What is Genesis 1:1-3?
These are the opening verses of the history of the creation of the universe.
In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was formless and void, and darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was moving over the surface of the waters. Then God said, “Let there be light”; and there was light. (Genesis 1:1-3)
What is the difficulty in translating these verses?
There are two questions to be resolved.
- Is v1 an independent or dependent clause?
- What is the relationship of v2 with v1&3?
So what are the options for interpreting these verses?
Wenham gives (Genesis 1.11) four possible translations of these first two verses. I’ll paraphrase each. The first is:
In the beginning, when God was creating the heavens and the earth, the earth was formless and void and darkness was over the surface of the deep and the Spirit of God was moving over the surface of the waters), God said, “Let there be light”; and there was light.
This translation makes the earth was…, and darkness was…, and the Spirit of God was moving… the main clause. The In the beginning, God created… is translated as a dependent clause modifying this main clause. The meaning here is that when God set out to create the earth, He found the earth in a chaotic state. It was a swirling mass of water and other stuff. The creation was God bringing order to this chaos and filling the earth with plants, animals, and humans.
What is the second?
The second interpretation makes the then God said… the main clause and everything else dependent.
In the beginning, when God was creating the heavens and the earth (now 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), God said, “Let there be light”; and there was light.
Notice that now the main clause is “God said…”. The meaning is the same as the previous.
What is the third?
The third interpretation makes v1 a summary statement and all that follows is an explanation and development of this statement:
In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. Now let me explain how this happened. The entire earth, at this time, 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. Then God said, “Let there be light”; and there was light.
This is Unger’s choice “Rethinking the Genesis Account of Creation,” Bibliotheca Sacra 115 (1958): 28. Here too the meaning is the same as the previous two.
What is the fourth?
The fourth understands v1 to be a summary statement of God’s original act of creation of everything out of nothing. Verses 2-3 are entirely different acts of God. They are those acts of God by which He brought order to the chaos and filled the empty creation.
In the beginning, God created everything that exists out of nothing. Some time after God had created the entire universe, the creation slipped into a condition of being formless and void. Darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was moving over the surface of the waters. Then God began to bring order to this formless and empty mass. He said, “Let there be light”; and there was light.
Note that only this interpretation involves a creatio ex nihilo.
Is there any difference in meaning between the first three of these?
There is not. Only the last has a significant difference in meaning.
How do these interpretations resolve the first question?
The word בְּרֵאשִׁית is the noun רֵאשִׁית (see here) with the preposition בְּ. Some understand the OP here to be in the construct state and so translate it as a dependent clause. I have translated it as in the absolute state; see Young for further discussion. “The Relation of the First Verse of Genesis One to Verses Two and Three,” Westminster Theological Journal 21, no. 2 (1958): 135.
How about the second issue you raised above regarding the relationship between these three verses?
Here the question is what to do with v2. Clearly, it is dependent on something, but on what?
Why must v2 be dependent on something? Why can’t it be it’s own independent clause coordinate with what precedes and follows?
Genesis 1:1
בְּרֵאשִׁ֖ית בָּרָ֣א אֱלֹהִ֑ים אֵ֥ת הַשָּׁמַ֖יִם וְאֵ֥ת הָאָֽרֶץ׃
In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.
Genesis 1:2
וְהָאָ֗רֶץ הָיְתָ֥ה תֹ֙הוּ֙ וָבֹ֔הוּ וְחֹ֖שֶׁךְ עַל־פְּנֵ֣י תְהֹ֑ום וְר֣וּחַ אֱלֹהִ֔ים מְרַחֶ֖פֶת עַל־פְּנֵ֥י הַמָּֽיִם׃
Now the earth was formless and empty and darkness was on the face of the deep and the Spirit of God was hovering on the face of the waters.
