UNDERSTANDING THE BIBLE: TRANSLATIONS
Tohu VaVohu
Genesis 1:2 uses Tohu
VaVohu to describe the earth at the start of Creation.
Rashi translates these
words to mean astonishingly empty and even uses the old French term to highlight this.
The Jerusalem Targum elaborates that the earth was vacant and desolate and
without humans or animal life.[1]
The Art Scroll Chumash
follows Rashi in its translation emphasizing the lack of animal and human life
(let alone vegetation). And so too the
ancient Vulgate which uses the Latin terms for empty (inanis) and vacant (vacua)[2].
However, The Jewish
Publication Society (1917) translation, which
is also used by Hertz, the Soncino Chumash and online Mechon Mamre, understands
Tohu VaVohu to refer to the physical ‘make up’ and appearance of a
still forming land mass: ”the earth was unformed and void”.
This is also the
reading of the 1611 King James
version (“the
earth was without form, and void”) and goes
back to the 3rd century BCE Greek Septuagint (”the earth was unsightly and unfurnished”).[3]
Richard Friedman in his translation, The Bible with Sources Revealed (2003),
agrees with the latter and translates the section clearly as “the earth had
been shapeless and formless”.
So which is the
Bible’s intended ‘understanding’?
Vacant of vegetation and life or in primordial physical formation?
Below, I suggest the
latter view of Tohu VaVohu is the intended one, based in part on the usage and
understandings of Jeremiah and Isaiah.
The only other time
the words Tohu and Vohu are juxtaposed in
the Tanach is Jeremiah 4:23: in a passage that echoes Genesis and warns how God
will destroy the land of Judah and Zion as punishment and revert it to the
primeval state of Genesis's opening.
The only other
time Vohu appears at all in the Tanach is Isaiah 34:11, where Tohu appears just
two words before it.
Poetic style
Tohu and Vohu are synonyms[4], and their repeated use
back to back, or almost back to back, is noteworthy.
Repetition is a
standard device in literature and especially if the work is meant to be read
aloud to a crowd. It reinforces the
idea.
As well, Tohu VaVohu is
extraordinarily poetic.
Even when transliterated,
the end
rhyme -- uncommon in Biblical Hebrew -- is obvious.
There is also internal
rhyme of the 'o' sound and the two 'V's literally back to back in the
Hebrew script.
Finally, there is a
melodic rise and fall and rise and fall quality to the duo as the 'o' are high
pitch and the 'u' sound are bass. The sound of the two words
together is like a roller coaster of highs and lows.
Jeremiah and Isaiah
Jeremiah uses Tohu VaVohu in ch 4, verse 23 in a clear echo of Genesis' opening and follows up in the very next verse with the details of mountains quaking and hills
shaking.
Here is the passage:
Here is the passage:
כב כִּי
אֱוִיל עַמִּי, אוֹתִי לֹא יָדָעוּ--בָּנִים סְכָלִים הֵמָּה, וְלֹא נְבוֹנִים
הֵמָּה; חֲכָמִים הֵמָּה לְהָרַע, וּלְהֵיטִיב לֹא יָדָעוּ.
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22 For My people is
foolish, they know Me not; they are sottish children, and they have no
understanding; they are wise to do evil, but to do good they have no
knowledge.
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23 I beheld the earth,
and, lo, it was waste
and void; and the heavens, and they had no light.
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24 I beheld the mountains, and, lo,
they trembled, and all the hills moved to and fro.
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25 I beheld, and, lo,
there was no man, and all the birds of the heavens were fled.
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26 I beheld, and, lo,
the fruitful field was a wilderness, and all the cities thereof were broken
down at the presence of the LORD, and before His fierce anger. {S}
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27 For thus saith the
LORD: The whole land shall be desolate; yet will I not make a full end.
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As the passage is a
reference to Genesis ch 1 and its reversal, it seems to suggest that,
at least as Jeremiah understood it, Tohu VaVohu of Genesis 1:2, refers to the
land's primeval surface undulating during
the formation of hills and mountains.
And as Jeremiah addresses separately the absence of humans and animals (= the birds) in verse 25, he is clearly not in agreement with Rashi and the Jerusalem Targum.
And as Jeremiah addresses separately the absence of humans and animals (= the birds) in verse 25, he is clearly not in agreement with Rashi and the Jerusalem Targum.
His reference to shape and its irregularity, I believe, is also the intent and correct translation of Isaiah 34:11, the only other time that Tohu and Vohu appear together, and, in fact, is the 3rd and last time Vohu is found anywhere in the Tanach.
