Tohu wa-bohu
("waste and void," "formless and empty," or "chaos and desolation") Biblical Hebrew phrase in Genesis 1:2 describing the condition of the earth before God said, "Let there be light" (Gen. 1:3)
Tohu wa-Bohu or Tohu va-Vohu (Hebrew: תֹּהוּ וָבֹהוּ, tṓhû wāḇṓhû) is a Biblical Hebrew phrase found in the Genesis creation narrative (Genesis 1:2), which describes the condition of the Earth immediately before the creation of light in Genesis 1:3.
Numerous interpretations of this phrase are made by various theological sources. The King James Version translation of the phrase is "without form, and void", corresponding to the Septuagint's ἀόρατος καὶ ἀκατασκεύαστος (aoratos kai akataskeuastos) and, in the Vulgate, inanis et vacua, "unseen and unformed".
Text
וְהָאָ֗רֶץ הָיְתָ֥ה תֹ֙הוּ֙ וָבֹ֔הוּ וְחֹ֖שֶׁךְ עַל־פְּנֵ֣י תְהֹ֑ום וְר֣וּחַ אֱלֹהִ֔ים מְרַחֶ֖פֶת עַל־פְּנֵ֥י הַמָּֽיִם
Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the spirit of God was hovering over the waters.
The words tohu and bohu also occur in parallel in Isaiah 34:11, which the King James Version translates with the words "confusion" and "emptiness".
The two Hebrew words are segolates, spelled tohu (תֹּהוּ) and bohu (בֹּהוּ). Hebrew tohu translates to "wasteness, that which is laid waste, desert; emptiness, vanity; nothing". Tohu is frequently used in the Book of Isaiah in the sense of "vanity", but bohu occurs nowhere else in the Hebrew Bible (outside of Genesis 1:2, the passage in Isaiah 34:11 mentioned above, and in Jeremiah 4:23, which is a reference to Genesis 1:2), its use alongside tohu being mere paronomasia, and is given the equivalent translation of "emptiness, voidness".
Inside the text, the first letter of the two words are spirantized to be pronounced [θ~t] and [β~v] (written without dagesh qal), because they appear before vowels, but in isolation or before consonants, the two words begin in the plosives [t] and [b] (written with dagesh qal).
Rabbinical interpretation
In the early rabbinical period, the verse was a point of contention regarding the question of creatio ex nihilo.
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Tohu wa-bohu” as ("waste and void," "formless and empty," or "chaos and desolation") Biblical Hebrew phrase in Genesis 1:2 describing the condition of the earth before God said, "Let there be light" (Gen. 1:3). Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
Why this record matters
The subject matters to the general reference register because the source frames it as ("waste and void," "formless and empty," or "chaos and desolation") Biblical Hebrew phrase in Genesis 1:2 describing the condition of the earth before God said, "Let there be light" (Gen. 1:3). Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.
The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 16, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q1364113. The Library of Congress control number is sh2007009221. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank.
Overview language is designed for orientation and should not be treated as a substitute for the evidence cited beneath it. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
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This entry incorporates text from “Tohu wa-bohu” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.