How (Not) to Read the Bible: Making Sense of the Anti-women, Anti-science, Pro-violence, Pro-slavery and Other Crazy-Sounding Parts of Scripture

by Dan Kimball

Verse 2 also has an oft-missed message in it. “And the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.” The word we translate in English as “hovering” is the Hebrew word rachaph, which can also be found in Deuteronomy 32:11. It is used in Deuteronomy to refer to an eagle hovering with care over its nest of young birds.