (when combined
with "heaven," Genesis 1:1), and to dry land ( Genesis 1:10).
". . . no clear biblical text testifies to the origins of chaos or of the Serpent, nor to the reason for their
existence." [Note: Bruce K. Waltke, An Old Testament Theology, p181.]
"Deep" (tahom) describes the world. In the Old Testament tahom refers to the ocean, which the ancient world
regarded as symbolic of chaos and evil that needed overcoming and which Yahweh overcame. However its use
in the Pentateuch helps us understand the writer"s intent in using this term here.
". . . he calls the global ocean (the "deep") in Genesis 1:2 a "desert." This is not apparent in the English
translation "formless," but the NASB notes it in the margin as a "wasteland."... Moses uses this term (
Deuteronomy 32:10) to describe the desert wasteland where Israel wandered for forty years. Why call an
ocean a desert? What better way to teach the people that the God who will lead them out of the
wilderness and give them the promised land is the same God who once prepared the land for them by
dividing the waters and producing the "dry land"? The God of the Pentateuch is One who leads his
people from the wasteland to the promised land." [Note: Sailhamer, "Exegetical Notes . . .," pp80-81.]
Some scholars believe that references to the Spirit of God in the Old Testament indicate the power or influence
of God, not the third person of the Trinity. Some conservative scholars believe that, though the Spirit was really
the third person of the Trinity, people living during the Old Testament period did not associate the Spirit with
God Himself. They thought of the Spirit as a power or influence of God. However there are several indications
in the Old Testament that informed Israelites identified the Spirit as God (cf. Genesis 1:2; 2 Kings 2:9; Psalm
104:30; Ezekiel 3:12-14; Ezekiel 11:1; Zechariah 4:6). [Note: See Leon J. Wood, The Holy Spirit in the Old
Testament, and idem, The Prophets of Israel, pp85-87.]
"Waters" is also capable of being interpreted the same way as "deep." It probably refers to what
covered the earth, but it also suggests chaos.
Here we learn that the earth was "formless and empty" (a hendiadys meaning unorganized, unproductive,
and uninhabited) before God graciously prepared it for human habitation (cf. Jeremiah 4:23-27). A
hendiadys is a figure of speech in which the writer expresses a single complex idea by joining two substantives
with "and" rather than by using an adjective and a substantive.
Moses pictured the Spirit as a wind-the words are identical in Hebrew-moving over the unorganized creation. As
God did His work of creating by means of His Spirit, so believers are to do our work by His Spirit ( Zechariah
4:6; Romans 8; Ephesians 5:18).
"Hitherto all is static, lifeless, immobile. Motion, which is the essential element in change, originates
with God"s dynamic presence." [Note: Nahum Sarna, Understanding Genesis , p7.]
Genesis 1:2 seems to me to describe conditions that existed before God created the earth. Whereas Genesis
1:1 explains the creation of the universe, Genesis 1:2 pictures its pre-creation condition. Genesis 1:3-31 explain
the process of creation by which God formed what was formless and filled what was void.
There are two basic theories of the creation process that have grown out of interpretations of Genesis 1:2.
The gap theory
Statement: The classic statement of this theory contains the following ideas, though there have been many
variations on this theory.
1. There is an indefinite time gap (hence the name of the theory) between Genesis 1:1 and Genesis 1:2.
2. Genesis 1:1 reveals the creation of a perfect heaven and earth very different from what we see around us
now.
3. A preadamic race of humans inhabited this original creation.
4. Lucifer (unfallen Satan), whose "headquarters" was in the Garden of Eden, ruled over this race of
people.
5. When Lucifer rebelled-many advocates see this in Isaiah 14and or Ezekiel 28 -sin entered the world.
6. Part of God"s judgment of this rebellion was the destruction of the earth with a flood (in Noah"s day) followed
by a global ice age, which accounts for the fossils. [Note: For a creationist explanation of the ice ages, see Ken
Ham, Andrew Snelling, and Carl Wieland, The Answers Book, pp12-13 , 77-87.]
History: This is a very old theory that certain early Jewish writers and some church fathers held. Thomas
Chalmers promoted it in1814. [Note: See his Daily Scripture Readings, 1:1.] Chalmers" purpose was to
harmonize Scripture with Scripture, not Scripture with science. [Note: Waltke, Creation and . . ., p20.] Darwin"s
Origin of Species first appeared in1859 , but Chalmers published his theory in1814. Franz Delitzsch supported
it in1899. [Note: Franz Delitzsch, A System of Biblical Psychology, p74-76.] G. H. Pember"s book Earth"s
Ancient Ages (1907) gave further impetus to this view. Many Christian geologists favored the view because they
