təhôm

Semantic range

1. 1the deep sea; subterranean waters
2. 2the primordial ocean over which the Spirit moves

The unbounded water of Genesis 1:2, over whose face darkness lay. Ancient Near Eastern neighbours told creation stories in which a storm god defeats a chaos sea; Genesis conspicuously refuses that plot. There is no battle. The tehôm is inert, and God simply speaks.

The same word returns in the Flood narrative (Genesis 7:11) and in Exodus 15:5, and readers of the Book of Mormon may notice the pattern: the waters that destroy are also the waters through which the covenant people pass into new life — the logic that baptism inherits (see 1 Peter 3:20–21).

See also

• תֹהוּ וָבֹהוּtōhû wābōhû
• מַיִםmayim