God. Real. Right.

KJV
Let there be light: and there was light.

Comments
Let there be light: Later biblical authors make much of the relationship between light and God. Psalm 104 uses all the elements of Genesis’ creation account to praise God. Verse 2 of that Psalm says God wraps Himself in light. John uses the image of light frequently, even saying in 1 John 1:5 that God is light. (Of course, that claim is not the same as the claim that light is God–a claim which would be a huge theological error.) But it is important throughout the rest of scripture that God creates the means by which the whole concept of revelation takes on significance. God is revelatory.

…and there was light: This part of verse 3 is interesting because it exactly replicates the first part. That is, in Hebrew the grammar and spelling of what God says matches exactly what results. In English it would look like this: “God said be light and be light.” Of course, the Grammar is wrong in English, so the translation must conjugate “to be” into “let there be” and “there was”. But in Hebrew the fact that what happens in creation is a direct reflection of what God says is unmistakable. That fact makes even more sense of why God’s Word is inviolable (as it is preserved in passages like Psalm 12:6-7) and why a false prophet’s unfulfilled word is sure evidence of his fraudulent claim to represent God (Deuteronomy 18:21-22).

Expanded Paraphrase
Exactly what God said came to pass. He said, “be light,” and the very next thing was light.

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KJV:
And God said…

Comments:
At this point in the text, God has created a world which has no form and is empty though He is pervasively present in it. So the next thing He does is make clear that His presence will not be secretive. The activity with which He will give shape to the formless and content to the void is revelatory–it is speech. This point, though it may seem strained with a reading of nothing but Genesis 1, is undoubtedly a portion of this event as it is recognized throughout the Old Testament. Psalm 19 is one of the best examples. Creation language deliberately marks the first six verses of that Psalm, a poem about how God reveals Himself first through the creation, then through the law, then through individual lives. Another way of saying it is that without God’s revelation, all is formless and void.
It is important to point out that this reading is not allegorical. If the scripture were not all inspired by the same God, it could be characterized as reader response theory. But since God inspires all the scriptures, including later passages’ readings of earlier passages, it is perfectly legitimate to point out what the passage comes to mean throughout Hebrew history in scripture.

Expanded Paraphrase:
So God began to give form to the world by speaking–

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KJV:
And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.

Comments:
This phrase leaves no room for a deistic view of the world. Deism claims that God started the world, but is no longer involved in it, either normally or at all–depending on how developed the form of deism is. But here Moses uses a word implying that God settles, hovers, or flutters over His new creation. In fact, he uses the same word again in Deuteronomy 32:11. There it is translated as “flutters” and describes how God stayed with and led His people through the wilderness. The importance of God’s constant and total involvement in the world is also made clear in passages like Colossians 1:16-18: “For by him were all things created, that are in heaven, and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers: all things were created by him, and for him: 17 And he is before all things, and by him all things consist. 18 And he is the head of the body, the church: who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead; that in all things he might have the preeminence.” And when Peter speaks of skeptics who deny that God will ever judge the world, he reminds them that before God judged the world in Noah’s day, He was already maintaining that world (at creation, in the water and out of the water) with the power of his word. That’s the point in 2 Peter 3:5: “For this they willingly are ignorant of, that by the word of God the heavens were of old, and the earth standing out of the water and in the water.” Peter goes on to speak of Noah’s judgment, making the point that God was involved in the world immediately after its creation, and when it was time for that first cataclysmic judgment.

Expanded Paraphrase:
But after God created the cosmos with His word, He did not leave it alone. Instead, His Spirit settled down over it to remain involved in what is not Him, but is most definitely His.

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KJV:
and darkness was upon the face of the deep.

Comments:
darkness: The parallelism ubiquitous in Hebrew thought and literature continues in this verse. “Without form and void” synonymously parallels “darkness on the face of the deep” as “darkness on the face of the deep” antithetically parallels ‘the Spirit of God moved on the face of the waters.”

the face of the deep: In Psalm 36:5-7, a passage which appeals to the merism from heaven to the deep, the heavens relate to the covenantal mercy of God while the deep relates to His judgments. And, by the way, the same image of hovering (which governs the last phrase of this verse) is present in verse 7 of that Psalm. Of course, the literal void of darkness is replaced by the literal light of the next verse. But the more significant void of darkness is replaced by the active presence and judgment of God throughout the creation (creation both as a specific act and as the whole of existence). Darkness is not evil in this verse, but it does evidence to readers the need for God’s presence and judgment.

Expanded Paraphrase:
And the empty darkness penetrated all the way to the bottom of the earth, the depths of the waters.

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KJV:
And the earth was without form, and void;

Comments:
And the earth was: When the “and” in Hebrew is attached to a noun (“earth”) rather than a verb (like “was”), it is disjunctive rather than conjunctive. That is, the wording of the text implies a break between verses 1 and 2. However, there is no reason in this text for asserting a gap in history rather than simply in the narrative. For instance, reading verse 1 as a heading and everything following as an account of what the heading introduces makes a much plainer interpretation than construing a epochal gap with a fallen race between verses 1 and 2.

without form, and void: These words are also used in proximity to one another in Jeremiah 4:22-28 (23). There, the Lord appeals to Judah to repent in order to avoid the kind of judgment which would return their land to its state before it was prepared for them. It is not, as some have seen it, a mystical description of the world after an intervening fall before the creation of Adam. Without form and void means just what it says: undefined and empty. “Without form” appears as “desert” in Deuteronomy 32:10 while “void” appears as “emptiness” in Isaiah 34:11. The fact that the cosmos (the heavens and the earth) is primitively without form and void also explains why the days of creation are paralleled as they are. The first three days give form; the last three days fill each form created in the first three. So the first day is light and dark, the fourth day (the first day of the last three) is the sun, moon, and stars–the objects for the form of light. The second day is waters and firmament; the fifth day fish and fowl. The third and sixth days (each of which has two declarations of good rather than one like all the other days) are land/plants and animals/man respectively.

Expanded Paraphrase:
But God had not yet given shape or content to the creation, so it was undefined and empty.

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KJV:
In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.

Comments:
In the beginning: The word for “beginning” is “head”, the same as in the Jewish new year, “Rosh” Hashanah. The point is that it indicates priority. It comes first chronologically here. The implication of this creative, chronological priority is also purposive as Paul sees it in Colossians 1:16-18. In John 1:1-3, John appeals to the Septuagint’s wording (the Greek translation of the Hebrew scriptures) in the first few words then makes it clear that Jesus is the actor in the creation.

God: Moses uses “Elohim” for “God” rather than “Yahweh” in this passage about creation, even though it is likely that the meaning of “Yahweh” is something like “the One who causes to be.” As Exodus 6:3 makes clear, however, Yahweh is a name known fully only in covenant. (They were aware of the name before then–hence Abraham naming a place Yahweh-Jireh in Genesis 22–but not in its covenantal sense.) Moses begins to use that name for God in chapter 2:4, where God’s specific, relational provision for people begins.

created: Although this act certainly is “ex nihilo” (out of nothing,) that fact is not inherent in the word (which is also used, for instance, about whales in vs 21.) The significance of the word for “created” is that it is only used in reference to the activity of God, and probably has more to do with the newness of His creative acts.

the heavens and the earth: Exodus 20:3-4 reveals how important the distinction between the first and last half of this verse is. There is a Creator-God. And He creates a cosmos. But the two are in no way to be mixed or confused. Also, the phrase “the heavens and the earth” is a merism–a way of including everything by naming the extremes.

Expanded Paraphrase:
Before anything else, God created everything there is, from the heavens above to the earth below.

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