Chaos
The earth was formless and void, and darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was moving over the surface of the waters. Genesis 1:2 NASB
Formless and void – tohu va-vohu reads the Hebrew text. But the key to understanding this verse is not simply to be found in the words. This verse, and the entire Genesis introduction, is set in the context of competing ancient cosmological accounts of the formation of the world. And in those competing accounts, chaos is a terrible and terrifying force. “In the religion of many peoples chaos stands at the beginning of being and becoming. It may be understood mythically as Tiamat, as the original water, as the abyss, as night or darkness. But the decisive point is that it is felt to be something supremely negative, abstracted and unqualified.”[1]
Notice that this verse from the Hebraic account of beginnings includes several of the catchwords associated with the mythological expression of chaos. Formless, void, darkness, water and deep are all symbols of the uncontrollable, unimaginable horror that existed before the formation of the earth. People who did not share the Hebraic worldview were left with the unavoidable conclusion that their very existence was the frail and temporary intermission between the domination of chaos and its resurgence. Life depended entirely on some accident; an accident that somehow pushed aside the supreme force of chaos but an accident that could not last. In the end, the ultimate triumph of random nothingness would once again prevail. Oh, by the way, if that sounds a lot like the current voice of the accidental universe, now you know why. It’s not very current at all. The theory of an accidental origin of life is as old as the first myths.
Now notice how the Hebrew text takes these same symbols and converts them into something else. “The Spirit of God was moving,” says the text. When creating began, chaos did not reign supreme. In fact, the Spirit of God exhibited purposeful action even in the presence of chaos. Chaos was mastered by God. If you were an ancient Babylonian reading Bere’shiyt (Genesis), such a statement would come flying off the page. Your understanding of the world would be rocked. “Do you mean that life isn’t a tragic accident? Do you mean that there is a purpose behind all this? Do you mean that we are not left as temporary aberrations in the destructive path of chaos?” Yes, that’s what this means! God reigns over chaos. The end is not supremely negative. There is a reason to live and a reason for life. The Hebrew mythology converts other explanations by incorporating their language into a different worldview.
Many believers think of the Genesis account as if it were some sort of astrophysical scientific explanation expressed in ordinary human terms (i.e. without all the mathematics and astronomy). But no 16th Century BC reader would have drawn that conclusion. For the original audience, Genesis 1 is about bigger questions than the beginning of the universe. It is about why there is life and what is the purpose of living. It is about the fear of existence and the comfort of a God who loves. Put the gravitational field theories aside. Forget space-time continuums for the moment and ask yourself, “Why am I alive?” Then you will be closer to the biggest questions – the questions answered in the words Bere’shiyt bara Elohiym.
Topical Index: chaos, tohu va-vohu, mythology, Bere’shiyt, Genesis 1:2
In English we can understand Bere’shiyt 1:1 as “In the beginning God created A to Z.” Our own expression that parallels this one is, “He finished everything from A to Z, or from beginning to end.” This is also the reason for several of Yeshua’s titles: the “Author and Finisher of our faith;” He is the Aleph Tav, the Alpha and Omega, the Beginning and End, and the First and Last.
Hi Skip,
What do you think of interpretation above? I remember the Sikhs teaching this when I was young
But about God rather than Jesus
Since the idiomatic expression “heavens and earth” often captures the same idea “everything from A to Z,” the meaning can certainly be the same. Meaning doesn’t always contain the full understanding, especially in the difference between a phonetic and pictographic language, but it gets the ball rolling (to use another idiom).
That’s a merism, right?
You’re right, of course.
Oh Skip this is exactly what you’ve contributed to my world view that is so important. The text speaks to the contrast between what I’ve been taught, (my myth as it were) and what Elohim says. Gen. 1 contains everything we need to know to begin with the correct premise.
I love what I’ve learned from your books but I must tell you TW has had far more impact on me breaking one fetter at a time by bringing me to a clear choice between God’s way or the Greek/pagan way that I didn’t know was pagan.
From 8am to o-dark thirty I have equipment to operate, floors to lay, doors and windows to set, and on our present job, logs to chink. In addition to that I have a house to keep clean, clothes to wash, meals to cook and a husband, children, and grandchildren to love and nurture. My Prayer life and study time is pressed in between all that mental and physical exhaustion plus our congregational life and ministry that is spread between 3 states. And I’m no spring chicken anymore! I can identify with your itinerary more than you know
In Ron’s and my construction business, if our cornerstone is misplaced even a little the building is not plumb and nothing else fits together. It makes everything very tedious and frustrating. It also means the bigger the footprint, the bigger the encroachment over the boundary and often times the taller the building gets the weaker the structure can become.
I also gather wild herbs for natural medicines in my spare (HA) time. Plant identification is an art in itself. Many plants appear the same at first glance when in fact they are not.
Several herbs in the carrot family and poison hemlock are often confused with each other but careful examination of the stem will tell you the one from the others. Comfrey and digitalis should never be planted next to each other. You can’t readily tell the difference until they bloom. Knowing the differences is a matter of life and death.
That is a word picture for my first 10 years walking with Messiah. It was frustrating, unsafe, and unsound until I found Torah.
Paganism celebrates androgyny, Torah makes distinctions and sets boundaries. Within the boundaries is the safety of the Kingdom. Outside the boundaries we are fair game for Ha Satan. His aim is to keep us outside of the boundaries and out of fellowship with each other and YHVH. Knowing how to distinguish where the boundaries are is paramount, perhaps even a matter of life and death.
