BEFORE GENESIS

6. THE HEBREW WORD (EHRETZ) I TRANSLATE, “LAND,” IS USED FOR “THE LAND OF NOD” (GENESIS 4:16),AND “THE LAND OF CANAAN” (GENESIS 13:12). On Day Three, God said, “’Let the waters below the lower atmosphere be gathered into one place, and let dry ground appear;’ and it was so.” (1:9). DBD says “yabbhashah” means “dry ground” or “dry land.” I go with “dry ground,” so 1:10 says: “God called the dry ground, land,” instead of “the dry land, land.” The land here cannot refer to the entire planet, because then Moses would’ve included “the waters.” Moses would’ve said, “darkness was over the surface of the ehretz,” if he spoke of the entire planet in Genesis One. This gathering of the waters, fixed the problem found in 1:2 where the land “ehretz” was “hidden and useless,” (water, “the deep” hid the land’s form, and made it useless). The Spirit of God was not said said to be hovering over the “ehretz.” That the “waters” (the deep), are spoken of separately from “ehretz,” shows they are not part of this “ehretz.” Note: this condition was not good, nor called good. Why would God have created this “ehretz” under water? Why wouldn’t He have created this “ehretz” above the waters in the first place? In the original creation, found in Job 38, “ehretz” was not completely under waters. So again, “In the beginning God revealed/fixed/arrayed the lower atmosphere and a local area of land.” Genesis One is not about the original beginning and creation. 7. THE WORD I TRANSLATE “WHEN” IN GENESIS 1:2, IS A “WAW DESCRIPTIVE” AND NOT A “WAW CONSECUTIVE.” THEREFORE THE SCEENE IN 1:2 DESCRIBES THE SITUATION BEFORE 1:1. Scholars know, what is described in verse two does not follow consecutively after what’s said in verse one. Other examples: “You will die because of the woman you have taken WHEN she is married. (She was already married “before” she was taken, (Gen. 20:3). “Shall I have pleasure with my lord WHEN old?” (He was old “before” the question of pleasure, Gen. 18:12). “How can you say, ‘I love you.’ WHEN your heart is not with me?” (His heart was not with Him “before” he said, “I love.” (Judges 16:15). In the same way, the situation in Gen. 1:2, was there “before” God revealed/fixed/arrayed the local lower atmosphere and land area” in 1:1.Bruce K. Waltke (April 1975), said, “The conjunctions introducing verses 2 and 3 are different in the original text. The waw introducing verse 3 does in fact denote sequence and is called by grammarians the “waw consecutive.” But tewaw introducing verse2 is different in both form and function; grammarians refer to this waw as the “waw conjunctive.” The waw conjunctive mat introduce various types of clauses, but it does not introduce an independent sequential clause. It is inconceivable that Moses would have used a construction which does not indicate sequence in contrast to other constructions open to him, if thishad been hisintent.” BDB concurs (p. 253).
In my translation, the land was “hidden,” rather than “formess.” I prefer hidden because, “land” (ehretz), in the Old Testament, always hasa form and that’s why when the water was gathered into one place (ran off the land), that land wasno longer hidden “toohu” in 1:9 when “dry land appeared.” My translation is straight-forward, logical, easily-understood and literal. It wasn’t that formless land gained its form; rather hidden land became visible.
Isaiah 45:18b tells us, He is God Who formed the land and made it. He established it and did not create it hidden and useless, but formed it to be inhabited.” God confirmed this while questioning Job: “Where were you when I laid the foundation of the Earth?…And I placed boundaries on it…And I said…’here your proud waves shall stop.’” (Job 38: 4a, 10a, 11b). When Earth was first created, unlike the Genesis beginning, there was land that could be seen and inhabited. So these other pertinent Scriptures tell us Genesis One wasn’t about the original creation of the planet or its land. God did not originally create Earth with all its land hidden and uninhabitable, as we find in Genesis 1:1-2. 8. “THE GREAT DEEP” (RAV TEHOM), IS NEVER USED IN CNNECTION WITH THE OCEAN. It has been assumed that “the fountains of the great deep” (Gen. 7:1) referred to the depths of the ocean. But Isaiah 51:10 calls the place where the sea dried up for the redeemed to cross, the “great deep” (rav tehom).
9. SOLOMON SPOKE OF EARTH IN ABEGINNING THAT DIDN’T HAVE A DEEP, AGREAT DEEP OR WATER SPRINGS. He said, “From the beginning, from the earliest times of the Earth, when there were no depths…when there were no springsfilled with water.” (Proverbs 8:23-24). Thisshows that the early unjudged Earth, before Genesis, waswaterless. The eternal Earth of the future will only have, “a river of the water of life, clear ascrystal, coming from the thrown of God and of the Lamb,” and no “sea” (Revelation 21:1, 22:1).
10. “THE SPIRIT OF GOD WAS HOVERING OVER THE SURFACE OF THE WATERS” (1:2B). The word “hovering” (raygrah), denotes fluttering in place, and is only used in two other OT places. Deuteronomy 32:11, speaksof an eagle, “that hovers over its young,” and in Jeremiah 23:9 he tells us, “all my bones tremble.” I believe the Spirit of God was hovering over the “Holy of Holies” on the Temple Mount, where Jerusalem would be located.
11. ON THE FIRST DAY, GOD SEPARATED THE LIGHT (DAY) FROM THE DARKNESS (NIGHT), “AND THERE WAS EVENING AND THERE WAS MORNING: DAY ONE.” (1:3-5). Again thisspeaks of a local area of land. If it spoke of the entire globe, it would always be day and night somewhere and there would be many evenings and mornings each day. 12. THERE WAS NO DUST ON THE EARTH IN A BEGINNING BEFORE GENESIS. Genesis 2:7a says, “Then the Lord God formed man out of the dust (gayfar) of the ground.” But Solomon spoke of Earth in a beginning before Genesis; “From the beginning, from the earliest times of the Earth,” when God “had not yet made…the first dust (gayfar) of the world.” (Proverbs 8:23,26).