Throughout the whole Bible, never appear again unless they happen to be quoted. It is obvious that the real meanings of such words must be found in the words themselves, or not at all. The words in Gen. I, v. 2, which are translated by “without form and void,” or “waste and void” are examples of such exceptional words.
Let us try to arrive at the true meaning of the Hebrew words: “Thohou wa bohou.” As has just been said, they are very unusual words, and none of the translators seem to have been able to satisfy themselves as to their meaning.
Let us see what the words themselves have to say. We wilt quote what one great Hebrew scholar, d’Olivet, has to say about them : “The Hebrew words ‘Thohou wa bohou’ are of the type That sages create in learned language, and that the vulgar never understand. We will examine their figurative and hieroglyphic meaning. We know that the sign ‘H’ is the sign of ‘life.’ We have seen also that when this sign is doubled, it forms the essential ‘living’ root ‘HH’ or ‘HoH’ which, by the insertion of the verbal sign ‘O’ becomes the verb ‘HoH’ ‘to be being.’ But suppose now that we wish to express, not an existence in actuality, but only in ‘potentiality,’ we reduce the verbal root to only one sign of life, and that we lower the luminous verbal sign ‘0’ to make it The ‘conversive’ sign ‘oo,’ we shall then have a contracted root in which ‘being’ will only be latent, or, so to speak, in germ. Such exactly is the root ‘boo.’ This root, composed of the sign of ‘life’ ‘H’ and the sign ‘oo’ which we know serves as a bond between ‘nothingness’ and ‘being,’ expresses marvellously well that incomprehensible state of a thing when it does not yet exist, but is none the less in potentiality of existing. Now Moses takes this root and, prefixing to it the sign of mutual reciprocity ‘th,’ makes it into the word ‘Tho – hoo’ by which he expresses ‘a contingent and potential existence.’ He then proceeds to modify the word by omitting the ‘Th’ and inflecting the root with the prepositional article ‘B’ – ‘in’ – ‘bo-hoo.’ Thus, by the combination of the two words, the phrase means ‘a contingent and potential existence.’ The above quotation may be rather technical for many readers, but it clearly gives an explanation of the two difficult words, which quite removes the absurdities and self – contradictions of the old renderings. It is also clearly in complete harmony with all we have said in previous pages, or that we shall have to say later.
What the author 0 the original meant was clearly that the “earth had been ‘created’ as a spiritual ideal, bat it was not yet existing in actual reality,” (By a curious coincidence, immediately after writing the above passage, the present writer picked up the “Daily Telegraph,” 8th May, 1943, and reading through the leading article, came upon The following sentence: “Though it” (the Dunkirk incident) “was a military disaster of the first order, There was a deliverance within the disaster, and . . a victory – that of the R.A.F. over the Luftwaffe – within the deliverance.” There we have an excellent illustration of “a contingent potential existence within another potential existence.”)
http://dreamhawk.com/inner-life/darkness-on-the-face-of-the-deep/
To see all of the Biblical references of the word "tohu" click here:
http://www.blueletterbible.org/lang/lexicon/lexicon.cfm?Strongs=H8414&t=KJV
Let us try to arrive at the true meaning of the Hebrew words: “Thohou wa bohou.” As has just been said, they are very unusual words, and none of the translators seem to have been able to satisfy themselves as to their meaning.
Let us see what the words themselves have to say. We wilt quote what one great Hebrew scholar, d’Olivet, has to say about them : “The Hebrew words ‘Thohou wa bohou’ are of the type That sages create in learned language, and that the vulgar never understand. We will examine their figurative and hieroglyphic meaning. We know that the sign ‘H’ is the sign of ‘life.’ We have seen also that when this sign is doubled, it forms the essential ‘living’ root ‘HH’ or ‘HoH’ which, by the insertion of the verbal sign ‘O’ becomes the verb ‘HoH’ ‘to be being.’ But suppose now that we wish to express, not an existence in actuality, but only in ‘potentiality,’ we reduce the verbal root to only one sign of life, and that we lower the luminous verbal sign ‘0’ to make it The ‘conversive’ sign ‘oo,’ we shall then have a contracted root in which ‘being’ will only be latent, or, so to speak, in germ. Such exactly is the root ‘boo.’ This root, composed of the sign of ‘life’ ‘H’ and the sign ‘oo’ which we know serves as a bond between ‘nothingness’ and ‘being,’ expresses marvellously well that incomprehensible state of a thing when it does not yet exist, but is none the less in potentiality of existing. Now Moses takes this root and, prefixing to it the sign of mutual reciprocity ‘th,’ makes it into the word ‘Tho – hoo’ by which he expresses ‘a contingent and potential existence.’ He then proceeds to modify the word by omitting the ‘Th’ and inflecting the root with the prepositional article ‘B’ – ‘in’ – ‘bo-hoo.’ Thus, by the combination of the two words, the phrase means ‘a contingent and potential existence.’ The above quotation may be rather technical for many readers, but it clearly gives an explanation of the two difficult words, which quite removes the absurdities and self – contradictions of the old renderings. It is also clearly in complete harmony with all we have said in previous pages, or that we shall have to say later.
What the author 0 the original meant was clearly that the “earth had been ‘created’ as a spiritual ideal, bat it was not yet existing in actual reality,” (By a curious coincidence, immediately after writing the above passage, the present writer picked up the “Daily Telegraph,” 8th May, 1943, and reading through the leading article, came upon The following sentence: “Though it” (the Dunkirk incident) “was a military disaster of the first order, There was a deliverance within the disaster, and . . a victory – that of the R.A.F. over the Luftwaffe – within the deliverance.” There we have an excellent illustration of “a contingent potential existence within another potential existence.”)
http://dreamhawk.com/inner-life/darkness-on-the-face-of-the-deep/
To see all of the Biblical references of the word "tohu" click here:
http://www.blueletterbible.org/lang/lexicon/lexicon.cfm?Strongs=H8414&t=KJV
