Gap Restoration in Hebrew

Watchman Nee (CFP) explains it best...

In the first two chapters of Genesis three different words are used for the act of creation: (1) “bara”—calling into being without the aid of pre-existing material. This we have already touched upon; (2) “asah”—which is quite different from “bara,” since the latter denotes the idea of creating without any material whereas “asah” signifies the making, fashioning, or preparing out of existing material. For instance, a carpenter can make a chair, but he cannot create one. The works of the Six Days in Genesis are mainly of the order of “asah”; (3) “yatsar”—which means to shape or mold as a potter does with clay. This word is used in Genesis 2.7 as follows: “And Jehovah God formed man of the dust of the ground.” Interestingly, Isaiah 43.7 illustrates the meaning and connection of all three of these words: “every one that is called by my name, and whom I have created for my glory, whom I have formed, yea, whom I have made.” “Created” signifies a calling into being out of nothing; “formed” denotes a fashioning into appointed form; and “made” means a preparing out of pre-existing material.

The words “In the beginning” reinforce the thought of God creating the heavens and the earth out of nothing. There is really no need to theorize; since God has so spoken, let men simply believe. How absurd for finite minds to search out the works of God which He performed at the beginning! “By faith we understand that the worlds have been framed by the word of God” (Heb. 11.3). Who can answer God’s challenge to Job concerning creation (see Job 38)?

“In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” This heaven is not the firmament immediately surrounding the earth; rather, it points to the heaven where the stars are. It has not undergone any change since it was created, but the earth is no longer the same.

To understand the first chapter of Genesis, it is of utmost importance that we distinguish the “earth” mentioned in verse 1 from the “earth” spoken of in verse 2. For the condition of the earth referred to in verse 2 is not what God had created originally. Now we know that “God is not a God of confusion” (1 Cor. 14.33). And hence when it states that in the beginning God created the earth, what He created was therefore perfect. So that the waste and void of the earth spoken of in verse 2 was not the original condition of the earth as God first created it. Would God ever create an earth whose primeval condition would be waste and void? A true understanding of this verse will solve the apparent problem. “Thus saith Jehovah that created the heavens, the God that formed the earth and made it, that established it and created it not a waste, that formed it to be inhabited: I am Jehovah; and there is none else” (Is. 45.18). How clear God’s word is. The word “waste” here is “tohu” in Hebrew, which signifies “desolation” or “that which is desolate.” It says here that the earth which God created was not a waste. Why then does Genesis 1.2 state that “the earth was waste”? This may be easily resolved. In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth (Gen. 1.1). At that time, the earth which God had created was not a waste; but later on, in passing through a great catastrophe, the earth did become waste and void. So that all which is mentioned from verse 3 onward does not refer to the original creation but to the restoration of the earth. God created the heavens and the earth in the beginning; but He subsequently used the Six Days to remake the earth habitable. Genesis 1.1 was the original world; Genesis 1.3 onward is our present world; while Genesis 1.2 describes the desolate condition which was the earth’s during the transitional period following its original creation and before our present world.

Such an interpretation cannot only be arrived at on the basis of Isaiah 45.18, it can also be supported on the basis of other evidences. The conjunctive word “and” in verse 2 can also be translated as “but”: “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth, but the earth was waste and void.” G. H. Pember, in his book Earth’s Earliest Ages, wrote that...

the “and” according to Hebrew usage—as well as that of most other languages—proves that the first verse is not a compendium of what follows, but a statement of the first event in the record. For if it were a mere summary, the second verse would be the actual commencement of the history, and certainly would not begin with a copulative. A good illustration of this may be found in the fifth chapter of Genesis (Gen. 5.1). There the opening words, “This is the book of the generations of Adam,” are a compendium of the chapter, and, consequently, the next sentence begins without a copulative. We have, therefore, in the second verse of Genesis no first detail of a general statement in the preceding sentence, but the record of an altogether distinct and subsequent event, which did not affect the sidereal [starry] heaven, but only the earth and its immediate surroundings. And what that event was we must now endeavour to discover.*

*G. H. Pember, Earth's Earliest Ages, New Edition, edited with additions by G. H. Lang (Grand Rapids: Kregel Publications, 1975), p. 31. (The original work of Pember, under the same title, was initially published in 1876 by Hodder and Stoughton. Later editions were issued by Pickering and Inglis and the Fleming H. Revell Co.)

Over a hundred years ago, Dr. Chalmers pointed out that the words “the earth was waste” might equally be translated “the earth became waste.” Dr. I. M. Haldeman, G. H. Pember, and others showed that the Hebrew word for “was” here has been translated “became” in Genesis 19.26: “His wife looked back from behind him, and she became a pillar of salt.” If this same Hebrew word can be translated in 19.26 as “became,” why can it not be translated as “became” in 1.2? Furthermore, the word “became” in 2.7 (“and man became a living soul”) is the same word as is found in Genesis 1.2. So that it is not at all arbitrary for anyone to translate “was” as “became” here: “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth, [but] the earth became waste and void.” The earth which God created originally was not waste, it only later became waste.

“In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth” (Gen. 1.1) and “in six days Jehovah made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is” (Ex. 20.11). Comparing these two verses, we can readily see that the world in Genesis 1.1 was quite different from the world that came after Genesis 1.3. In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. In the Six Days God made the heaven and earth and sea. Who can measure the distance that exists between “created” and “made”? The one is a calling into being things out of nothing, the other is a working on something already there. Man can make but cannot create; God can create as well as make. Hence Genesis records that in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth, but later on the earth had become waste and void due to a tremendous catastrophe, after which God commenced to remake the heaven, earth and sea and all the creatures in them. 2 Peter 3.5-7 expresses the same thought as well: the heavens and the earth in verse 5 are the original heavens and earth referred to in Genesis 1.1; the earth mentioned in verse 6 that was overflowed with water and which perished is the earth covered with water which became waste and void as mentioned in Genesis 1.2; and the heavens and the earth that now are as spoken of in verse 7 are the restored heavens and earth after Genesis 1.3. Hence the works of God during the Six Days are quite different from His creative work done in the beginning.

