Genesis 1:2

2. And the earth was without form and void Having stated in the first verse the great fact of the creation, the writer now proceeds to unfold the manner and order of that creation . Here we must differ from those critics who understand Genesis 1:1 of the primordial matter of the universe, and the following verses of a subsequent series of growths . The analogy of the entire Book of Genesis confirms the view of those who regard Genesis 1:1 as a heading or general statement of the substance of the whole following section, which the succeeding verses go on to elaborate in detail . So Genesis 2:4; Genesis 5:1; Genesis 10:1; Genesis 11:10; Genesis 11:27, etc . , are respectively the headings of so many sections of this ancient Book of the Beginning and Generations of human history. In every instance, after first positing a general statement of his subject, the writer proceeds to narrate the details which his statement involves. The words used in the first verse needed an explanation, which the rest of the chapter at once supplies. The statement, so often made, that the conjunction and ( ו ) at the beginning of Genesis 1:2 forbids the supposition that Genesis 1:1 is a summary of the whole chapter, is seen to be futile by a comparison of the immediate sequence of other headings of sections named above. The words תהו ובהו are rendered by Onkelos waste and empty; by Aquila, emptiness and nothing; by Vulgate, empty and void; and by the Sept . , invisible and unformed . The words appear in the same form again in Jeremiah 4:23. They here describe the land as waste and empty, and the context shows that it was as yet covered with waters, so as to form a part and condition of the deep, over the surface or face of which there was darkness. Whether light had ever beamed upon that deep, or how the land and the waters came to be so intermixed, are questions on which the writer utters no sentiment .

The Spirit of God moved ( מרחפת , brooding, comp . Deuteronomy 32:11) upon the face of the waters The Divine Spirit hovered down upon the deep, as the mighty Agent by whose power the darkness will be made to vanish, and beauty and order arise out of desolation and emptiness . Observe, here is no broad statement that darkness prevailed through the entire universe of God; nor is the deep or the waters to be identified with the entire surface of the globe. FIRST DAY LIGHT, 3-5.