Avoiding questions

[Drich]

Please explain to us on what basis you and he are dismissing those other uses of tohu as being incapable of serving as the model for its usage when paired with bohu. You can't. It's that simple. Your own source clearly implies that there are exemplars which would undercut his hypothesis. Once again, you've been refuted by your own source.)

for this i will refer to the word study again:
The term bohu occurs only three times in Scripture, Gen. 1:2; Isa. 34:11; Jer. 4:23. Each time it does so, it is in tandem with tohu. The Jeremiah passage harkens back to the language of creation in Genesis 1:2. Brown-Driver-Briggs Hebrew and English Lexicon lists a one-word definition for bohu – “emptiness,” and gives no etymology. C. F. Keil (Keil and Delitzsch), in his commentary on Genesis 1:2, states that the etymology for both tohu and bohu has been lost. Four representative translations (http://wordexplain.com/Translations_of_t..._bohu.html) translate bohu as “void” six times, and as some variation of “empty” or “emptiness” five times.



In the English language today, “empty” is a synonym for “void.” Since “void” with the meaning of “emptiness” is not a commonly used word, I will use the noun “emptiness” to translate the noun bohu.



Conclusion in regard to the dual use of tohu and bohu



We have already noted that tohu and bohu always appear in the same connection. In two of those instances, Genesis 1:2 and Jeremiah 4:23, are to be paired off. In Genesis 1:2 Moses declared that the earth was “formless and void” (tohu and bohu); Jeremiah stated that, as he looked at the earth, it had primeval conditions – the earth was “formless and void,” and the heavens “had no light” (Jer. 4:23).

Some have viewed tohu and bohu, connected by “and,” as a hendiadys, “the expression of an idea by the use of usually two independent words connected by and (as nice and warm) instead of the usual combination of independent word and its modifier (as nicely warm).” Constable, in his discussion of Genesis 1:2 (Notes on Genesis, 2010 edition, p. 11) states, “Here we learn that the earth was ‘formless and empty’ (a hendiadys meaning unorganized, unproductive, and uninhabited) before God graciously prepared it for human habitation (cf. Jer. 4:23-27).”

Whether or not tohu and bohu form a hendiadys, Constable has accurately captured their combined meaning as it relates especially to Genesis 1:2. The earth at this stage of Day One of the Creation week was unorganized and unproductive (tohu) and it was uninhabited (bohu).

So together, tohu and bohu are saying that the earth, at the time God first placed it in the heavens He had just made consisted, literally, of “unformedness and emptiness.” Or we could say it was “unformed and unfilled.” Or we could say it was “unorganized and empty.”