101 Ways to Teach a Memory Verse| Did the earth become "without form and void" or was it made that way? |
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Can't Genesis 1:2 be translated, "And the earth became without form and void?" The Hebrew word is properly rendered "was," not "became." The grammar of the passage proves this most persuasively. The phrase, "And the earth was without form and void," in verse 2 is a kind of subordinate clause called a circumstantial clause. It modifies verse 1, the main clause. Thus verse 1 states what God did, and verse 2 adds some further information about it - some circumstances occurring at the same time as the principal statement. We understand from this that God made the heavens and the earth in the beginning, and when He did, it happened that (1) the earth was formless and empty; (2) darkness was on the face of the deep; and (3) the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters. Grammatically, there can be no discontinuity between these verses. Verse 2 must be describing the earth as it was originally created, not how it became at a time following creation. D. Valiance Other pages in this section
Readers have left 2 comments. 1. Did the earth become "without form and void" . . Bob Meyers, Unregistered Then why is it not rendered "was" in Genesis 22:1, which Bullinger says is the same word, and cites probably a dozen similar occurrences? Posted 2011-03-07 06:06:52 2. Did the earth become "without form and void" . . Jim Christopher, Unregistered Name anything God created that needed more work to complete. Sin enters and makes that which God created, to need His fix'n. Posted 2012-04-25 00:32:47 |
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