saw in it "an easy explanation for the fossil strata." [Note: John Whitcomb and Henry Morris, The Genesis
Flood, p92.] Harry Rimmer supported it [Note: Modern Science and the Genesis Record, 1941.] as did Arthur
W. Pink. [Note: Gleanings in Genesis , 1922 ] L. S. Chafer held it [Note: Systematic Theology, 1947-48 , 6:67.]
but did not emphasize it. Arthur Custance is one writer who has defended it fairly recently. [Note: Without Form
and Void, 1970.]
Arguments and Responses:
1. The first word in Genesis 1:2 (Heb. waw, "and") is a conjunction that indicates consecutive
occurrences. (This verbal form, by the way, is the basic characteristic of narrative in the Hebrew Bible.
[Note: Longman and Dillard, p54.] ) It introduces something that happened after what precedes. Response.
The verb tense and word order in this sentence do not permit this use of this conjunction ( Genesis 1:1-2).
Rather here, as is normal, the conjunction indicates a break in the consecutive order of events and introduces a
circumstantial (independent) clause ( Genesis 1:2) that describes something in a preceding clause ( Genesis
1:1). This is a waw disjunctive, not a waw consecutive. A better translation of the waw would be "now." In short,
the Hebrew grammar does not support a chronological gap between Genesis 1:1-2.
2. The verb (hayata, "was") can and should read "became." The translators have rendered it this way in
many other places in the Old Testament. Response. This is a legitimate translation, but "became" is not
always the best translation (cf. Jonah 3:3; Zechariah 3:3). Here the translation should be "was."
3. The chaos (tohu wa bohu, "waste and void," perhaps another hendiadys) describes an evil condition
(cf. Isaiah 24:1; Isaiah 45:18; Jeremiah 4:23). Response. This is usually the case, but not always (cf.
Deuteronomy 32:10; Job 6:18; Job 12:24; Job 26:7; Psalm 107:40). It is not so here.
4. "Darkness" is a symbol of evil in Scripture (cf. 1 John 1:5). This supports the badness of the condition
that resulted from Satan"s rebellion. Response. This is true in some cases, but not always (cf. Psalm 104:19-
24). Furthermore evening was part of the days God declared good.
5. The two primary words for "create" (bara and asah used respectively in Genesis 1:1 and Genesis 1:25) refer
to two different kinds of creativity. Bara usually refers to primary creative activity. Since Moses used bara in
Genesis 1:1 this was the original creation and not just a general description of the process that follows (in
Genesis 1:3-5 or Genesis 1:3-31). If Genesis 1:1 was a general description he would have used asah since
some of what God created in the six days He formed out of previously existing material (e.g, man and woman).
Response. These two words are not so distinct. For example, Moses used bara of the creation of man out of
previously existing material ( Genesis 1:27), and he used asah of the whole creation as the primary creative
activity of God ( Exodus 20:11). Furthermore, he used bara of the creation of some animals ( Genesis 1:21) and
asah of the creation of other animals ( Genesis 1:25). The real difference between these two words is that
Moses used bara only of divine activity, and he used asah of both divine and human activities. [Note: See
Thomas J. Finley, "Dimensions of the Hebrew Word for "Create" (bara)," Bibliotheca Sacra148:592 (October-
December1991):409-23.] Thus, bara and asah are very close together in meaning. We should not distinguish
them on the basis of bara describing primary creative activity and asah referring to the reforming of previously
existing material.
6. Adam was to "replenish" the earth ( Genesis 1:28, AV) implying a previous race. Response. The Hebrew
word used means "fill," not "refill." Many modern English translations so render it.
Summary: Though many evangelicals still hold the gap theory, few Hebrew scholars do because the Hebrew
grammar does not favor a chronologically sequential reading of Genesis 1:1-2. Rather, Genesis 1:2 in some
way clarifies Genesis 1:1. [Note: For a good explanation of the gap theory, as well as the atheistic evolution,
theistic evolution, progressive creation, and fiat creation views, see James M. Boice, Genesis , 1:37-68. See
also Henry M. Morris, "The Gap Theory," Creation Ex Nihilo10:1 (December1987-February1988):35-37; and
Ham, et al, pp16 , 157-75.]
The no-gap theory
The crux of the Genesis 1:2 interpretive problem lies in the identification of the chaos (tohu wa bohu, "formless
and void") mentioned. There have been three primary views concerning the chaos referred to in this
verse.
1. The chaos was a condition that resulted after God judged the earth that He had originally created
good. [Note: Chalmers, Keil and Delitzsch, Pember, Scofield, Custance, et al, favored this
interpretation.]
