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 space (Gu.). But our safest guide is perhaps Jeremiah's vision of Chaos-come-again (4$23-26$), which is simply that of a darkened and devastated earth, from which life and order have fled. The idea here is probably similar, with this difference, that the distinction of land and sea is effaced, and the earth, which is the subj. of the sentence, must be understood as the amorphous watery mass in which the elements of the future land and sea were commingled.—Darkness (an almost invariable feature of ancient conceptions of chaos) was upon the face of the Deep] The Deep is the subterranean ocean on which the earth rests (Gn. 7$11$ 8$2$ 49$25$, Am. 7$4$ etc.); which, therefore, before the earth was formed, lay bare and open to the superincumbent darkness. In the Babylonian Creation-myth the primal chaos is personified under the name Ti'āmat. The Heb. narrative is free from mythological associations, and it is doubtful if even a trace of personification lingers in the name. In Babylonian, ti'āmatu or tāmtu is a generic term for 'ocean'; and it is conceivable that this literal sense may be the origin of the Heb. conception of the Deep (see p. 47).—The Spirit of God was brooding] not, as has sometimes been supposed, a wind sent from God to dry

probable.—] is undoubtedly the philological equivalent of Bab. Ti'āmat: a connexion with Ar. Tihāmat, the Red Sea littoral province (Hoffmann in ZATW, iii. 118), is more dubious (see Lane, 320 b, c; Jensen, KIB, vi. 1, 560). In early Heb. the word is rare, and always (with poss. exception of Ex. 15$5. 8$) denotes the subterranean ocean, which is the source from which earthly springs and fountains are fed (Gn. 49$25$, Dt. 33$13$, Am. 7$4$, and so Dt. 8$7$, Gn. 7$11$ 8$2$ (P); cf. Hom. Il. xxi. 195), and is a remnant of the primal chaos (Gn. 1$2$, Ps. 104$6$, Pr. 8$27$). In later writings it is used of the sea (pl. seas), and even of torrents of water (Ps. 42$8$); but, the passages being poetic, there is probably always to be detected a reference to the world-ocean, either as source of springs, or as specialised in earthly oceans (see Ezk. 26$19$). Though the word is almost confined to poetry (except Gn. 1$2$ 7$11$ 8$2$, Dt. 8$7$, Am. 7$4$), the only clear cases of personification are Gn. 49$25$, Dt. 33$13$ (Tĕhôm that coucheth beneath). The invariable absence of the art. (except with pl. in Ps. 106$9$, Is. 63$13$) proves that it is a proper name, but not that it is a personification (cf. the case of ). On the other hand, it is noteworthy that, unlike most Heb. names of fluids, is fem., becoming occasionally masc. only in later times when its primary sense had been forgotten (cf. Albrecht, ZATW, xvi. 62): this might be