Isaiah Chapter 34 יְשַׁעְיָהוּ
יא וִירֵשׁוּהָ
קָאַת וְקִפּוֹד, וְיַנְשׁוֹף וְעֹרֵב יִשְׁכְּנוּ-בָהּ; וְנָטָה עָלֶיהָ קַו-תֹהוּ, וְאַבְנֵי-בֹהוּ.
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11 But the pelican and
the bittern shall possess it, and the owl and the raven shall dwell therein;
and He shall stretch over it the line of confusion, and the plummet of emptiness.
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The Jewish, JPS English
translation above, and all Christian ones[5] which translate אַבְנֵי “stones’ literally, make little sense.
Here is the entire section and image:
ח כִּי
יוֹם נָקָם, לַיהוָה--שְׁנַת שִׁלּוּמִים, לְרִיב צִיּוֹן.
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8 For the LORD hath a
day of vengeance, a year of recompense for the controversy of Zion.
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9 And the streams
thereof shall be turned into pitch, and the dust thereof into brimstone, and
the land thereof shall become burning pitch.
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10 It shall not be
quenched night nor day, the smoke thereof shall go up for ever; from
generation to generation it shall lie waste: none shall pass through it for
ever and ever.
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11 But the pelican and
the bittern shall possess it, and the owl and the raven shall dwell therein;
and He shall stretch over it the line of confusion, and the plummet of
emptiness.
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12 As for her nobles,
none shall be there to be called to the kingdom; and all her princes shall be
nothing.
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13 And thorns shall
come up in her palaces, nettles and thistles in the fortresses thereof; and
it shall be a habitation of wild-dogs, an enclosure for ostriches.
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14 And the wild-cats
shall meet with the jackals, and the satyr shall cry to his fellow; yea, the
night-monster shall repose there, and shall find her a place of rest.
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15 There shall the
arrowsnake make her nest, and lay, and hatch, and brood under her shadow;
yea, there shall the kites be gathered, every one with her mate.
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16 Seek ye out of the
book of the LORD, and read; no one of these shall be missing, none shall want
her mate; for My mouth it hath commanded, and the breath thereof it hath
gathered them.
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17 And He hath cast
the lot for them, and His hand hath divided it unto them by line; they shall
possess it for ever, from generation to generation shall they dwell therein
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Isaiah again uses קַו KAV in ch 28:10 and 13 to symbolically mean strict justice: using the analogy and image of קַו KAV, the a
rope/string line used in building and land boundary measurement -- which is only useful when stretched taut and straight.
As for Isaiah's use of Vohu with stones אַבְנֵי , stones are not
'empty' as normally translated, but they can be ‘unformed’ as in their natural
state.
So I believe Isaiah
34:11 and surrounding verses is saying the following:
As punishment, the
city will be destroyed and abandoned by humans and left to the animals of the
wild
The measuring/plumb
line, קַו KAV, will lie slack: loose and unused = Tohu,
and the once hewn stones of its buildings and structures will be crumbled
rubble. = Voho.
So, in brief, Tohu and
its synonym Voho would mean ‘unformed, partially formed or misshapen.’
It is also noteworthy
that both times Vohu appears in the Prophets, it is clearly associated with solid
mass: stone, hills and mountains.
Consequently, taking
this cue and especially Jeremiah’s clear reference to Genesis ch 1, I offer the
following translation and understanding of Genesis 1: 2.
ב וְהָאָרֶץ, הָיְתָה תֹהוּ וָבֹהוּ, וְחֹשֶׁךְ,
עַל-פְּנֵי תְהוֹם; וְרוּחַ אֱלֹהִים, מְרַחֶפֶת עַל-פְּנֵי הַמָּיִם.
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2 And the land was without
set shape and without set form, and a wind from the Almighty undulated on
the face of the water.
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Again, the melodic cadence of Tohu VaVohu echos such a
state of primeval ongoing formation: namely, a land mass where the surface of hills
and mountains are not yet set.
It is the roller coaster I earlier described based on the sound
play of these rare and carefully chosen words.
[1] Jerusalem Targum is quoted by Hertz, J. H., The Pentateuch and Haftorahs (1958) p.
2.
[2] http://vulgate.org/ot/genesis_1.htm
[3]
For JPS see http://biblehub.com/jps/genesis/1.htm. See for JKV,
http://biblehub.com/kjv/genesis/1.htm.
For Septuagint, see http://www.ellopos.net/elpenor/physis/septuagint-genesis/1.asp.
[4] Strong’s
Concordance Tohu = 8414 and Bohu = 922
[5]
Bible Hub, Isaiah 34:11 multi=translations at http://biblehub.com/isaiah/34-11.htm
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