This is the second stage in the history of the Creation. After the first verse, it is of the earth, and of the earth only, that the narrative speaks. The earth did now exist, but in the form of eJtaos. This expression does not mean a state of disorder and confusion, but that state of primitive matter in which no creature had as yet a distinctive existence, and no one element stood out in distinction from others, but all the forces and properties of matter existed, as it were, imdivided. The materials were indeed all there, but not as such — they were only latent. However, the creative spirit, the principle of order and life, brooded over this matter, which, like a rich organic cell, comprehended in itself the conditions, and up to a certain point the elementary principles, of all future forms of existence. This Spirit was the efficient cause, not of matter itself, but of its organization, which was then to begin. He was the executant of each of those Divine commands, which from this time were to succeed each other, stroke after stroke, till this chaos should be transformed into a world of wonders,
If We cannot tell how the Spirit of God brooded over that vast watery mass. It is a mystery, but it is also a fact, and it is here revealed as having happened at the very commencement of the Creation, even before God had said, " Let there be light," The first Divine act in fitting up this planet for the habitation of man was for the Spirit of God to move upon the face of the waters. Till that time, all was formless, empty, out of order, and in confusion. In a word, it was chaos; and to make it into that thing of beauty which the world is at the present moment, even though it is a fallen world, it was needful that the movement of
28 LET THERE BE LIGHT
the Spirit of God should take place upon it. How the Spirit works upon matter, we do not know ; but we do know that God, who is a Spirit, created matter, and fashioned matter, and sustained matter, and that He will yet deliver matter from the stain of sin which is upon it. We shall see new heavens and a new earth in which materialism itself shall be lifted up from its present state of ruin, and shall glorify God; but without the Spirit of God the materialism of this world must have remained for ever in chaos. Only as the Spirit came did the work of creation begin.^
We have first chaos, then order (or cosmos) ; we have also first darkness, then light. It is the Spirit of God that out of chaos brings cosmos ; it is the Word of God that out of darkness brings light. Accordingly, the text is easily divided in this way —
I. Cosmos out of Chaos.
L Chaos.
ii The Spirit of God. iii. Cosmos.
II. Light out of Darkness.
i. Darkness, ii. God's Word. iii. Light.
Cosmos out of Chaos.
i. Chaos.
"The earth was without form (R.V. waste) and void." The Hebrew (tohu wa-bohu) is an alliterative description of a chaos, in which nothing can be distinguished or defined. 2^hu is a word which it is difficult to express consistently in English; but it denotes mostly something unsubstantial, or (figuratively) unreal ; cf. Isa. xlv. 18 (of the earth), " He created it not a tohu, he fashioned it to be inhabited," verse 19, " I said not, Seek ye me as a tohu {i.e. in vain)." Bohii, as Arabic shows, is rightly rendered empty or void. Compare the same combination of words to suggest the idea of a return to primeval chaos in Jer, iv. 23 and Isa. xxiiv. 11 (" the line of tOhu and the plummet of Mhu ").
' C. H. Spiirgeon.
GENESIS 1. 2, 3 29
Who seeketh finds: what shall be his relief Who hath no power to seek, no heart to pray, No sense of God, but bears as best he may, A lonely incommunicable grief ?
What shall he do? One only thing he knows,
That his life flits a frail uneasy spark
In the great vast of universal dark.
And that the grave may not be all repose.
Be still, sad soul! lift thou no passionate cry, But spread the desert of thy being bare To the full searching of the All-seeing Eye:
Wait — and through dark misgiving, blank despair, God will come down in pity, and fill the dry Dead place with light, and life, and vernal air. ^
ii. The Spirit of God.
1. In the Old Testament the spirit of man is the principle of life, viewed especially as the seat of the stronger and more active energies of life; and the "spirit" of God is analogously the Divine force or agency, to the operation of which are attributed various extraordinary powers and activities of men, as well as supernatural gifts. In the later books of the Old Testament, it appears also as the power which creates and sustains life. It is in the last-named capacity that it is mentioned here. The chaos of verse 2 was not left in hopeless gloom and death ; already, even before God " spake," the Spirit of God, with its life-giving energy, was "brooding" over the waters, like a bird upon its nest, and (so it seems to be implied) fitting them in some way to generate and maintain life, when the Divine ^a< should be pro- nounced.