The "tohuwabohu" - reference to a disaster

The word tohu is used twenty times in the Bible
(for full text see the appendix) and is translated as
waste, desert, in vain, vanity, emptiness, confusion, futility.
Is is always in close relationship with injustice, erring, idolatry,
darkness and life-hostile environment.

Nowhere is a "tohu" desired by God, but it rather represents the consequence
of the separation from him and always has a negative taste! It is a synonym
for apostasy from God and the consequent judgment: Annihilation with the
exception of a small remnant which is saved by God's faithfullness and
omnipotence in the midst of hostility against God.


The Bible stresses expressly that God did not create the earth "tohu":

The LORD created (bara') the heavens ... HE has founded the earth -
not (as a) tohu did he create (bara') it (the earth)!
Isaiah 45:18

The word bohu occurs in only two other places, both times together with
tohu, as in Genesis 1:2. These texts reveal the character and the dimensions
of a tohu-wabohu disaster:

Edom's torrents are turned into pitch, and its dust into brimstone; and its
land shall become burning pitch ... from generation to generation it shall
lie waste ... And he shall stretch out upon it the line of waste (tohu), and
the plummets of emptiness (bohu). Isaiah 34:11

I looked at the earth, and it was waste und empty (tohu wabohu), and at the
heavens, and their light was gone. I looked at the mountains, and they were
quaking, all the hills were swaying. I looked, and there was no man, every
bird in the sky had flown away. I looked, and the fruitful land was a
desert, all its towns lay in ruins before the LORD, before his fierce anger
.... Therefore the earth will mourn and the heavens above grow dark.
Jeremiah 4:23

Both texts talk about devastating disasters which bring almost total
destruction to a country. Here, Tohu und bohu are "measuring cord and
plummet", i.e. epitome of an intentional and precisely executed judgmental
destruction and devastation, and not at all the description of a "good raw
condition"! The context makes it unmistakably clear that the cause for these
disasters lies in apostasy from God.


_An exclamation mark in the second sentence of the Bible!_

The expressions "waste" (tohu) and "empty" (bohu) do not only designate
something which is formless or unshaped. Rather tohu (with or without
reinforcement by bohu) serves as a description of a horrible, dreadsome,
depraving waste, of a destruction which has occurred, or of a nullity."
(Westermann in his commentary on Genesis). F.Delitzsch comes to the
conclusion: "Sound and meaning of this word pair is gruesome" (suus 94).

If we relate to the use of these words in all the other texts of the Bible,
starting with its second sentence, we have to suppose that something
horrible must have happened which put the earth into a condition of
separation from God. It is not explained here, what exactly happened. But
from the first to the last page of the Bible this remains a central topic:

The entire Bible reports how God restitutes a fallen creation:
Beginning with the second sentence already, something is "not okay"!


_Evaluation_

In the whole Bible not a single passage can be found in which tohu would
refer to something which is positive or intended by God. To the contrary, it
is expressly stated that it was not created by God and is never desired by
him (Jesaja 45:18,19).

In the Old Testament tohu is always found in the context of apostasy from
the living God. It is an epitome of unfaithfullness, betrayal and idolatry
with all its consequences: deceit, confusion, chaos, disorientation,
darkness, hopelessness, separation of God, enmity against God, worship of
demonic powers, emptiness, lack, circumstances which are hostile to life,
destruction and annihilation.

Accordingly, the translations use the following words for tohu: vanity,
waste, futility, emptiness. Two aspects can be distinguished:

· 1. Tohu is the vanity of all attitudes which do not acknowledge God

but adore created things or godless ideologies.

· 2. Tohu often is a judgement over the apostates. Because, left
alone without the help of God every creature goes to ruin. The absence of
God's blessing and protection logically leads to disastrous decline and
finally to total annihilation.

In the context the faithfullness of the Creator God is often put opposite
the tohu and the salvation of a remnant is promised who may look
insignificant but who nevertheless has the future in his hands.

Therefore, it is to be expected that the family tree of life on its way
through the tohuwabohu has been marked by two factors: the positive
activities of God on the one hand, and the separation of God and the lack
resulting from it on the other hand. The latter must inevitably have caused
competition and struggle for survival, which must have had a formative
effect on all living beings which grew up in such an environment.


_The condition of the earth during the tohuwabohu_

.... and darkness was over the deep (Hebrew: tehom).

We learn two facts from this statement: first, in an early state of its
development the earth was covered with waters, because the Hebrew noun tehom
depicts great and often intensively moving masses of water (Gesenius871; kbl
1019).

On the other hand the earth was completely wrapped in darkness. It is
important that it was not the entire universe which was dark during the time
of the tohuwabohu, otherwise it should read: ... and everything, or heaven
and earth were dark. But the Biblical text expressely restricts the darkness
to a specific region: the flood covering the earth at that time.

