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''Tohu wa-bohu'' or ''Tohu va-Vohu'' ( ) is a

Biblical Hebrew Biblical Hebrew (, or , ), also called Classical Hebrew, is an archaic form of the Hebrew language, a language in the Canaanite branch of Semitic languages spoken by the Israelites in the area known as the Land of Israel, roughly west of t ...

phrase found in the

Genesis creation narrative The Genesis creation narrative is the creation myth of both Judaism and Christianity. The narrative is made up of two stories, roughly equivalent to the first two chapters of the Book of Genesis. In the first, Elohim (the Hebrew generic word ...

( Genesis 1:2) that describes the condition of the earth () immediately before the creation of light in Genesis 1:3. Numerous interpretations of this phrase are made by various theological sources. The

King James Version The King James Version (KJV), also the King James Bible (KJB) and the Authorized Version, is an English translation of the Christian Bible for the Church of England, which was commissioned in 1604 and published in 1611, by sponsorship of K ...

translation of the phrase is "without form, and void", corresponding to

Septuagint The Greek Old Testament, or Septuagint (, ; from the la, septuaginta, lit=seventy; often abbreviated ''70''; in Roman numerals, LXX), is the earliest extant Greek translation of books from the Hebrew Bible. It includes several books beyond t ...

, "unseen and unformed".

Text

The words ''tohu'' and ''bohu'' also occur in parallel in , which the

translates with the words "confusion" and "emptiness". The two Hebrew words are properly

segolate Segolates are words in the Hebrew language whose end is of the form CVCVC, where the penultimate vowel receives syllable stress. Such words are called "segolates" because the final unstressed vowel is typically (but not always) ''segol''. These ...

s, spelled ''tohuw'' and ''bohuw''.

Wilhelm Gesenius Heinrich Friedrich Wilhelm Gesenius (3 February 178623 October 1842) was a German orientalist, lexicographer, Christian Hebraist, Lutheran theologian, Biblical scholar and critic. Biography Gesenius was born at Nordhausen. In 1803 he became ...

, ''A Hebrew and English Lexicon'' (1906). Hebrew ''tohuw'' translates to "wasteness, that which is laid waste, desert; emptiness, vanity; nothing". ''Tohuw'' is frequently used in the

Book of Isaiah The Book of Isaiah ( he, ספר ישעיהו, ) is the first of the Latter Prophets in the Hebrew Bible and the first of the Major Prophets in the Christian Old Testament. It is identified by a superscription as the words of the 8th-century B ...

in the sense of "vanity", but ''bohuw'' occurs nowhere else in the Hebrew Bible (outside of Genesis 1:2, the passage in Isaiah 34:11 mentioned above, and in Jeremiah 4:23, which is a reference to Genesis 1:2), its use alongside ''tohu'' being mere

paronomasia A pun, also known as paronomasia, is a form of word play that exploits multiple meanings of a term, or of similar-sounding words, for an intended humorous or rhetorical effect. These ambiguities can arise from the intentional use of homophonic ...

, and is given the equivalent translation of "emptiness, voidness".

Rabbinical interpretation

In the early rabbinical period, the verse was a point of contention regarding the question of ''

creatio ex nihilo (Latin for "creation out of nothing") is the doctrine that matter is not eternal but had to be created by some divine creative act. It is a theistic answer to the question of how the universe comes to exist. It is in contrast to ''Ex nihilo n ...

''. In

Genesis Rabbah Genesis Rabbah (Hebrew: , ''B'reshith Rabba'') is a religious text from Judaism's classical period, probably written between 300 and 500 CE with some later additions. It is a midrash comprising a collection of ancient rabbinical homiletical inter ...

1:14, Rabbi Akiva refutes

gnostic Gnosticism (from grc, γνωστικός, gnōstikós, , 'having knowledge') is a collection of religious ideas and systems which coalesced in the late 1st century AD among Jewish and early Christian sects. These various groups emphasized p ...

and other heretical views that matter existed primordially and that God alone did not create the world. In Genesis Rabbah 2:2, rabbis

Abbahu Rabbi Abbahu ( he, אבהו) was a Jew and Talmudist of the Talmudic Academies in Syria Palaestina from about 279-320 and is counted a member of the third generation of Amoraim. He is sometimes cited as Rabbi Abbahu of Kisrin (Caesarea). Biogra ...

and Judah b. Simon give analogies in which ''tohu wa-bohu'' means "bewildered and astonished" (mentally formless and void), referring to the Earth's confusion after, having been created simultaneously with the Heavens in Genesis 1:1, it now immediately plays an inferior role. Abraham bar Hiyya (12th century) was the first to interpret the ''tohu'' and ''bohu'' of Gen. 1:2 as meaning "matter" and "form", and the same idea appears in Bahir 2.9–10. Possibly related is the ''Yesod hapashut'' ("simple element") in the

Kabbalah Kabbalah ( he, קַבָּלָה ''Qabbālā'', literally "reception, tradition") is an esoteric method, discipline and Jewish theology, school of thought in Jewish mysticism. A traditional Kabbalist is called a Mekubbal ( ''Məqūbbāl'' "rece ...

, in which "everything is united as one, without differentiation".

Use in modern culture

The phrase is featured on the front of

Godspeed You! Black Emperor Godspeed You! Black Emperor (sometimes abbreviated to GY!BE or Godspeed) is a Canadian post-rock band which originated in Montreal, Quebec in 1994. The group releases recordings through Constellation, an independent record label also loca ...

's EP

Slow Riot for New Zero Kanada ''Slow Riot for New Zero Kanada'', also stylized as ''Slow Riot for New Zerø Kanada'', is the only EP and second release by Godspeed You! Black Emperor. It was released on the Montreal-based record label Constellation Records in 1999, and was r ...

, referring to the use of the phrase in Jeremiah 4:23. Jeremiah 4:23-27 is shown on the back of the album cover. Tohu and Bohu are used as names for monsters in McCrae web-novel '

Worm Worms are many different distantly related bilateral animals that typically have a long cylindrical tube-like body, no limbs, and no eyes (though not always). Worms vary in size from microscopic to over in length for marine polychaete wor ...

'. Tohuvabohu is the name of

KMFDM KMFDM (originally Kein Mehrheit Für Die Mitleid, loosely translated by the band as "no pity for the majority") is a multinational industrial band from Hamburg led by Sascha Konietzko, who founded the band in 1984 as a performance art project. ...

's 15th studio album, as well as the title track on the album.

References

External links

* Go to , p
419
for info on related word i
Isaiah Chapter 22
called ''mekuddash'' (מקדש) which is Hebrew for "it is sanctified" {{Authority control Book of Genesis Bereshit (parashah) Creation myths Hebrew words and phrases in the Hebrew Bible

Text

Rabbinical interpretation

Use in modern culture

See also

References

External links