Explanation: Genesis 1:1 refers to God"s original creation of the universe. Genesis 1:2 is a reference to the
form He gave it thereafter. Genesis 1:3 refers to the beginning of the process of reforming the judged earth into
the form in which we know it.
Vocabulary: We should translate the first word in the verse (waw) "and" or "then" (not preferable
grammatically) and the verb (hayeta) "became" (possible but not preferable). We should interpret the chaos
(tohu wa bohu) as an evil condition (not necessarily so).
Sequence: This interpretation permits, but does not require, a gap in time between Genesis 1:1 and Genesis
1:2.
2. The chaos was the condition that characterized the earth when God created it good. [Note: Luther;
Young; Davis; Ross; J. Dwight Pentecost, Thy Kingdom Come, p29; Mark F. Rooker, " Genesis 1:1-3:
Creation or Revelation -Creation?" Bibliotheca Sacra149:595 (July-September1992):316-23; and596
(October-December1992):411-27; Targum Neofiti; et al.; favored this view. See Gary Anderson, "The
Interpretation of Genesis l:1 in the Targums," Catholic Biblical Quarterly52:1 (January1990):23. The
Targums are expanded translations of the Old Testament made during the Babylonian captivity in the
Aramaic language.]
Explanation: Genesis 1:1 states the creation of the universe as we know it, and it is a general statement of
some kind. Genesis 1:2 describes the earth at the time of its creation. Genesis 1:3 describes God bringing
order out of chaos, which continued through the six creative days.
Vocabulary: We should translate waw "now" (better) and hayeta "was" (also better). We should also take tohu
wa bohu to mean either unformed or evil.
Sequence: This interpretation involves no gap in time between Genesis 1:1 and Genesis 1:2.
3. The chaos existed before God began creating the earth good. [Note: Bush; Waltke, Creation and . . .;
idem, Genesis; Ross; Sailhamer, "Genesis;" et al.; advocated this view.]
Explanation: We should take Genesis 1:1 the same as in view2. Genesis 1:2 describes conditions as they
existed before creation. We should also take Genesis 1:3 the same as in view2.
Vocabulary: Advocates translate and interpret the key Hebrew words the same as in view2.
Sequence: This interpretation involves no gap in time between Genesis 1:1 and Genesis 1:2.
". . . the disjuncture at Genesis 1:2 is employed by the author to focus his creation account upon the
land." [Note: Sailhamer, "Exegetical Notes . . .," p77.]
The more popular theory among evangelicals now is the no-gap theory in either one of the last two forms
described above. Let me restate these last two views.
1. View2above: God created the earth in a formless and void state. He then proceeded to give it form
and to fill it. [Note: Young, et al.]
"We would affirm that the first verse serves as a broad comprehensive statement of the fact of creation.
Verse two describes the earth as it came from the hands of the Creator and as it existed at the time
when God commanded the light to shine forth. The first recorded step in the process of fashioning the
earth into the form in which it now appears was God"s remarkable utterance, "Let there be light" [
Genesis 1:3]." [Note: Ibid, p14.]
Problem: It seems unusual that God would create the earth formless and then form it. It seems more likely and
consistent with His activity in Genesis 1:3-31 that He would create it fully formed. [Note: Brevard S. Childs, Myth
and Reality in the Old Testament, p30.]
Answer: The whole process of creation in Genesis 1:3-31 is a movement from a more primitive to a more
advanced stage of existence. I prefer this view.
2. View3above: Before God created the earth there was nothing where it now exists, and Genesis 1:2
describes that nothingness. [Note: Waltke, et al.]
Problem: Some terms in Genesis 1:2 (darkness, surface, deep, waters) imply that something existed at this
time, suggesting some creative activity before Genesis 1:3.
Answers: Genesis 1:1 may be part of the first day of creation. Moses may have used these terms to describe,
in terms that we can begin to understand (i.e, figurative terms), a condition that is entirely foreign and
incomprehensible to us.
Copyright Statement
Bibliography
Constable, Thomas. DD. "Commentary on Genesis 1:2". "Expository Notes of Dr. Thomas Constable".
https:https://www.studylight.org/commentaries/dcc/genesis-1.html. 2012.
Whedon's Commentary on the Bible
2. And the earth was without form and void — Having stated in the first verse the great fact of the creation,
the writer now proceeds to unfold the manner and order of that creation. Here we must differ from those critics
who understand Genesis 1:1 of the primordial matter of the universe, and the following verses of a subsequent
series of growths. The analogy of the entire Book of Genesis confirms the view of those who regard Genesis
1:1 as a heading or general statement of the substance of the whole following section, which the succeeding
