2. Description of Chaos.—It is perhaps impossible to unite the features of the description in a single picture, but the constitutive elements of the notion of chaos appear to be Confusion (תהו ובהו), Darkness, and Water (תהום, מים). The weird effect of the language is very impressive. On the syntax, see above.—waste and void] The exact meaning of this alliterative phrase—Tōhû wā-Bōhû—is difficult to make out. The words are nouns; the connotation of תהו ranges from the concrete 'desert' to the abstract 'nonentity'; while בהו possibly means 'emptiness' (v.i.). The exegetical tendency has been to emphasise the latter aspect, and approximate to the Greek notion of chaos as empty
down' (Ezk. 2347) or 'clear ground by hewing down trees' (Jos. 1715. 18
[J])—a sense as remote as possible from fashion or make (Di., G-B.
s.v.; We. Prol.6 387). The Ar. bara'a (used chiefly of creation of animate
beings) is possibly borrowed from Heb. Native philologists connect
it, very unnaturally, with bari'a, 'be free'; so that 'create' means to
liberate (from the clay, etc.) (Lane, 178 b, c): Di.'s view is similar.
Barth (ZA, iii. 58) has proposed to identify ברא (through mutation of
liquids) with the Ass. vb. for 'create,' banū; but rejects the opinion
that the latter is the common Semitic בנה 'build' (KAT3, 4981), with
which ברא alternates in Sabæan (Müller in ZDMG, xxxvii. 413, 415).
2. תהו ובהו] G ἀόρτος καὶ ἀκατασκεύαστος; Aq. κένωμα κ. οὐθέν; Σ. ἀργὸν κ. ἀδιάκριτον; Θ. κενὸν (or οὐθὲν) καὶ οὐθὲν; V inanis et vacua; TO צדיא וריקניא ('desolate and empty'); S ܛܘܗ ܘܒܘܗ. The fragmentary Jer. Tg. has a double trans.: "And the earth was תהיא ובהיא, and (cf. TO) desolate from the sons of men, and empty of work." תהו occurs along with בהו in Jer. 423, Is. 3411; תהו alone in 17 pass. besides. The meaning varies between two extremes: (a) a (trackless) desert (Jb. 1224 [= Ps. 10740] 618, Dt. 3210), and (b) unsubstantiality (שאין לו ממש, IEz.) or 'nonentity,' a sense all but peculiar to II Is. (also 1 Sa. 1221, and perhaps Is. 2921), but very frequent there. The primary idea is uncertain. It is perhaps easier on the whole to suppose that the abstract sense of 'formlessness,' or the like, gave rise to a poetic name for desert, than that the concrete 'desert' passed over into the abstract 'formlessness'; but we have no assurance that either represents the actual development of the idea. It seems not improbable that the OT usage is entirely based on the traditional description of the primæval chaos, and that the word had no definite connotation in Heb., but was used to express any conception naturally associated with the idea of chaos—'formlessness,' 'confusion,' 'unreality,' etc.—בהו] (never found apart from תהו) may be connected with bahiya = 'be empty'; though Ar. is hardly a safe guide in the case of a word with a long history behind it. The identification with Βααυ, the mother of the first man in Phœn. mythology (see p. 49 f.), is