This is your gift in TW. The ability to cut through the PhD rhetoric and teach me with my 9th grade education, serious time constraints, and various responsibilities, how to make firm confident decisions that spring me into action by pointing out the distinctions between the tree of LIFE and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
I don’t have time to wade through what for me becomes the minutia to get the points that drive me to act. For years I have longed for a commentary on Gen. 1-4 that does just what you did today in PLAIN ENGLISH. It would be a huge contribution to the the Body of Messiah. It would be nothing less than the beginning of our discernment.
As I said in one of the first posts I ever made to this blog
“There is just no place for the Parthenon on the Temple Mount”
But we don’t even know the difference between Mars Hill and Mt. Zion.
“Meaning doesn’t always contain the full understanding”
Now there’s a profound and loaded statement!
A few weeks ago we were reading:
Exd 12:22 NASB
“You shall take a bunch of hyssop and dip it in the blood which is in the basin, and apply some of the blood that is in the basin to the lintel and the two doorposts; and none of you shall go outside the door of his house until morning.
Exd 12:23 NASB
“For the LORD will pass through to smite the Egyptians; and when He sees the blood on the lintel and on the two doorposts, the LORD will pass over the door and will not allow the destroyer to come in to your houses to smite you.
The way the Hebrews were instructed to paint the door frame (lintel & door posts) -looks like the Hebrew letter “Chet”. ח
I looked up the pictographic meaning of that letter, and here it is: Tent wall/ fence /separation! How cool is that!!!
WAY COOL!!!!
Before all what you are saying, we need to look at what the Bible doesn’t say in order for us to hear exactly what it says. The book of genesis1:1 says “in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth” then in verse 9 of the same book it says “and God said let the waters under heaven be gathered unto one place and let the dry land appear, and it was so. And God called the dry land Earth”. Here we see two earths. The one that was created and the one that was because of the gathering of the waters. So tell me what is this. I have an answer but it’s too long to a write here. And it is the explanation if what man is and why a man on this metaphysical earth
Please do not ignore the Egyptian cosmology that is part of this background. Remember that these people are coming from Egypt and would be familiar with Egyptian thinking. The content of the story in Genesis uses familiar ideas but casts them in a new light. Before you decide that Genesis is about ideas that arise centuries later, take a look at the similarities and differences with Egyptian cosmology. Then ask yourself, “Who is the original audience of this story?” It isn’t you!
I was just doing a study in Gen.1 this past weekend. I saw some amazing things, and pursued them.
“and the Spirit of God was moving over the surface of the waters”. – why was this being told to us.
-because the spirit was doing something!
He was judging/discerning, and decided “Let there be light”
It seems after He created the light, once again He discerned, God saw that the light was good;
Then: and God separated the light from the darkness.
This order goes on until the His separations are completed.
Then from Gen1:11 to Gen1:28 He begins to “fill and grow His “separations” with His new creations, that will bare fruit of their own kind.
The seventh day, Shabbat, completes the other six days of the creation week
I see this same pattern is also followed in the exodus story.
Discernment/Judgement on Egypt.
Separation by the blood of the lamb on the doorpost of the Hebrews houses
Fill and grow by creating manna (new bread that you and your forefathers have not known)
All of this to bring them to the completion of their journey to the promised land.
To bring it forward.
If we stand with and walk with His people Israel, we also are separated by the Blood of the Lamb, from God’s judgement, and we are fed “His New Bread” that we and our forefathers have not known, that we may be grow & be filled for our journey to His Heavenly Kingdom!
I’m sure there is much more there, and I’m excited to learn more about Our Awesome Adonai Elohim,
Baruch HaShem!
It would seem that Avinu has you and I in the same classroom this semester.
I love this site, and I love the people I am meeting. I think God is doing a networking thing all over the world, because He is separating and growing us to conform to His image in these last days. I believe we (gentiles) are coming into our fullness, and that means the Jews will not continue to be partially blinded either! I have seen many examples of an openness in Jewish people to discuss and study Torah together. When we do this, they quote Talmud, and I quote from my Rabi Yeshua (who was also always teaching out of the Torah. I love studying with open hearted Jews and Gentiles alike, they are a real blessing!
One of the gals in our home fellowship in N. CA was sharing on facebook with a Jewish lady in So. Cal. about how excited she was that the barley was abib in Israel and how our group was having a gathering to spot the new moon of the first month.
The lady asked her to tell her about what we were doing. She had never heard of it before even though she had been raised orthodox.
Cheri shared the Torah references and the lady shared with her that there is a large group of Jews who have pulled away from rabbinic Judaism and get together to study Torah and seek G-ds face. She then invited them down for Pesach next year so they could share our simple Pesach sedar with the group and talk about the calender.
It made me burst into tears when Cheri told me about it. YHVH is calling His children from the four corners.
Baruch Haba ba shem YHVH
HalleluYAH!
Amen!!!
Skip,
Is it possible that the original creation and the “re-newed” or “new” creation just after Revelation,
are one and the same?
Is our “current” creation one that is a result of the fall, having limits of time and space and all the
boundaries associated with our five physical senses?
If so, is the original creation supernatural while our current one is natural?
I’ve always wondered . . .
Rich
I’ll have to take some time to answer this one. Lots of different paradigms operating in these questions. And I travel tomorrow. So give me a few days.
@Rich I too have wondered this as YHWH is cyclical. Everything He does has pattern and He continually builds from one cycle to another. I look forward to gleaning from what you dig up Skip.
Great message! A metaphor revealing the simple truth of formless and void and the hovering Spirit of Elohim. We were the tohu va-vohu until God’s Spirit jolted us with life and began the process of a new creation.
The DEnotative meaning reads as “waste and desolation” the CONnotative meaning reads as void and formless…
And your point is?