Genesis 1:2

2And the earth was a 1:2 Or wasteformless and desolate emptiness, and darkness was over the 1:2 Lit face ofsurface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the 1:2 Lit face ofsurface of the waters.

2The earth was Or a waste and emptinessformless and void, and darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was Or hoveringmoving over the surface of the waters.

2The earth was 1:2 The Hebrew text here has two rhyming words, tohu and bohu, which have similar meanings of “wasteness” and “emptiness.” The construction is a figure of speech called hendiadys, in which two words are used together to express the same idea. The meaning is that the earth had no clearly discernible features at this point in creation but essentially was a mass of raw materials. This proves to be very important from philosophical and scientific viewpoints, because it documents the fact that the raw matter of the earth—and by extension, of the universe—did not coexist eternally with God, but was created by Him ex nihilo (Latin “out of nothing”).formless and void or a waste and emptiness, and darkness was upon the face of the deep [primeval ocean that covered the unformed earth]. The Spirit of God was moving (hovering, brooding) over the face of the waters.

2Now the earth was formless and void, and darkness was over the surface of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the surface of the waters.

2The earth didn’t have any shape. And it was empty. There was darkness over the surface of the waves. At that time, the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.