The more we study Genesis 1, the more we are convinced that the above is the true interpretation. In the first day, God commanded light to shine forth. Before this first day, the earth had already been existing, but it was now buried in water, dwelt in darkness, and was waste and void. On the third day, God did not create the earth. He merely commanded it to come out of water. F. W. Grant has stated that “the six days’ work merely sets the earth into a new program; it does not create it out of nothing.”* On the first day, God did not create light, He instead commanded light to shine out of darkness. The light was already there. Neither did God create heaven on the second day. The heaven here is not the starry heaven but the atmospheric heaven, that which surrounds the earth. Where, then, did all these come from if they were not created during the Six Days? The one answer is that they were created at the time of the first verse of Genesis 1. So that subsequently, there was no need to create but simply to remake.

* A free translation.—Translator

“In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” Note that there is no detailed description here. We therefore do not know whether the original heaven and earth were created instantaneously or through many ages. Was it done in thousands of years or in millions of years? In what shape and how large? We only know that God created the heavens and the earth in the beginning. Neither do we know how many years elapsed between the time of the first verse and that of the second verse of Genesis 1. We do not know when God created the heavens and the earth, nor do we know how long was the period after the original creation that the desolation described in verse 2 occurred. But we do believe that the original, perfect creation must have passed through many many years before it became waste and void. Such a long period would be enough to cover the so-called pre-historic age. All the years which geology demands and all the so-called geologic periods which it distributes among those years can fall into this time frame. We do not know how long the earth underwent change nor how many changes there were before it became waste and void because the Scriptures do not tell us these things. Yet we can affirm that the Bible never states that the age of the earth is but six thousand years in length. It merely shows that the history of man is approximately six thousand years old. By understanding the first two verses of Scripture, we can recognize that there is no contradiction between the Bible and geology. The attack of geologists against the Bible is merely beating the air. How marvelous is the word of God.

We do not present this interpretation in order to pacify science. For the revelation of God never yields to man’s reasoning. We will not forsake the authority of God’s word in order to make compromise with the conclusions of men. Nor do we intend to attempt to reconcile science with the Bible (for contradiction is to be expected since “the mind of the flesh is enmity against God”—Rom. 8.7). For such an interpretation as we have presented here was put forward even in the early church, long before geology had become a discipline of science. What a Christian believes is not the wisdom of men but the word of God. Aside from the rock of the Bible, we need no other ground on which to stand. As long as the Scriptures declare it, that is deemed final to us. How lamentable it is that many so-called defenders of the faith too readily give ground and alter the Scriptures so as to reconcile them with human theories. An example of this is given by A. W. Pink, who noted that after the translation of a certain Assyrian tablet, people such as mentioned above enthusiastically reported that the Old Testament history was now being verified by that tablet. This is really turning things upside down. Does the word of God need any verification? Let us clearly understand that if the record on the Assyrian tablet coincides with that of the Bible, it only shows that the tablet has no historical error. And if they do not agree, it merely proves that the tablet is erroneous. In a similar way, if the teaching of science agrees with the Bible, the latter verifies the truth of science. But in case they do not agree, the Scriptures attest to the falsehood of science’s hypothesis. Natural man will of course laugh at our logic, yet this scornful attitude in itself ironically substantiates what the word of God declares when it states that “the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him; and he cannot know them, because they are spiritually judged” (1 Cor. 2.14)! Let us therefore not compromise our dignity in order to agree with the world. Let us not alter the Bible to suit the taste of men.

How marvelous is the first chapter of Genesis! One verse is used to proclaim the original creation, a single verse is called upon to pronounce the ruin of the world, and less than thirty verses are utilized to promulgate the remaking of the world! Who else in the universe could write a chapter comparable to Genesis 1? So difficult a topic, yet so clearly stated. So long a history, but so simply put. It is plainly not science, and yet it is scientifically accurate. If it was not written by God, then who was it who could write such a chapter? The reason why God does not say more is because He will reveal to men only that which pertains to men’s relationship with Him. As one Biblical scholar has observed: The revelation from God is not a history by Him of all that He has done, but what has been given to man for his profit, the truth as to what he has to say to. Its object is to communicate to man all that regards his own relationship with God…. But historically the revelation is partial. It communicates what is for the conscience and spiritual affections of man…. Thus no mention is made of any heavenly beings….Thus also, as regards this earth, except the fact of its creation, nothing is said of it beyond what relates to the present form of it.*

* J. N. Darby, Synopsis of the Books of the Bible (Kingston-on-Thames: Stow Hill Bible and Truth Depot, 1948), I:7-8.

Indeed, what God has revealed is not for the sake of gratifying the curiosity of men, but for the purpose of expressing His divine character, the sinful nature of man, the way of salvation, and the future glory and punishment. How dangerous is worldly knowledge, for men out of their self-conceit will attack God with their limited knowledge.

How difficult for the intellectual man to be humble! Men always seek after knowledge, but God is unwilling to enhance such pursuit with His revelation. Consequently, He says very little here about creation. What we now need is not more science but deeper spirituality which will last on into eternity. Let us praise God our Father for He is so merciful. He not only created us but also remakes us, that we may be a new creation in Christ. How sweet is the name of the Lord Jesus! What grace it is that God has given His Son to us!