verses go on to elaborate in detail. So Genesis 2:4; Genesis 5:1; Genesis 10:1; Genesis 11:10; Genesis 11:27,
etc., are respectively the headings of so many sections of this ancient Book of the Beginning and Generations
of human history. In every instance, after first positing a general statement of his subject, the writer proceeds to
narrate the details which his statement involves. The words used in the first verse needed an explanation,
which the rest of the chapter at once supplies. The statement, so often made, that the conjunction and ( ‫ ) ו‬at
the beginning of Genesis 1:2 forbids the supposition that Genesis 1:1 is a summary of the whole chapter, is
seen to be futile by a comparison of the immediate sequence of other headings of sections named above. The
words ‫ תהו ובהו‬are rendered by Onkelos waste and empty; by Aquila, emptiness and nothing; by Vulgate,
empty and void; and by the Sept., invisible and unformed. The words appear in the same form again in
Jeremiah 4:23. They here describe the land as waste and empty, and the context shows that it was as yet
covered with waters, so as to form a part and condition of the deep, over the surface or face of which there was
darkness. Whether light had ever beamed upon that deep, or how the land and the waters came to be so
intermixed, are questions on which the writer utters no sentiment.
The Spirit of God moved ( ‫מרחפת‬, brooding, comp. Deuteronomy 32:11 ) upon the face of the waters —
The Divine Spirit hovered down upon the deep, as the mighty Agent by whose power the darkness will be made
to vanish, and beauty and order arise out of desolation and emptiness. Observe, here is no broad statement
that darkness prevailed through the entire universe of God; nor is the deep or the waters to be identified with
the entire surface of the globe. FIRST DAY — LIGHT, 3-5.
Copyright Statement
Bibliography
Whedon, Daniel. "Commentary on Genesis 1:2". "Whedon's Commentary on the Bible".
https:https://www.studylight.org/commentaries/whe/genesis-1.html. 1874-1909.
Joseph Benson's Commentary of the Old and New Testaments
Genesis 1:2. The earth — When first called into existence, was without form and void: confusion and
emptiness, as the same original words are rendered, Isaiah 34:11. It was without order, beauty, or even use, in
its present state, and was surrounded on all sides with thick darkness, through the gloom of which there was
not one ray of light to penetrate not even so much as to render the darkness visible.
The Spirit of God moved, &c. — To cherish, quicken, and dispose them to the production of the things afterward
mentioned. The Hebrew word here rendered moved, is used, Deuteronomy 32:11, of the eagle fluttering over
her young, and of fowls brooding over their eggs and young ones, to warm and cherish them: but, we must
remember, that the expression, as here used, is purely metaphorical, and must not be considered as conveying
any ideas that are unworthy of the infinite and spiritual nature of the Holy Ghost.
Copyright Statement
Bibliography
Benson, Joseph. "Commentary on Genesis 1:2". Joseph Benson's Commentary. https:https://www.studylight.org/commentaries/rbc/genesis-
1.html. 1857.
George Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary
Spirit of God, giving life, vigour, and motion to things, and preparing the waters for the sacred office of baptism,
in which, by the institution of Jesus Christ, we must be born again; and, like spiritual fishes, swim amid the
tempestuous billows of this world. (v. Tert.[Tertullian?], &c.) (Worthington) (Haydock)---This Spirit is what the
Pagan philosophers styled the Soul of the World. (Calmet) --- If we compare their writings with the books of
Moses and the prophets, we shall find that they agree in many points. See Grotius. (Haydock)
Copyright Statement
Bibliography
Haydock, George Leo. "Commentary on Genesis 1:2". "George Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary".
https:https://www.studylight.org/commentaries/hcc/genesis-1.html. 1859.
Peter Pett's Commentary on the Bible
‘And the earth was without form and empty. And darkness was on the face of the deep. And the Spirit of
God moved on the face of the waters.’
“And the earth” - the connecting ‘’ (‘waw’) really excludes the suggestion of a gap between Genesis 1:1 and
Genesis 1:2. The writer could not have made the connection any closer (there are no verse divisions in the
original) - ‘ha aretz we ha aretz’ - ‘---the heavens and the earth, and the earth was ---’. Having spoken of the
creation of heavens and earth he is now turning his attention directly to the earth’s condition as created. It
should be noted that what is now immediately described is therefore limited to ‘the earth’. The remainder of the
universe is not in mind.
It was ‘tohu wa bohu’ - ‘without form and devoid of anything positive’. Try pronouncing the Hebrew quickly and
