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NASB | Genesis 1:1 In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. |
AMPLIFIED 2015 | Genesis 1:1 In the beginning God (Elohim) created [by forming from nothing] the heavens and the earth. [Heb 11:3] |
Subject: Earth was without form, and void. |
Bible Note: Word Study........................... Greetings Vkey! You bring up two very interesting points. Let me touch on each one briefly. 1) Replenish vs. fill: The verse you were refering to is Gen. 1:28. It it, God commands Adam and Eve to multiply and fill the earth. The word 'maw-lay' is translated by the KJV as 'replenish.' However, there is absolutely no justification for this translation. The word is used 248 times and simply means 'to fill' or 'to fulfill.' It never has the meaning of 'refill.' This is a good example of where translators must be very careful in their work. A simple bad choice, like in this verse, can cause a whole bunch of bad theology! 2) Became vs. was: This issue is very complex. The verb can mean 'became' under certain circumstances. However, those circumstances are not meet in this verse. Allow me to quote someone who knows far more about this issue than I do! My source is the commentary on Genesis written by Victor P. Hamilton. Dr. Hamilton is professor of religion at Asbury College and a contributor to the Theological Wordbook on the Old Testament (a standard reference work for Hebrew word meanings). He gives the following two reasons for rejecting the translation of 'hayah' as 'became' in Gen. 1:2. ********************************************* "Now, at time the verb 'to be' in the perfect tense can have an obvious active force. Certainly 3:22 says, 'Behold, the man has become (haya) like one of us.' But for two reasons it cannot have this force in 1:2. First, if the writer had intended v.2 to be read as a sequence to v. 1, he would never have used the construction he did: waw consecutive plus subject plus verb (in the perfect). Instead, it would be: waw conversive attached to the verb (in the imperfect) plus subject. Thus, one would expect wattehi ha'ares rather than what we do have: weha'ares hayeta. Second, in other circumstanital clauses the verb haya in the perfect tense normally carries its stative sense (3:1, 'the serpent was wiser'; 29:16, 'and Rachel was pretty'; 34:5, 'his sons had been (or were) in the field'; Exod. 1:5, 'and Joseph was in Egypt'; Jon. 3:3, 'now Nineveh was an exceedingly great city'). The burden of proof, then, is upon those who insist that here we have an instance of haya in a circumstantial clause with the meaning 'became.'" *********************************************** I hope this helps! Your Brother in Christ, Tim Moran |