Genesis 1:1-2

Few topics have been the subject of so much speculation as the topic of creation. The average Christian view is that there were seven days of creation during which God, among other things, created the heavens and the earth. This view seems unreasonable to many, since if it was so the earth would have to be no more than a few thousand years old. To bridge this "discrepancy" various assumptions have been made. So, there are those who support that the days of creation in Genesis 1 were much longer than normal twenty four hour days. As we will see later, the Bible does not agree with this theory. Others have gone even further to say that it was all done through......evolution. However, one cannot support this view without a flat denial of the Scripture which declares that God is the creator of everything:

Colossians 1:16-17
"For by Him [God] all things were created that are in heaven and that are on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers. All things were created through Him and for Him. And He is before all things and in Him all things consist"

We believe that much of the misunderstanding is caused because of the ignorance of the truths that are spoken in Genesis 1:1-2 concerning creation. Our purpose is to throw light on these two verses, approaching them without preconceived ideas.

1. Genesis 1:1: “In the beginning God”.

 Responsible for a large part of the misunderstanding concerning Genesis 1:1-2 is tradition, which teaches that the heavens and the earth were created on the first day of creation. Then immediately we are faced with the following problem: since the chronological information given in the Bible indicates that man has existed for approximately 6,000 years and since, according to the traditional view, he was created only five days after the earth's creation this means that the earth cannot be more than 6,000 years old. On the other hand, there are many that feel that this number comes in stark contradiction with external evidence that suggests that the earth and generally the universe has existed for several billion years. Moreover, it contradicts the evidence that comes from the discovery of fossils that belong to dinosaurs and other prehistoric animals which are believed to have lived several million years ago. However, the problem is not a problem of the Bible. Why? Because the Bible does not say that God created the heavens and the earth in the first day. Let's see what it says:

Genesis 1:1
"In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth"

This verse disproves any connection of the big-bang theory with the Bible. It was GOD who created the heavens and the earth. When did this happen? The Bible does not say "in the first day". What it says is "in the beginning". The problem is created when instead of "in the beginning" we read "in the first day". That this beginning was not the first of the days of creation recorded in Genesis 1, is evident by just reading the context:

Genesis 1:1-5
"In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. And the earth was without form and void; and darkness was on the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters. And God said, "Let there be light"; and there was light. And God saw the light that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness. And God called the light day, and the darkness He called night. And the evening and the morning were the first day."

Before we say anything else, we must explain that the day of Genesis 1:5, as well as the remaining days of creation, was a normal twenty four hour day. Indeed, it is Biblically true that the word "day" has sometimes been used to denote a longer period of time than a normal twenty four hour day. For example, Romans 2:5 speaks about "the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God" while Ephesians 6:13 about the "evil day". As it is evident, the word "day" that occurs in these passages means much more than a normal twenty four hour day. However, when the reference is to a day defined by evening and morning, or when we meet the expression "day and night" what is meant is a normal twenty four hour day. This is obvious by having a look at some of the corresponding occurrences in the Bible. Thus, the Bible says that the rain that caused the flood of Noah lasted "forty days and forty nights" (Genesis 7:12) i.e. forty normal days. When Moses went up into the mountain to receive the law he stayed there "forty days and forty nights" i.e. forty normal days (see Exodus 24:18 for the first time that he went up and Exodus 34:28 for the second time). Similarly, "Jonah was in the belly of the fish three days and three nights" (Jonah 1:17) i.e. three normal days or seventy two hours. Thus, when Jesus said "as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the great fish, so will the Son of man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth" (Matthew 12:40) he meant what he said i.e. that he would be dead for three days and three nights¹. From all the above, it is obvious that when Genesis 1:5 says "And the evening and the morning were the first day" the reference is to a normal twenty four hour day that starts with the morning continues with the evening before it is succeeded by the next morning. This invalidates the suppositions that have been put forward, according to which the days of Genesis 1 were longer than normal days. What the Bible teaches is that God made all His works in six² literal twenty four hour days.

Having made this clear let's return to our topic. When were the heavens and earth created? The text does not say in the first day but IN THE BEGINNING. The first of the six days of creation described in Genesis 1 does not start in verse one but in verse three, and it starts with a phrase that characterizes the beginning of the remaining five days as well: "And God said......" (Genesis 1:3, 1:6, 1:9, 1:14, 1:20, 1:24)

Genesis 1:3-5
"And God said, "Let there be light:" and there was light. And God saw the light that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness. And God called the light day and the darkness He called night. And the evening and the morning were the first day"

This first day was not the first day of the existence of the heavens and of the earth for God created them "in the beginning". When was this beginning the Bible does not say. If the geologists say that it was billions years ago it may be so. As far as the Bible is concerned there is no problem. What the Bible does say is that this beginning was earlier than the day of Genesis 1:5 and probably, if the existing evidence is right, much earlier.