deeply (pronouncing toe - hoo wah boe -hoo). Like many Hebrew words it conveys its meaning by its sound as
well as by its interpretation. This is the condition in which God created the earth. He had made it formless that
He may give it form, He had made it empty that He might fill it. He had made it covered with water that from that
He might produce what is, as altered by His hand. There is no thought that it had ‘become’ this way, or was
naturally so. Nor that forces of chaos were at work against which God had to fight. It was as He had determined
it to be. God had created the earth covered in water and now He began His work upon it. No conflict is involved.
“Tohu” is used in both Hebrew and Arabic to indicate a waste place. The meaning of ‘bohu’ is uncertain, but in
Arabic it means ‘to be empty’. In the Old Testament it is only used in connection with ‘tohu’ (three times). Thus
the idea here is of an uninhabitable, lifeless and empty, water-covered earth.
“And darkness was on the face of the deep.” The point is that without God’s word there is no light. Darkness
is seen as negative. It is God’s positive action that brings light. Unless God acts the universe such as it is will
remain forever dark. So the primeval world is seen as formless, empty and dark, as without shape or evident
light. It is covered with water. Note that all that was outside of God and was visible was described as ‘the deep’,
and that everything that happens is seen from the point of view of earth. But the fact that he speaks of ‘the face
of the deep’ demonstrates that it is apart from God. This dark, unshaped, mass is not God, it is not everything
that is. It has a surface, and over that surface God waits and is about to act.
But why ‘the deep’. ‘The deep’ - ‘tehom’ (in Ugaritic ‘thm’) means ‘the deeps’, thus usually referring to the
oceans and seas. To the Israelite the deep itself was a mystery. It was dark, impenetrable, shapeless and for
ever fluid. It formed nothing solid or specific. Thus it indicated that which was impenetrable, and beyond man’s
sphere, that which was shapeless, dark and fluid. It had no form or shape, was ever changing and temporary,
and was suitable as a description of ultimate formlessness and barrenness. Here in the beginning it was dark
and unformed because light and shape and form and all significance had yet to come from God, and He had
not yet acted. There is no suggestion of a struggle. It is impersonal. We may speak of ‘chaos’ as long as we do
not read in ideas that are not there. It is chaos in the sense of being unshaped and unformed and not
controlled, utterly waste and shapeless and void. As being ‘empty’.
“And the Spirit of God hovered over the face of the waters.” This could also be translated ‘wind of God’.
Either way the idea is of God hovering over earth ready for action. In view of this, ‘Spirit’ is the most likely
meaning. It is the creative energy of God waiting to act. He Who is light is ready to act on darkness. He Who is
all that is significant would bring significance to this shapeless mass. (The translation ‘mighty wind’ is extremely
doubtful. The word ‘God’ appears too many times in this narrative for its appearance here to be just adjectival,
and there is no suggestion in the later narrative of the activity of a mighty wind. Creation takes place through
His word, not through a wind).
In the Old Testament when God’s direct action is seen in the world it is often described in terms of the ‘Spirit of
God’. To the Old Testament the Spirit of God is God extending Himself to act positively, locally and visibly in the
world. Basically the writer is saying here that God is now hovering over His world about to reveal Himself in
action. It should be noted that this description already assumes a kind of ‘heaven’ where the Spirit is hovering,
but not our heaven. Our earth and heaven is seen as not all that there is. It is probable therefore that he intends
us to see the Spirit in action in the following verses, acting through God’s word.
“Hovered”. Compare its use in Deuteronomy 32:11 of a bird hovering over its young. The same root in Ugaritic
means ‘hover, soar’. The word as used here suggests intimate concern.
“The face of the waters.” As light was positive and darkness was absence of light, so ‘land’ was positive and
‘waters’ or ‘deeps’ represented absence of land, in other words here there was the absence of the means of
creaturely existence and absence of shape and form. The deeps were fluid, unshaped, dark and mysterious.
They had no form. There was no atmosphere. They were therefore to the writer a perfect symbol of unformed
existence.
But while ‘the deep’ was formless and shapeless and fluid, the sphere of hovering was outside of this
emptiness, outside the beginnings of creation as we know it. God was not a part of the stuff of creation. He was
