How can this be ?

Question

In the bible it said "in the biginning the earth was without form and void" How can this be ? something cannot be without form AND void at the same time. Can someone explain that to me please.

Answer 1

Hi Spatz,

It means that the earth was destroyed at one time. It was once plentiful and for some unknown reason, God decided to have a "do over"......

The earth was already here: "was void"... and.... "without form"
It was destroyed.....

Then....

"Replenish the earth".... It means to make it plentiful again.... as it once was......


your sister,
Ginger,
[e-mail]

Answer 2

Look at the definitions of "void":

1 a : not occupied : VACANT b : not inhabited : DESERTED
2 : containing nothing
3 : IDLE, LEISURE
4 a : being without something specified : DEVOID b : having no members or examples; specifically of a suit : having no cards represented in a particular hand
5 : VAIN, USELESS
6 a : of no legal force or effect : NULL b : VOIDABLE
synonym see EMPTY
- void·ness noun

If the earth was without form, it could also be void according to definitions 1a, 1b, 2, 3 (Idle - not occupied), 4a and 5...right?

So there you go.

Answer 3

Go to the original Hebrew words.

TOHU VA BOHU

The words "without form, and void" are the English equivalent of the Hebrew tohu va bohu. Tohu means "to lay waste" and bohu means "to be empty." The phrase tohu va bohu is used in Jeremiah 4:23-31. There, God details the coming destruction of the world in the Day of the LORD. The same imagery is used to show the end of the world that was used for the beginning, that "world that then was" before creation.

Isaiah also gives us a clue to this subject: (Isa 45:18) For thus saith the LORD that created the heavens; God himself that formed the earth and made it; he hath established it, he created it not in vain [tohu-empty], he formed it to be inhabited: I am the LORD; and there is none else. If God did not create the earth empty, but rather to be inhabited, it stands to reason that if the earth became waste and void, then it could not be inhabited, and since it was created to be inhabited, it was not created during the six day creation. It was created originally to be inhabited; then for reasons not specified in the Bible, it became uninhabited and waste and void.In other words, the earth was created, then became waste and void, and then the six-day creation events took place. There are theories about that subject but there is not room here for those theories. As an example, some teach the possibility that the rebellion of Satan (Isa 14:12-15 & Eze 28:14-19) was the reason for this destruction of the world. That is a theory and cannot be proven by scripture

The Spirit of God, or the Holy Spirit moved gently over the deep waters covering the earth. The word translated "moved upon" is merahepet from rachaph (7363) which literally means to hover softly or to brood. A mother hen broods over her eggs, gently caring for them and keeping the warm and alive. We have similar imagery in this verse. God is brooding over the earth, gently caring for it and keeping it alive. God kept the earth alive to bring flesh man into it, giving him a chance to be redeemed by the blood of Jesus. He then prepared Earth for His new creation.

Answer 4

Try this. If your mind is empty, it has no form or substance. Then you think something and suddenly there is form in it. The Bible verse is an attempt to speculate about this in terms of the beginning of the world.

Answer 5

it all depends upon the translation you use, in modern english it says:

 Now the earth proved to be formless and waste and there was darkness upon the surface of [the] watery deep; and God’s active force was moving to and fro over the surface of the waters.

in other words without the lands as we know it and without plants like a desert

Answer 6

Our reality is earthly and god's is not. Gods reality is spiritual. We cannot understand gods reality so that part is the explaination in the best terms we know how.

Without form means not compacted into earthly form. Void means unexisting or not there. So this is not wrong in definition. They both can happen.

Answer 7

Sure it can.
Form means having shape and structure;
no form means having no shape or structure.
Void means containing no matter; empty.

Answer 8

God can do anything... He can make a flat world that is also a sphere.

Answer 9

in other words there was no world God created it from nothing

Answer 10

it's a practical joke--some old hebrew guy is rolling in his grave laughing right now