tōhû wābōhû

Semantic range

1. 1trackless waste, wilderness, chaos
2. 2emptiness, futility, nothingness
3. 3unordered, unproductive state

The phrase in Genesis 1:2 that the KJV renders "without form, and void." Tōhû on its own means a trackless waste — a desert with no paths — and by extension futility (Isaiah 45:19 uses it for a vain search). Bōhû occurs only three times, always paired with tōhû.

The pair describes not nothing but nothing-useful: raw material that cannot yet sustain life. Everything the six days accomplish is the reversal of those two words. Days one to three form what was formless (light/dark, waters/sky, sea/land); days four to six fill what was empty (luminaries, fish and birds, animals and humankind). Reading Genesis 1 with that structure in view turns it from a list into an argument.

See also

• בָּרָאbārāʾ
• תְּהוֹםtəhôm