there ready to act upon it. This deep was the incomprehensibly mysterious described in terms of what was
indescribable, that which was formless and shapeless and waiting for God to give it shape, and form, and
significance. And God is pictured as by His Spirit waiting apart from it to act on it from the outside.
Copyright Statement
Bibliography
Pett, Peter. "Commentary on Genesis 1:2". "Peter Pett's Commentary on the Bible ". https:https://www.studylight.org/commentaries/pet/genesis-
1.html. 2013.
E.W. Bullinger's Companion Bible Notes
And. Note the Figure of speech Polysyndeton (App-6), by which, in the 34 verses of this Introduction, each one
of 102 separate acts are emphasized; and the important word "God" in Genesis 1:1 is carried like a lamp
through the whole of this Introduction (Genesis 1:1, Genesis 2:3).
the earth. Figure of speech Anadiplosis. See App-6.
was = became. See Genesis 2:7; Genesis 4:3; Genesis 9:15; Genesis 19:26. Exodus 32:1. Deuteronomy 27:9.
2 Samuel 7:24, &c. Also rendered came to pass Genesis 4:14; Genesis 22:1; Genesis 23:1; Genesis 27:1.
Joshua 4:1; Joshua 5:1. 1 Kings 13:32. Isaiah 14:24, &c. Also rendered be (in the sense of become) Genesis
1:3, &c, and where the verb "to be" is not in italic type. Hence, Exodus 3:1, kept = became keeper, quit =
become men, &c. See App-7.
without form = waste. Hebrew. tohu va bohu. Figure of speech Paronomasia. App-6. Not created tohu (Isaiah
45:18), but became tohu (Genesis 1:2. 2 Peter 3:5, 2 Peter 3:6). " An enemy hath done this" (Matthew 13:25,
Matthew 13:28, Matthew 13:39. Compare 1 Corinthians 14:33.) See App-8.
was. This is in italic type, because no verb "to be" in Hebrew. (App-7). In like manner man became a ruin
(Genesis 3; Psalms 14:1-3; Psalms 51:5; Psalms 53:1-3. Ecclesiastes 7:20. Romans 7:18).
face. Figure of speech Pleonasm. App-6.
the Spirit of God moved (see App-9) = The beginning of "the heavens and earth which are now" (2 Peter
3:7). It is even so in the New Creation. The Spirit moves (John 3:3-8. Romans 8:5, Romans 8:9, Romans 8:14.
Galatians 1:4, Galatians 1:29. 2 Corinthians 5:17, 2 Corinthians 5:18).
deep; waters = Job 38:29-30
Copyright Statement
Bibliography
Bullinger, Ethelbert William. "Commentary on Genesis 1:2". "E.W. Bullinger's Companion bible Notes".
https:https://www.studylight.org/commentaries/bul/genesis-1.html. 1909-1922.
Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible - Unabridged
And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God
moved upon the face of the waters.
And the earth was without form, and void. The relation of this to the preceding verse has been the subject of
much discussion; some considering that there is but a very loose and remote connection between them, while
others maintain that the two verses cannot be separated, because they both refer to the pre-Adamite earth-the
former asserting that it owed its origin, in common with all things else in the universe, to the fiat of Almighty
power, and the latter declaring what was its condition prior to the establishment of the present terrestrial order
of things. But, whether the connection between the two first verses be immediate and close, or loose and
remote-whether the statements contained in the second verse refer to events directly continuous, or that did not
take place until a period long subsequent to those described in the preceding one-it is allowed on all hands that
the two sentences are merely introductory to the narrative which follows; and this view is corroborated by the
fact that the division of the text into verses is a modern arrangement, unknown in ancient MSS. and versions.
Moreover, in many Hebrew MSS. there is the usual mark of a pause. In some old editions of the English Bible,
where there is no division into verses, a break is actually found at what is now the second verse; and in Luther's
Bible (Wittemburg, 1557) there is, in addition, the figure 1 placed against the third verse, as being the beginning
of the account of the first day's creative work (Buckland's 'Bridge. Treat.')
Opinions as to the import of this second verse are no less diverse than in regard to the degree of relation which
it bears to the first, because, according to one class of expositors, it describes the primordial state of the earth
when newly emanating from the hands of the Creator; while another class consider it as pointing to a great
physical catastrophe which at some subsequent period befell the earth, and from the extensive derangements
occasioned by which it gradually emerged when the present mundane system began to be introduced. Since
these different conclusions are supported on grounds of philology as well as geology, it is necessary in our
exposition to follow a similar course; and, therefore, we shall endeavour first to ascertain by a minute exegesis
the precise meaning of the terms employed, after which we shall compare the Mosaic cosmogony with the
