262 
Having thus, I trust, fixed the meaning of thohu and bohu 
as ruined, the next statement is, “ And darkness was upon the 
face of the deep.” 
Remembering that thohu and bohu mean a changed con- 
dition, the consequent darkness would be a change from a 
former state of light. If Jeremiah describes the ruined state 
of his country by saying, “ I saw the heavens, and they had 
no light,” Isaiah predicts of the future, “ Arise, shine, for 
thy light is come, and the glory of the Lord is risen upon 
thee.” 
After this darkness upon the face of the deep, God said, 
“ Let there be light, and there was light.” 
In this earlier description we read of the face of the deep — 
i.e. of the broken-up crust of the earth — furthermore : “ The 
Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.” Here 
it is intimated that the deep was covered with waters. Con- 
sequently, the whole surface of the earth was then covered 
with waters. Afterwards God said, “ Let the waters be 
gathered into one place, and let the dry land appear.” In 
the 104th psalm we learn that this was effected by the agency 
of volcanic action : — “ At Thy rebuke they fled ; at the voice of 
Thy thunder they hasted away. The mountains ascend — the 
valleys descend into the place which Thou hast provided for 
them.” 
In all volcanic countries the underground volcanic noises 
are called thunder. How, according to this Mosaic statement, 
the upper strata of mountains must be aqueous ; and so they 
are : but if aqueous, those strata must have been formed when 
the mountains were level, and so the ocean waters would 
cover them. This is exactly accordant with true science. But 
there is another remarkable, statement. We have to resort to 
geology to account for the structure of the crust of the earth ; 
but geology can tell us nothing of the production of life. 
Moses does : “ The Spirit of God moved upon the face of the 
waters.” For what ? Let the 104th psalm tell : — “Thoutakest 
away their breath ; they die, and return to their dust. Thou 
sendest forth thy Spirit ; they are created, and Thou renewest 
the face of the earth.” (Ps. civ. 29, 30.) “ Moved” is a 
word which occurs three times : here, and for an eagle flutter- 
ing over her young (Deut. xxxii. 11); and for the shaking 
bones of a drunken man (Jer. xxiii. 9). 
That brooding movement of the blessed Spirit was instilling 
life into the yet unborn animal creation which was in embryo 
in the earth. It was a Divine operation in the darkness. We 
might subject the remainder of the chapter to the same 