Note that verse 2 begins with וְהָאָרֶץ. This noun is the subject of the verb הָיְתָה which follows. This, however, is contrary to the normal VSO word order which we expect (which is seen in v1). This rules out the idea that verse 2 is sequential or coordinate with verse 1 and leads us to believe that v2 is, in some way, dependent on v1. So, for example, v2 should not be translated:
In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth, and the earth was formless and empty…
BBH says (see chapter 23j) that the vav conjunction on the noun like this should be understood to be disjunctive; and therefore, the clause in v2 is non-sequential. This means that the three subject-verb pairs in v2 (earth was… darkness was… Spirit was…) are either (1) parenthetical, (2) circumstantial, (3) contrastive or (4) introductory with some other independent clause.
Wouldn’t the obvious choice be that it is dependent on v1?
Yes, this is what one would expect in Hebrew. Then the verse would be understood as follows:
In the beginning, God created everything, while the earth was formless and empty and darkness was on the face of the deep and the Spirit of God was hovering on the face of the waters. Then God said, …
Note that the underlined words are an adverbial dependent clause modifying created.
What is the problem with this interpretation?
It means that Genesis 1 is not describing God’s original work of creation ex nihilo. Instead, Genesis 1 is teaching us that God went to work on an already existing formless and empty mass and worked it into something orderly and beautiful.
Are there any other ways to understand verse 2?
Yes, Edward Young defends the fourth interpretation given above. He suggests that we see verse 2 as dependent on verse 3, not verse 1. A paraphrase would be:
In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. [a summary statement or “topic sentence”]
While 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, God said, “Let there be light”; and there was light. (Genesis 1:1-3)
In this interpretation, v1 is stating the fact of God creating everything ex nihilo. The main clause is now God said, “Let there be…” and the earth was formless… clause is dependent on it.
Does it not seem strange that a circumstantial clause like this would precede the verb that it is modifying?
It is not what we would expect but neither is it unheard of.
In light of this understanding, how did the earth come to be formless and empty?
There are only two possibilities here. Either God created the world this way or the world became this way after God had created it.
What can be said of this first option; i.e. that God created the world formless and empty?
Isaiah explicitly denies this using the same words as in Genesis 1:2. He writes:
For thus says the LORD, who created the heavens (He is the God who formed the earth and made it, He established it and did not create it a waste place לֹא־תֹהוּ, But formed it to be inhabited), “I am the LORD, and there is none else. (Isaiah 45:18)
It also seems to contradict God’s rebuke of Job:
Then the LORD answered Job out of the whirlwind and said, “Who is this that darkens counsel By words without knowledge? Now gird up your loins like a man, and I will ask you, and you instruct Me! Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth? Tell Me, if you have understanding, Who set its measurements? Since you know. Or who stretched the line on it? On what were its bases sunk? Or who laid its cornerstone, when the morning stars sang together and all the sons of God shouted for joy? Or who enclosed the sea with doors when, bursting forth, it went out from the womb; when I made a cloud its garment and thick darkness its swaddling band, and I placed boundaries on it and set a bolt and doors, and I said, ‘Thus far you shall come, but no farther; and here shall your proud waves stop‘? (Job 38:1-11)
In spite of this, Edward Young defends this view asserting that verse 2 does not necessarily describe a negative state of affairs. He even asserts that God could have called the earth in verse 2 “good” as God does after the other days of creation. “The Relation of the First Verse of Genesis One to Verses Two and Three,” Westminster Theological Journal 21, no. 2 (1958): 145.
What about the second option?
This is the only option left us and leaves us wondering what might have happened between the time God created the world and it became formless and empty. Bush writes (p28):
They [תֹהוּ וָבֹהוּ] are in fact the very words which a Hebrew writer would naturally use to express the wreck and ruins of a former world, if such an one were supposed to have existed.
If Genesis 1 is not explaining to us God’s original work of creation, then what becomes of this doctrine?
The doctrine of creation ex nihilo is still a clear teaching of Scripture regardless of how one interprets Genesis 1. In Hebrews, the author writes: “By faith we understand that the universe was created by the word of God, so that what is seen was not made out of things that are visible.” (Hebrews 11:3)