This view
interprets verse one as a declaration that God created the original mass called
heaven and earth out of nothing, and verse 2 as a clarification that when it
came from the hand of Creator it was unformed and unfilled. Looked at grammatically,
verse 1 is construed as an independent clause. Verse 2 is seen as a series of
three circumstantial clauses describing the condition of the earth when it first
came into existence. Calvin commented: “For Moses simply intends to assert that
the world was not perfected at its commencement, in the manner in which it is
now seen than that it was created an empty chaos of heaven and earth.” Some who
hold this view regard verses 1 and 2 as a chronological unity separated by a gap
in time from the first day of creation described in verse 3, whereas most think
of verses 1-5 as a chronological unity.
.
. .
Objections.
A critical reappraisal of the theory does not show this to be the plain and
simple meaning. In fact, the theory faces such serious objections as to render
it untenable.
In
the first place this interpretation demands that we place a different value on “heaven
and earth” than anywhere else in Scripture. Like tōhû wābōhû in verse 2,
“heaven and earth” is a compound that must be studied as a unity. In connection
with the compound in verse 2 Cassuto commended: “In language, as in chemistry,
a compound may be found to possess qualities absent from its constituent
elements. For example, any one who does not know what ‘broadcast’ denotes, will
not be able to guess the connotation of the word from its separate elements ‘broad’
and ‘cast.’” (U. Cassuto, A Commentary on Genesis, trans. Israel
Abrahamas, Part 1 [Jerusalem: The Magness Press], p. 22) Likewise, it will
prove erroneous to study the word “earth” apart from the compound expression.
Furthermore, in trying to decide the meaning of the compound, haššāmayim wəʾēt
hāʾāreṣ, Cyrus Gordon noted that pairs of antonyms often mean “everting” or
“everyone.” For example, in English, the expression “they came, great and small”
means that “everybody came.” (C. H. Gordon, The World of the Old Testament [Garden
City, New York: Doubleday, 1958]) The Hebrew language is filled with such
antonymic pairs called merisms. (Ibid.) For example, the Psalmist says
that the blessed man meditates in God’s law “day and night”; i.e. “all the
time.” So here, “heaven and earth” are antonyms to designate “everything,” and
more specially “the organized universe, the cosmos.” In fact, Wisdom of Solomon
uses the Greek word ho kosmos to refer to Genesis 1:1. (Wisdom of Solomon
11:17) This is undoubtedly the sense of the compound in the summary
statement concluding the creation account: “Thus the heavens and earth were completed,
and all their host.” (Genesis 2:1). The compound occurs again in this
sense in the summary statement introducing the stories about man at the time of
the creation of the universe: “This is the account of the heavens and earth
when they were created.” (Genesis 2:4) the meaning of disorderly chaos but
always of an orderly world. (Brevard S. Childs, “The Enemy from the North and
the Chaos Tradition,” Journal of Biblical Literature, 78 [1959] 31)
Likewise Skinner said: “For though that phrase . . . is a Hebrew designation of
the universe as a whole, it is only the organized universe, not the chaotic
material out of which it was formed, that can actually be do designated.” (John
Skinner, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on Genesis [Edinburgh: T.
& T. Clark, 1910], p. 14) If this understanding, based on its extensive and
unambiguous usage in the creation account itself and elsewhere, is allowed,
then verse 2 cannot be construed as a circumstantial clause. Logic will now
allow us to entertain the contradictory notions: God created the organized
heaven and earth; the earth was unorganized. Plessis rightly asked: “If the
heavens and earth signified the organized universe, how, then, can it denote
heaven and earth in a formless state?” (Joseph Plessis, “Babylone et la Bible,” col. 716 in Supplement au
Dictionnaire de la Bible [Paris: Letouzy, 1928])
Commentators
in the past have gone wrong here for they insist that the phrase refers to the
primeval material from which the universe was developed. Calvin, for example,
said: “There is no doubt that Moses gives the name of heaven and earth to the
confused mass which he shortly after (verse 2) denominates water.” But this is nothing
more than a pontifical pronouncement without lexical support. In answer to
Calvin and Aalders who share the same opinion, Young simply noted: “Elsewhere
the phrase . . . designates the well ordered universe, ho kosmos.” (Edward
J. Young, Studies in Genesis One [Philadelphia: Presbyterian and Reformed
Publishing House, 1964], pp. 9f., n. 17)
Michael
J. Gruenthaner proposed getting around the problem by suggesting that “heaven
and earth” may have received this appelation proleptically, because of its
destination. He called attention to the proleptic use of man in Genesis 2:7
where the clay statue is called Adam, although it is devoid of life. (Michael
J. Gruenthaner, “The Scriptural Doctrine on First Creation,” Catholic
Biblical Quarterly, 9 [1947], 54) But this is a far-fetched and desperate attempt
not imbibed by anybody else I have read. Perhaps we can see how bold the
attempt is by substituting “House” for “heaven and earth.” The text would then
read: “God created the house.” Now would any normal reader think this meant
that the word “house” was used proleptically, and in reality it means that God created
the unorganized materials from which he made the house? The expression in Genesis
2:7, moreover, is not an apt analogy, for here the man is in his completed form
lacking only the breath of life. In any case, it clearly does not mean that God
formed the material from which we would make the man.