Apparently, this darkness had a negative character, because the first
activity of God was directed against it: "Let there be light!" Only this
light was regarded as good: "And God saw the light that it was good." The
darkness is excluded from this valuation. This reminds us of the darkness
during another tohuwabohu:

I beheld the earth, and, lo, it was tohuwabohu;
and the heavens, and they had no light!
Jeremia 4:23

The here mentioned darkness certainly is negative, it is the consequence of
separation from God. The darkening clouds, which don't allow the sunlight to
penetrate to the earth are also a symbol for the fact that the positive
effects of God's power could not reach the earth.


_All twenty occurances of tohu in the Bible_

Genesis 1:2 And the earth was (or: became) waste and empty (tohuwabohu),
and darkness was on the face of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering
over the face of the waters.

Deuteronomy 32:10 God found Jakob (the people of Israel) in a desert land,
and in the waste, howling wilderness. He compassed him about, he watched
over him, he preserved him as the apple of his eye. As the eagle stirreth up
its nest, hovereth (richeph = Genesis 1:2) over its young, spreadeth out its
wings, taketh them, beareth them on its feathers ...

1 Samuel 12:21 (2x) ... and turn ye not aside; for it would be after vain
things which cannot profit nor deliver; for they are vain.

Job 6:18 They wind about in the paths of their course, they go off into
the waste and perish.

Job 12:24 He taketh away the understanding of the chiefs of the people of
the earth, and causeth them to wander in a pathless waste.

Job 26:7 The shades tremble beneath the waters and the inhabitants
thereof. Sheol is naked before him, and destruction hath no covering. He
stretcheth out the north over empty space, he hangeth the earth upon nothing
.... He stirreth up the sea by his power, and by his understanding he smiteth
through Rahab. (Context apparently: the tohuwabohu catastrophe of Genesis
1:2.)

Psalm 107:40 He poureth contempt upon nobles, and causeth them to wander
in a pathless waste.

Isaiah 24:10 The city of confusion is broken down; every house is shut up,
so that none entereth in.

Isaiah 29:21 that make a man an offender for a word, and lay a snare for
him that reproveth in the gate, and pervert the judgment of the righteous by
futility.

Isaiah 34:11 For it is the day of Jehovah's vengeance, the year of
recompenses for the controversy of Zion. And the torrents thereof shall be
turned into pitch, and its dust into brimstone; yea, the land thereof shall
become burning pitch: it shall not be quenched night nor day; the smoke
thereof shall go up for ever: from generation to generation it shall lie
waste; none shall pass through it for ever and ever. And the pelican and the
bittern shall possess it, and the great owl and the raven shall dwell in it.
And he shall stretch out upon it the line of waste (tohu), and the plummets
of emptiness (bohu). Of her nobles who should proclaim the kingdom, none are
there; and all her princes shall be nought.

Isaiah 40:17 All the nations are as nothing before him; they are esteemed
by him less than a cipher, and vanity.

Isaiah 40:23 that bringeth the princes to nothing, that maketh the judges
of the earth as vanity.

Isaiah 41:29 Behold, they are all vanity, their works are nought, their
molten images are wind and emptiness.

Isaiah 44:9 They that form a graven image are all of them vanity, and
their delectable things are of no profit; and they are their own witnesses:
they see not, nor know; - that they may be ashamed.

Isaiah 45:18 For thus saith Jehovah who created the heavens, God himself
who formed the earth and made it, he who established it, -- not as waste did
he create it: he formed it to be inhabited: -- I am Jehovah, and there is
none else.

Isaiah 45:19 I have not spoken in secret, in a dark place of the earth; I
said not unto the seed of Jacob, Seek me in vain: I am Jehovah, speaking
righteousness ...

Isaiah 49:4 And I said, I have laboured in vain, I have spent my strength
for nought and in vain; nevertheless my judgment is with Jehovah, and my
work with my God.

Isaiah 59:4 None calleth for justice, none pleadeth in truthfulness. They
trust in vanity, and speak falsehood; they conceive mischief, and bring
forth iniquity.

Jeremiah 4:23 For my people is foolish, they have not known me; they are
sottish children, and they have no intelligence; they are wise to do evil,
but to do good they have no knowledge.
I beheld the earth, and lo, it was waste and empty (tohuwabohu); and the
heavens, and they had no light. I beheld the mountains, and lo, they
trembled, and all the hills shook violently. I beheld, and lo, man was not,
and all the fowl of the heavens were fled. I beheld, and lo, the fruitful
land was a wilderness, and all the cities thereof were broken down, before
Jehovah, before his fierce anger. For thus saith Jehovah: The whole land
shall be a desolation; but I will not make a full end. For this shall the
earth mourn, and the heavens above be black; because I have spoken it, I
have purposed it, and will not repent, neither will I turn back therefrom.

Armin

www.urzeitundendzeit.de/creation_and_evolution.htm





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