The Hebrew Conception of Chaos
The precreation state (Gen 1:2) is described as “formless
and void” (tōhû wābōhû) containing the elements of darkness (ḥōšeḵ)
and the cosmic ocean (tehôm), both images of chaos (see §1.c.3). The
same collocation tōhû wābōhû describes a liminal state—the aftermath of
divine destruction—in Jeremiah 4:23–28, and the two terms are used together in
a similar destruction oracle in Isaiah 34:11. Isaiah 34 describes the
transformation of Edom into liminal space, which will “lie desolate” as wild
animals inhabit its ruins (Isa 34:10–11). Tōhû (on its own) “refers to
that which is nonproductive, nonfunctional, and of no purpose […] the Egyptian
concept of the nonexistent seems to be closer to the meaning of the Hebrew
term.” In contrast to later dualistic models, the precreation state is not
described as a condition of uncorrupted order in the Hebrew Bible. Further,
since tōhû and bōhû are both actively produced by Yahweh in both
Jeremiah 4 and Isaiah 34, the concept of chaos and liminality is not synonymous
with the concept of cosmic evil that the gods actively seek to punish and
eliminate. The imagery of Yahweh removing or battling chaos to establish order
(e.g. Ps 74:13–14), or alternatively establishing chaos either as a reaction to
human evil (e.g. Gen 7:11–13) or simply because he can (e.g. Job 1:21), is
consistent with the portrayal of chaos relative to gods throughout the ancient
Near East (see §1.f.4). (Jonathan Harvey Walton, “Knowing
Good and Evil: Values and Presentation in Genesis 2-4”
[PhD Thesis; University of St Andrews, 2023], 64-65)
The Hebrew Conception of Evil
The Hebrew word “evil” in the collocation “knowing good
and evil” is ra’. The LXX usually translates this word as either poneros
or kakos with little systematic preference for either. The exceptions
are Ecclesiastes and Exodus, which prefer the former for moral offense and the
latter for generic unpleasantness; both connotations are covered by the field
of the Hebrew term. Later Jewish works, including the New Testament, prefer poneros
to indicate moral badness. This tendency in turn leads to a reading of ra’
as having moral or theological connotations above and beyond a mere negative
evaluation. Hebrew ra’, however, does not contain this distinction. [Ra’
is] a major category word referring to everything perceived as bad: from
unpleasant, unpleasing, deficient to harmful, sinful, or wicked. In English,
evil is worse than bad, perceived with sinister undertones and carrying the
semantic weight of negative moral value; whereas bad can be merely unpleasant.
In biblical Hebrew, this is not the case. Notably, ra’ can be used to
describe actions or agents of Yahweh, some of which are also translated as poneros
(LXX Josh 23:15; 1Sam 16:14). Thus, despite the translation as “evil,” ra’
is too generic to be a clean semantic equivalent for izfet. Ra’
is not used to describe the precosmic condition or the chaos monsters, but it
does sometimes describe liminal space or its denizens (e.g. Lev 26:6; Num
20:5). Ra’ does not appear in Genesis 2–4 outside of the collocation
“[know] good and evil.” It is never used to describe any of the characters—not
even Cain or the serpent—or their actions, or the conditions inflicted on them.
(Ibid., 65)
