Division of Genesis 1

I will start by describing the division of Genesis 1, and follow the flow of the text.

When I read the most straightforward reading of the text, I did not think it would fit that heaven and earth are what is desolate and empty, as if it appeared that way from the beginning.

When I read the text, there is a pause, a break in the text with verse 2. If we look at Genesis 2.4, the author of the text also seemed to want to indicate a division.

Let's just look at the wording of the text from the King James translation.

4 These are the generations of the heavens and of the earth when they were created, in the day that the Lord God made the earth and the heavens,

As we can see from the KJV the generations belong to the creation of heaven and earth (the word BARA, created), and that day (short moment compared) God made (ASAH made) the earth and the heavens. Generations (in the beginning) compared to that day (7 days).

Did you notice heaven and earth, and earth and heaven, as if there are two scenarios here with this division, but further it says about the first BARA, created, i.e. about the beginning (in the beginning (BARA) God created heaven and earth, i.e. the finished and perfected.

The half where it says that God made earth and heaven is like a reference to the days of creation.

But back to verse 2 in Genesis 1.

Let's see what Jacob Christian Lindberg's translation of that verse says.

2 but the earth had become waste and empty, and there was darkness over the deep, yet the Spirit of God hovered over the waters.

This is a nice interpretation, since "had become" nicely depicts the Hebrew, HAYAH is only found in the becoming form, and not as just "was" waste and empty.

We also read in Genesis 19:26 that Lot's wife "HAYAH", became a pillar of salt.

Heaven and earth are thus what has come directly from the hand of God, and not that which is desolate and empty, this did not come from the hand of God.

We also read in verse 31 that everything was very good, of what God had made. So God has nothing to do with creating “desolate and empty”.

In a later article I will discuss that “desolate and empty” is what is struck by God’s judgment. But more on that later.

Luther has a note in his Bible translation that there is a grammatical sign after verse 1, a sign the rabbis inserted to tell the reader that here one should pause in the text.

This fits very well with this reading that I present here.

There is a division in the first chapter that means that one should keep with the reading after verse 1, the grammatical sign is called a Rebhia, one can perhaps (????) compare it with Selah (?) in the Psalms which is interpreted by some as “consider”?