The Creation of the Universe (1:1-2)
Verse 1: The Book of Genesis begins with a simple, profound statement: In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. The name for God in this passage is Elohim, which means "power, strength, glory,"[1] and refers to Him as the transcendent Creator. Interestingly, the name Elohim is plural, but the verb which accompanies it, "create," is singular. The name Elohim, therefore is the earliest echo of the Trinity/Unity of God. What God creates is the heavens and the earth, a way to refer to "all of creation."[2]
The word translated "created" is bārā' (בָּרָא). There are two major words for "create" in the Hebrew language:
'āśāh (עָשָׂה): This verb in its base sense is translated "do, make."[3] In the context of creation, it carries the idea of the fashioning of an object[4] from materials that already exist. Cf. Gen. 8:6; 33:17; Ex. 25:10-11, 13, 17; Ps. 86:9; 95:5; 96:5. Within Genesis 1:1-3:1, the word appears in: 1:7, 11, 12, 16, 25, 26, 31; 2:2 (2x), 2:4, 18; 3:1.
bārā' (בָּרָא): This verb is employed in the Old Testament exclusively "for God's activity."[5] The word refers to ex nihilo, God's creation of all created matter from nothing. Within Genesis 1:1-2:25, the word appears in: 1:1, 21, 27 (3x); 2:3, 4, 22. Interestingly, בָּרָא is used with the creation of: the universe (1:1; 2:3, 4), the great sea monsters (1:21), and mankind.
Within Genesis 1-2, בָּרָא is the word of choice to describe activities in which God creates something from nothing, while עָשָׂה describes activities in which God creates things from material which He already had called into being in Genesis 1:1.
Verse 2: In the beginning, the creation was formless and void (תֹּהוּ וָבֹהוּ), which “refers to the condition of the land in its ‘not-yet’ state–the state it was in before God made it ‘good.’ In this sense the description of the land in 1:2 is similar to that in 2:5-6. Both describe the land as ‘not-yet’ what it shall be.”[6] Ibn Ezra, an
influential rabbi, described the phrase as meaning "not yet inhabitable for man."[7]
During the time in which the creation was formless and void, darkness was over the surface of the deep (v. 2b). The term deep (תְּהוֹם) refers to the waters that covered an earth that as of yet had no dry land. Critical scholarship links the term Tehom with Tiamat, who in Mesopotamian mythology was a dragon that personified the salt sea of primeval chaos. She was the wife of Apsu (the god of the waters of the abyss) that was defeated by Marduk, the patron god of Babylon. Half of her body became the heaven, and the other half became the earth. Because of the similarity of the terms Tehom and Tiamat, they reason that Genesis 1:2 was influenced by the religions of the ancient Near East. Such a connection, however, is not viable.
Although תְּהוֹם is the Hebrew cognate of the Babylonian word Tiamat, Tiamat is the name of the sea as well as the goddess, just as Ra was the sun as well as the sun god for the Egyptians, Gaia was both the earth and the earth goddess for the Greeks, and Eros referred to both the concept of love and the name of the god of love. The Hebrew term שֶׁמֶשׁ is a cognate of the Akkadian Shamash, which referred to both the sun and the sun god, but no one would suggest that every reference to שֶׁמֶשׁ in the Old Testament derived from the mythological Shamash. Just because a people group such as the Babylonians invest an everyday word with religious meaning does not mean that another people group has done the same thing.
During the time in which the earth was formless and void, and darkness was over the surface of the deep, the Spirit of God was moving over the surface of the waters (v. 2c). This refers to the Holy Spirit, who was active in the creation of the universe (cf. Job. 33:4; Ps. 104:30) alongside God the Father (cf. Isa. 45:18; cf. Job 26:7) and God the Son (John 1:1-3).
[1] John J. Davis, Paradise to Prison: Studies in Genesis (Salem, WI: Sheffield, 1998), 42.
[2] David W. Cotter, Genesis, in Berit Olam: Studies in Hebrew Narrative and Poetry, ed. David W. Cotter, Jerome T. Walsh, and Chris Franke (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical, 2003), 15.
[3] F. Brown, S. Driver, and C. Briggs, The Brown-Driver-Briggs Hebrew and English Lexicon (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 2005), 793.
[4] R. Laird Harris, Gleason L. Archer, and Bruce K. Waltke, eds. Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament, vol. 2 (Chicago: Moody, 1980), s.v. " עָשָׂה," by Thomas E. McComiskey.
[5] Davis, Paradise to Prison: Studies in Genesis, 40.
[6] John H. Sailhamer, "Genesis," vol. 2 in The Expositor's Bible Commentary, ed. Frank E. Gaebelien (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1990), 24.
[7] Ibid.
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