Gen 1:2: tohu wabohu

Says 1:2 opens וְהָאָרֶץ הָיְתָה תֹהוּ וָבֹהוּ (veha'arets hayetah tohu vavohu); הָיְתָה is a Qal perfect, third feminine singular. BDB glosses תֹהוּ "formlessness, confusion, unreality, emptiness" and בֹהוּ "emptiness." Darkness is עַל־פְּנֵי תְהוֹם, "over the surface of the deep" (BSB); BDB glosses תְהוֹם "deep, sea, abyss."

Says The pair recurs in Jer 4:23, וְהִנֵּה־תֹהוּ וָבֹהוּ ("it was formless and void," BSB), and in parallel lines in Isa 34:11, קַו־תֹהוּ וְאַבְנֵי־בֹהוּ ("a measuring line of chaos and a plumb line of destruction," BSB). תֹהוּ alone describes the wilderness in Deut 32:10 (וּבְתֹהוּ) and the earth God did not make "empty" in Isa 45:18 (לֹא־תֹהוּ בְרָאָהּ).

Uncertain What the pair means. No lean is taken here. (1) Unformed and unfilled, answered by the forming of days one to three and the filling of days four to six. (2) A desolate, uninhabitable waste. (3) A chaotic state, with the deep and the darkness. A ruin-and-restoration reading takes הָיְתָה as "became"; against it, a clause of "and" + noun + perfect verb usually describes a state ("was"). The BSB's "formless and void" is one English choice, not a decision among these.