Read Genesis 1:1-5 at Bible Gateway.
Hebrew paragraph division
Gen 1:1-5 {p} first day of creation
Gen 1:1-5 chiastic structure
1a) Gen 1:1, In the beginning Elohiym created the heavens and the earth;
1b) Gen 1:2a, The earth was without form and void;
1c) Gen 1:2b, Darkness was on the face of the deep;
central axis) Gen 1:2c, And the Spirit of Elohiym hovered over the face of the waters;
2c) Gen 1:3, Elohiym said, “Light be,” and light was;
2b) Gen 1:4-5a, Elohiym saw that the light was good + divided + called;
2a) Gen 1:5b, The evening and morning were the first day.
As I was considering the matching elements, they all seemed apparent to me except for the B pair. So I did some digging into the adjectives. *smile*
“Without form” is Strong’s H8414, tav + hey + vav, tohu, to lie waste. The ancient Hebrew pictographs of the crossed sticks, the man with his arms upraised in revelation or wonder, and the tent peg, tell the story of marked astonishment connected with a thing. To look at something without form and desolate is to feel marked astonishment in connection with it.
“Void” is Strong’s H922, bet + hey + vav, bohu, to be empty. The ancient Hebrew pictographs of the house, the man with his arms upraised in revelation or wonder, and the tent peg, tell the story of an enclosed space and astonishment connected with it, because the enclosure exists to be filled, and it is instead empty.
“Good” on the other hand, is Strong’s H2896, tet + vav + bet, tove, good. The ancient Hebrew pictographs of the basket, the tent peg, and the house, tell the story of the enclosure or house joined with its contents (as a basket holds whatever it contains). So good in the sense it is used here means the exact opposite of void: instead of the enclosure being empty, it is instead filled with its contents.
The structure of the very first paragraph of Torah tells us that emptiness is an astonishment, because the heaven and the earth that exist were designed from the beginning for its contents. In fact, the evidence of the finely-tuned universe is the strongest statistical evidence that exists testifying to science that the heaven and the earth were indeed created by a Creator for the purpose of housing the life it contains.
For further study on site
For further study off site
Evidence for the Fine-Tuning of the Universe (excellent article, my only caveat is that I am not a universe is billions of years old girl. See also Starlight and Time by Dr. D. Russell Humphreys (amazon link) for another way to look at the question of age.)
Genesis 1:1 – Truths hidden within in the Aleph-Bet
Create – Hebrew word study
Light – Hebrew word study (and more detailed)
Six Literal Days
Linguistics, Genesis, and Evolution
Does Genesis 1:1-2 refer to the first day?
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