ascertained facts or prevailing theories of science.
The Hebrew particle [ w
Copyright Statement
Bibliography
Jamieson, Robert, D.D.; Fausset, A. R.; Brown, David. "Commentary on Genesis 1:2". "Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
- Unabridged". https:https://www.studylight.org/commentaries/jfu/genesis-1.html. 1871-8.
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers
(2) And the earth.—The conjunction “and” negatives the well-meant attempt to harmonise geology and
Scripture by taking Genesis 1:1 as a mere heading; the two verses go together, and form a general summary of
creation, which is afterwards divided into its several stages.
Was is not the copula, but the substantive verb existed, and expresses duration of time. After creation, the
earth existed as a shapeless and empty waste.
Without form, and void.—Literally, tohu and bohu, which words are both substantives, and signify
wasteness and emptiness. The similarity of their forms, joined with the harshness of their sound, made them
pass almost into a proverb for everything that was dreary and desolate (Isaiah 34:11; Jeremiah 4:23). It
expresses here the state of primæval matter immediately after creation, when as yet there was no cohesion
between the separate particles.
Darkness.—As light is the result either of the condensation of matter or of vibrations caused by chemical
action, this exactly agrees with the previous representation of the chaos out of which the earth was to be
shaped. It existed at present only as an incoherent waste of emptiness.
The deep.—Tĕhôm. This word, from a root signifying confusion or disturbance, is poetically applied to the
ocean, as in Psalms 42:7, from the restless motion of its waves, but is used here to describe the chaos as a
surging mass of shapeless matter. In the Babylonian legend, Tiàmat, the Hebrew tĕhôm, is represented as
overcome by Merodach, who out of the primæval anarchy brings order and beauty (Sayce, Chaldean Genesis,
pp. 59, 109, 113).
The Spirit of God.—Heb., a wind of God, i.e., a mighty wind, as rendered by the Targum and most Jewish
interpreters. (See Note on Genesis 23:6.) So the wind of Jehovah makes the grass wither (Isaiah 40:7); and so
God makes the winds His messengers (Psalms 104:4). The argument that no wind at present existed because
the atmosphere had not been created is baseless, for if water existed, so did air. But this unseen material force,
wind (John 3:8), has ever suggested to the human mind the thought of the Divine agency, which, equally
unseen, is even mightier in its working. When, then, creation is ascribed to the wind (Job 26:13; Psalms
104:30), we justly see, not the mere instrumental force employed, but rather that Divine operative energy which
resides especially in the Third Person of the Holy Trinity. But we must be upon our guard against the common
error of commentators, who read into the text of these most ancient documents perfect doctrines which were
not revealed in their fulness until the Gospel was given. It is a marvellous fact that Genesis does contain the
germ of well-nigh every evangelical truth, but it contains it in a suggestive and not a completed form. So here
this mighty energising wind suggests to us the thought of the Holy Ghost, and is far more eloquent in its original
simplicity than when we read into it a doctrine not made known until revelation was perfected in Christ (John
7:39).
Moved.—Heb., fluttered lovingly. (See Deuteronomy 32:11.) This word also would lead the mind up to the
thought of the agency of a Person. In Syriac the verb is a very common one for the incubation of birds; and, in
allusion to this place, it is metaphorically employed, both of the waving of the hand of the priest over the cup in
consecrating the wine for the Eucharist, and of that of the patriarch over the head of a bishop at his
consecration. Two points must here be noticed: the first, that the motion was not self-originated, but was
external to the chaos; the second, that it was a gentle and loving energy, which tenderly and gradually, with
fostering care, called forth the latent possibilities of a nascent world.
Copyright Statement
Bibliography
Ellicott, Charles John. "Commentary on Genesis 1:2". "Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers".
https:https://www.studylight.org/commentaries/ebc/genesis-1.html. 1905.
Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God
moved upon the face of the waters.
without
Job 26:7; Isaiah 45:18; Jeremiah 4:23; Nahum 2:10
Spirit
Job 26:14; Psalms 33:6; 104:30; Isaiah 40:12-14
Copyright Statement
Bibliography
Torrey, R. A. "Commentary on Genesis 1:2". "The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge". https:https://www.studylight.org/commentaries/tsk/genesis-
1.html.
Genesis 1:1 Genesis 1 Genesis 1:3
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Home / Verse-by-Verse Bible Commentary / Genesis / Chapter 1

