The American Wisdom Series

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Pamphlet 1776 Plan of God kc 2-3

God did not create the earth in a state of utter waste and desolation.
It BECAME that way!

Isaiah 45:18
For thus saith the LORD that created the heavens; God himself that formed the earth and made it; he hath established it, He created it not in vain, He formed it to be inhabited: I am the LORD; and there is none else.
There is something else in Isa. 45:18 which is extremely important to our understanding of the Plan of God.

Notice that it says "the LORD that created the heaven and the earth", so that we know we are talking about the same Creator and creation of Gen. 1:1, created it NOT IN VAIN!

We must now interrupt the story flow and do a short, simple, but scholarly word study because we MUST understand what this word "vain" means. It is the Hebrew word "tohuw" and here is its definition from Strong's Concordance*:

tohuw, to'-hoo, Hebrew 8414; from an unused root meaning to lie waste; a desolation (of surface), i.e. desert; figurative a worthless thing; adverbial in vain :- confusion, empty place, without form, nothing, (thing of) nought, vain, vanity, waste, wilderness.
In other words, Isaiah 45:18 declares that God DID NOT create the earth in the condition of "tohuw", a desolate wasteland, which is the condition in which we find the earth in Gen. 1:2, and it reads:
Genesis 1:2
And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.
The two words translated "without form" in this verse come from a single Hebrew word which is exactly the same word "tohuw" we read of in Isa. 45:18 that was translated "vain".

Here in Gen. 1:2 it SEEMS to say that God created the heavens and the earth (vs. 1) and it WAS "tohuw" when He made it, meaning it was a desolate wasteland without form.

So which is it?

Isaiah said specifically that He DID NOT make it that way.

It is truly amazing how just one word either mistranslated or translated poorly can have such a tremendous influence on the world of Christianity, and right from the beginning, the very second verse in the Bible.

We will not allow poor scholarship to obscure the truth of His Word.

Here is the definition of the word "was" in Gen. 1:2:

hayah, haw-yaw', Hebrew 1961; a primitive root [compare Hebrew 1933 (hava')]; to exist, i.e. be or become, come to pass (always emphatic, and not a mere copula or auxiliary) :- beacon, × altogether, be (-come, accomplished, committed, like), break, cause, come (to pass), do, faint, fall, + follow, happen, × have, last, pertain, quit (one-) self, require, × use.
This is EXACTLY the same word translated BECAME in Genesis 2:7 "And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul. (became a living soul; not was a living soul)

Caution to students of God's Word - Please remember two things when using our studies: #1. Our commentary is not God's Word. It is only our interpretation or understanding of "His Word" and even though we try our best to be accurate we may or may not be correct. #2. The King James translation, or any other translation, of the original Hebrew text has some words which were given different translations at different places probably because of the interpreters preconceived ideas of what they think God meant to say. For example: According to the notes in the "Dake's Annotated Reference Bible" the Hebrew word hayah in the KJV is Trans. (became) 67 times, (becamest or came to pass) 505 times, (become) 66 times, and (come to pass) 131 times, but for some reason in Genesis 1:2 it is translated (was)! That sure changes the way a person perceives the original creation of the earth, doesn't it?


God did not create the earth in a state of utter waste and desolation.

It BECAME that way!
(If you have an NIV Bible it will note the word "was" in Gen 1:2 as "or became".)

The question is "How" and "When" and "Why" did the earth become such a desolation?

To study the Bible is the noblest of all pursuits; to understand it, the highest of all goals.
We pray that with the guidance of the Holy Spirit, you accomplish both.

1 Corinthians 10:11 Now all these things happened unto them {the ancient Israelites} for ensamples, and they are written for our admonition, upon whom the ends of the world are come.

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