Boyer and
Koenig (Eduard Koenig, Die Genesis [Gueterslok: Bertelsmann, 1925], pp.
136ff.; Carolus Boyer, S. J., Tractatus de Deo Creante et Elevante [Roma:
Unv. Greg., 1933], pp. 22-25) proposed that the heavens designated the
completed upper heavens, including the angelic realm, in contrast to the heaven
visible to the human eye, and that the earth refers to the chaotic earth
described in verse 2. Koenig tried to support his thesis by noting that whereas
in verse 1 the article is present in “the heavens,” in verse 8 the article is
missing in “Heaven.” Hence, he concluded that they must be distinct. He found
further confirmation in verse 14 where the text speaks of the “firmament of the
heavens.” Here he said that the genitive is partitive and therefore the
firmament, or lower heaven, is part of the upper heaven. He argued further that
“the heavens” are not mentioned again in the chapter, whereas the equipment of
the firmament, the visible heaven, is described as length.
But this
argument is also unconvincing. In verse 10 the dry land is named simply “Earth,”
without the article, because it is a proper name. Consequently, in the parallel
passage, verse 8, the firmament is called “Heaven” because it, too, is a proper
name. Moreover, the genitive in verse 14 is normally construed as an
attributive genitive. Thus the alleged distinction between haššāmayim and
šāmayim becomes more than questionable.
Not only
does the compound haššāmayim wəʾēt hāʾāreṣ militate against taking verse
2 as a circumstantial clause with verse 1, but also the statement by Isaiah
that God did not create the earth a tōhû argues against this interpretation.
Those holding to an imperfect first stage of creation understand Isaiah to mean
that the LORD did not form the earth for the purpose of being a waste. O. T. Allis
concluded from the parallelism: “Isaiah xlv. 18 should be rendered, ‘He did not
create it to be a waste, for inhabiting it he formed it.’” (O. T. Allis, God
Spoke by Moses [Nutley: The Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing Co.,
1958], p. 156) the double accusative after verbs of making normally do not have
this sense. The normal sense would be that found in almost all translations: “The
LORD did not create it formless.”
Then, too,
we have seen from Jeremiah 4:23 and Isaiah 4:11 that tōhû wābōhû denotes
the antithesis of creation. To take verse 2, therefore, as a circumstantial clause
presents the contradiction: he created . . . and the earth was uncreated.
In
addition, we note that elsewhere in Scripture it is said that God created
everything by His word. In a psalm ln a psalm of praise, for example, we hear: “By
the word of the LORD the heavens were made, and by the breath of his mouth all
their host . . . For He spoke, and it was done; He commanded and it stood fast.”
(Psalm 33:6, 9) The writer of Hebrews said: “By faith we understand that
the worlds were prepared by the word of God . . .” (Hebrews 11:3) But no
mention is made anywhere in Scripture that God called the unformed dark and
watery state of verse 2 into existence.
Finally,
it is significant that in the new and perfect cosmos to come, there will be no
sea (Revelation 21:1) and in the new Jerusalem associated with it, there will
be no darkness (Revelation 21:25). This revelation about the new cosmos
suggests that the deep and darkness in verse 2 are less than desirable and were
not called into existence by the God of order and goodness.
We
conclude, therefore, that though it is possible to take verse 2 as a circumstantial
clause on syntactical grounds, it is impossible to do so on philological
grounds, and that it seems unlikely it should be so construed on theological
grounds, for it makes God the creator of disorder, darkness, and deep, a
situation not tolerated in the perfect cosmos and never said to have been
called into existence by the Word of God. (Bruce K. Waltke, Creation and Chaos:
An Exegetical and Theological Study of Biblical Cosmogony [Portland, Oreg.:
Western Conservative Baptist Seminary, 1974], 25-28)
