The precosmic condition in the Genesis account is described in Genesis 1:2 with the Hebrew expression tohu wabohu (“formless and empty”).a No one suggests that this verse indicates that matter had not been shaped or that the cosmos described in verse 2 is empty of matter. By logic alone the words could be seen to concern functionality, and analysis of the Hebrew confirms the conclusion that these terms indicate that the cosmos was empty of purpose, meaning, and function—a place that had no order or intelligibility.
