Biblical Hebrew Forum

["JAMES CHRISTIAN READ" <JCR128 AT student.apu.ac.uk>]

Don wrote:
Can the word "was" in the verse "Now the earth was 
unformed and void" be translated "became"?

This is one response from a Hebrew Scholar:

When the word hayah refers to a change in state, then 
it takes a le- before the noun; here we have no le- so 
this is a report of a state that was, not that became 
something from something else.  At this stage in the 
Creation story, we are just getting the first reports 
on the initial state of chaos (an early mix of 
time/space/energy/matter), which only later "became" 
something else more ordered.
END QUOTE


JCR:
You've only to look at the very next verse to see that 
this theory is utter nonsense. In verse 3 elohim 
commands that light is created and then we are told 
'wayhiy light'. It would seem like a funny thing to say 
to merely say 'and then there was light'. Would it not 
make more sense to then announce the action of light's 
arrival or as Karl puts it 'and then light came into 
existence'?

I would be the first to agree that 'came into existence
' is hardly the most natural sounding translations but
it certainly seems to make more contextual sense than
'and then there was light'.

Please let me give an example. Imagine these two
following hypothetical prose pieces.

And I said 'Let the door be opened' and the door was
open.

And I said 'Let the door be opened' and the door was
opened.

Now, which one makes more sense?