2. Genesis 1:2: “and the earth was without form and void”.

 Genesis 1:2 is another key verse in understanding what the Word of God says regarding the topic of creation. Let's see:

Genesis 1:2
"And the earth was [Hebrew: hayah] without form [Hebrew: tohu] and void; and darkness was on the face of the deep"

There are two key phrases here: the phrase “without form” and the first occurrence of the word “was”. This verse, as it stands, it appears to say that God created the heavens and the earth in the beginning and they were, after their creation, “without form and void”. In other words, the above verse seems to say that God created the earth without form [Hebrew: tohu]. Is this correct? The answer is NO. And this because Isaiah 45:18 tells us very clearly:

Isaiah 45:18
“For thus says the LORD that created the heavens; God himself that formed the earth and made it; he has established it, he created it not in vain [Hebrew: tohu]”

The word “in vain” in Isaiah is a translation of the Hebrew word “tohu” i.e. the same Hebrew word that is used in Genesis 1:2. What therefore Isaiah tells us is that God did not create the earth “tohu”. If therefore it was not created “tohu”, “without form” and void, it is obvious that it BECAME “tohu” i.e. it became without form and void. But why then the translated text does not say so and instead it says “the earth was without form [Hebrew tohu] and void”, leaving unclear whether it became so or was created so? The answer is in the word “was”. This is a translation of the Hebrew word “hayah”. The Mickelson Bible dictionary (it is a recent update to the Strong’s dictionary) defines this word as follows:

“A primitive root; to exist, that is, be or become, come to pass (always emphatic, and not a mere copula or auxiliary” (emphasis added).

The verb hayah means to become, to come to pass, to come to be. It does mean also “to be” but when it is used like this is, is not used as just an auxiliary verb. As E.W. Bullinger, a scholar of the early 20th century informs us, if it is rendered as “to be” (like in above) it has to be understood as ”to be” in the sense of “to become”. As he says there is no verb “to be” in Hebrew³, which also agrees with what the Mickelson dictionary says, when it says that this verb cannot be understood as a mere auxiliary verb, as it usually happens for the verb “to be”. To demonstrate better the meaning of this verb below are some examples from Genesis. The reader can also check further for himself in a concordance for more examples (the respective Strong’s Number is H1961).

Genesis 2:7
"and the man became (hayah) a living soul"

Genesis 2:10
“Now a river went out of Eden to water the garden, and from there it parted and became (hayah) four riverheads.”

Genesis 4:3
"in the process of time it came to pass (hayah) that Cain brought an offering of the fruit of the ground to the Lord"

Genesis 6:1
"and it came to pass (hayah), when man began to multiply..."

Genesis 7:10
"and it came to pass (hayah) after seven days, that the waters of the flood were (hayah, came to be, became) upon the earth"

Genesis 19:26
"but his [Lot's] wife looked back from behind him, and she became (hayah) a pillar of salt" etc.

Going back to Genesis 1:2 and given the fact that Isaiah makes clear that God did not create the earth “tohu” plus the fact that the primary meaning of the verb “hayah” is “to become”, “to come to be”, “to come to pass” we can conclude that a more accurate translation of Genesis 1:2 would be:

“And the earth BECAME [Hebrew: hayah] without form [Hebrew: tohu] and void; and darkness was on the face of the deep"”

In fact, the New International Version, perhaps the most popular English translation of the Bible, suggests this as alternative reading for Genesis 1:2. It thus reads:

Genesis 1:1-2
"IN THE BEGINNING God created the heavens and the earth. Now the earth BECAME [NIV margin] formless and empty" (NIV)

 Moving further, not only the earth became "tohu" or formless but it also became empty. Evidently, for the earth to become empty this means that it wasn't empty. Instead, it must have been inhabited. Then, for some reason that we will see in the article “the world that then was”, it became formless and empty. That's why God had again to put things in order, which He did in the six days of creation. Today man finds fossils of dinosaurs and dates them back to some million years ago. "Intelligent" men and critics of the Bible say that this disproves the Bible. But nothing can disprove the Bible. The Bible tells us that in the beginning, probably some billion years ago, God created the heavens and the earth. This earth was not empty as tradition teaches neither was it formless. For God didn't create it like that. Instead, it BECAME formless and empty. God does not tell us what specific animals were in that earth. He didn't consider it necessary. But if you believe that there were dinosaurs, mammoths etc. it may be so. The Bible does not exclude it.

3. Genesis 1:1-2: Conclusion.

To summarize, based on what we saw in Genesis 1:1-2, the Bible excludes the following:

i) that the earth was made "in the first day of creation". Instead, what the Bible says is that it was created in the beginning and thus the first day of creation was not absolutely first but first only in relation to the remaining five days.

ii) that the earth was created formless and empty. The earth wasn't created formless and empty. Instead, it became like that.

iii) that something remained alive from the earth of Genesis 1:1.

That this cannot be so, is evident by the very definition of "empty". Something is empty when there is nothing there. If there was, it wouldn't be empty. What the Bible teaches is that God created the heavens and the earth, in the beginning, in eternal past. The earth was not created without form and void. Instead it became like this. How did it become like this and why? This is something that is answered in the article “the world that then was”. The reader must read that article too, as it is a sequel to the present study and continues from where we stop here.

Anastasios Kioulachoglou

1. Obviously, this disproves the tradition that wants Jesus to die 3 p.m. on Good Friday and arise early Eastern Sunday morning, since simple counting shows that in no way you can have three days and three nights. However, the problem is not a problem of the Word of God but a problem of tradition. The article “How long was Jesus "in the heart of the earth"?” deals with this. Other articles of this magazine deal also with similar cases that people have decried as "contradictions" and which are contradictions of tradition only and not of course of the Word of God.

2. Though the NKJV reads "And on the seventh day God ended His work which He had made" (Genesis 2:2), giving the impression that there were seven days of creation, both the Septuagint and the Samaritan Pentateuch, which are supposed to be based on more ancient manuscripts than the ones available today, read: "on the sixth day", which is evidently correct since God didn't do any work on the seventh day. He only rested on that day. says "And on the seventh day God ended His work which He had made", then please include this footnote, replacing the “NKJV” with the name of your Bible translation. Otherwise, if your Bible says “on the sixth day” then do not include this footnote.

3. The Companion Bible, Kregel Publications, p.3.