Monday, November 30th, 2020

Quotes about Love

Adam Clarke Commentary Other Authors

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Albert Barnes' Notes on the Whole Bible

‫ השׁך‬choshek “darkness, the absence of light.”

‫ פגים‬pānı̂ym “face, surface.” ‫ פנה‬panah “face, look, turn toward.”

‫ תהום‬tehôm “roaring deep, billow.” ‫ הוּם‬hûm “hum, roar, fret.”

‫ רוּח‬rûach “breath, wind, soul, spirit.”

‫ רחף‬rāchaph “be soft, tremble.” Piel, “brood, flutter.”

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The Biblical Illustrator

1. The primeval chaos.

An emblem of unrenewed man

1. Silent in its operation.

The teaching of chaos

1. This may be true of the world of matter.

Without form and void

1. A type of many souls.

On looking back to original condition

The inability of chaos apart from God to evolve order

The work of the Holy Spirit

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Coffman's Commentaries on the Bible

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John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible

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Geneva Study Bible

(d) He maintained this disordered mass by his secret power.

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Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible

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Hawker's Poor Man's Commentary

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Wesley's Explanatory Notes

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Calvin's Commentary on the Bible

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Scofield's Reference Notes

without form and void

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Sermon Bible Commentary

T. M. Herbert, Sketches of Sermons, p. 1.

Thomas Coke Commentary on the Holy Bible

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Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible

The same confused mass or heap is here called both

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Expository Notes of Dr. Thomas Constable

2. Conditions at the time of creation1:2

The gap theory

3. A preadamic race of humans inhabited this original creation.

Arguments and Responses:

The no-gap theory

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Whedon's Commentary on the Bible

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Joseph Benson's Commentary of the Old and New Testaments

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