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Oar resurrection is to be in a moment, in the twinkling of an 
eye. That glorious creation was similar. “He spake, and it was 
done.” 
Having given us this magnificent account of the creation of 
all things, Moses proceeds to detail facts concerning this 
earth. His first statement is, “ And the earth was without 
form, and void.” It is nowhere said that heaven was 
without form, and void. The statement is limited to this 
earth. Upon the meaning of the phrase “ without form, and 
void,” the whole question of the Mosaic cosmogony turns. 
Happily Scripture leaves us in no reasonable doubt. The 
phrase occurs but three times in Scripture, and in two of 
these it undoubtedly means ruined. The first is Isa. xxxiv. 11, 
where the words are rendered confusion and emptiness : — 
“The Lord shall stretch out upon it (Idumasa) the line of 
confusion, and the stones of emptiness.” 
The second is in Jeremiah's lamentation over the ruin of 
his country : — “ I beheld the earth, and lo it was without 
form, and void ” (iv. 23). 
Although the whole phrase occurs but three times, the 
principal word -“inh ( thohn ), occurs twenty times, and with 
the same results. Instead of translating the word, I shall 
retain the Hebrew one in two remarkable quotations : Isaiah 
describes the ruined city of Jerusalem as “ the city of thohu ” 
(xxiv. 10). 
He declares respecting God's creation of this earth, “ He 
did not create it thohu ” (xiv. 18). It is true that these 
words are rendered in most versions as if there were an 
ellipsis, ?inh for rinhb (Ze thohu), in vain ; but this is a con- 
jectural addition. The original words are nsns sinh 
(Id thohu herdah ), He did not create it (the earth) thohu. 
Let us insert this declaration of Isaiah into the Mosaic 
statement. 
In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. 
And He did not create the earth thohu , and the earth was 
thohu. 
Is it not evident that the thohu condition of the earth was 
a ruined one, and not its original state ? 
In the Zohar, as quoted by Ludovicus Capellus, there is 
a comment remarkably confirmatory of these views : — 
Excerpta ex Zohar, fol. 24, 6, ad Selections from the Zohar, fol. 
locum Genes, ii. vers. 4, 5, 6. 24, 6, on Gen. ii. 4-6. 
1. Hse sunt generationes cceli et 1. These are the generations of 
terrce, &c. heaven and earth, &c. 
