“How important is the little word
‘and’?”
Which of the following accounts is true?
Account 1:
“In the beginning
God created the heaven and the earth.” (Genesis 1:1)
“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.” (Genesis 1:2)
Account 2:
“In the beginning
God created the heaven and the earth.” (Genesis 1:1)
Then Satan was given rule and
reign on the earth but he rebelled against God. So God destroyed this original
creation with a flood. (Gap Theory insert)
“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.” (Genesis 1:2)
Well I believe the 2nd account is correct and
I have Bible verses and other evidence to support it!
Let’s put it this way. A furniture van driver pulls up
to the front door and tries to unload all the items into the house – but he
can’t, because the front door is locked and there is no way in. So he has to
drive off even though the furniture he has for delivery is really attractive.
Now this story has similarities to the Gap Theory, for
if there is no gap, it will be of no consequence as to what evidence there is,
as there will be no place to insert it. Like the van driver’s situation, if the
house is locked, there is no place to deposit the furniture.
Now, as to which of the above
accounts is true, centres around the little Hebrew word “waw” - pronounced
“vav”.
I don’t understand?
Let’s start from scratch.
In the Hebrew language, the
conjunction “waw” is a word that can mean “and”, “but”, “now” or “then”, and
indeed, has a number of other meanings, depending upon the context and the type
of “waw” used.
Now according to Hebrew
lexicons, there are around twelve possible ways to use “waw”, however broadly
speaking there are two broad categories into which this word can be placed:
Category 1: The waw
disjunctive
Category 2: The waw consecutive
Category 1: The waw
disjunctive
The easiest way to remember
what the waw disjunctive does, is that it describes a noun (or a
non-verb), and in this case, it describes the noun “earth”.
In Genesis 1:2, we have
1 In the beginning God created
the heaven and the earth.
2 And (waw) the earth
was without form, and void;…”
The waw disjunctive here, is
a Hebrew literary device used to explain and elaborate the
previous sentence. In this case, verse 2 is merely describing the conditions of
the earth when it was first created in verse 1.
What’s all this mean
then?
Firstly, it’s as if you can place
brackets around verse 2, as the waw disjunctive begins a parenthesis
which is an explanation of the already complete sentence of verse 1: “In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. (Genesis 1:1)
(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.)” (Genesis 1:2)
Secondly, verse 2, simply being a
further description and elaboration upon the condition of the earth of verse 1,
is not a separate event.
Thirdly, all this shows that there
is no time gap between Genesis 1:1
So what?
It means that we can take Exodus 20:11 at face value as follows:
“For in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, the
sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day:
wherefore the LORD blessed the
Sabbath day, and hallowed it.” (Exodus 20:11)
It says what it means and
means what it says, in that everything was made in six days, as set out in
Genesis chapter one – from the first word in Genesis 1:1 right through to
the last word of Genesis 1:31.
In short, the use of the waw
disjunctive at the start of Genesis 1:2 does not indicate something
following on in a time sequence from Genesis 1:1, as this would have been
indicated by a different Hebrew construction, called the waw consecutive.
Category 2: The waw consecutive
The use of this literary
device indicates that some actions in a sequence will follow.
The following would be
a practical everyday example by saying “I went to town and I bought some
clothes and I caught the bus home.” Here are a series of actions,
performed one after each other, over a period of time.
Now in the Genesis creation
account, we have the waw consecutive first used at the start of the 3rd
verse as follows: 2 “….the Spirit of God moved upon
the face of the waters.
3 And God said, Let there be
light: and there was light.” (Genesis 1:2-3).
To help with understanding, you can put the phrase
“then” in brackets as follows:
2 “….the Spirit of God moved upon
the face of the waters.
3 And (then) God said, Let
there be light: and there was light.” (Genesis 1:2-3).
Here we have God’s action of the creation of
light, coming after the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.
It is to be noted, that the waw consecutive “and” (then)
is used repeatedly in most verses in the Genesis chapter one, and often
used more than once in many of its verses.
For example:
It is used twice in v.3:
“And (then) God said, Let there be light: and (then)
there was light.” (Genesis 1:3)
It is used twice in v.4:
“And (then) God saw the light, that it was
good: and (then) God divided the light from the darkness.” (Genesis 1:4)
It is used three times in v.5:
“And (then) God called the light Day, and
(then) the darkness he called Night. And (then) the evening and the
morning were the first day.” (Genesis 1:5)
It is used twice in v.6:
“And (then) God said, Let there be a firmament in
the midst of the waters, and (then) let it divide the waters from the
waters.” (Genesis 1:6)
Through Moses, God uses the waw consecutive, and not the
waw disjunctive, to show the sequence of separate creation actions that occur
over six days.
Do we need the Hebrew grammar to explain this to us?
No, we have something better, and it’s called English,
and that means, we can take comfort from the fact that it’s the plain reading
of God’s words that “… giveth understanding unto the simple.” (Ps 119:130).
Just as God says “I have not spoken in secret
from the beginning …”
(Isaiah 48:16), we can be assured there
are no cryptic or hidden meanings, as the Gap Theory would have us believe.
God’s word does not say one thing while meaning something else.
We have further evidence where “Jesus answered him, I
spake openly to the world; I ever taught in the synagogue, and in the
temple, whither the Jews always resort; and in secret have I said nothing.”
(John
18:20)
Indeed, we are not as the Roman Catholics, Mormons or
SDA’s, that would take God’s plain words and give them secret meanings.
Conclusion:
“THE WAW DISJUNCTIVE,
PLACED AT THE START OF GENESIS 1:2,
CLEARLY SHOWS
THAT A GAP DOES NOT EXIST.”
Harley Hitchcock
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