Print Page Options Listen to Genesis 1:1

Heaven and Earth

1-2 First this: God created the Heavens and Earth—all you see, all you don’t see. Earth was a soup of nothingness, a bottomless emptiness, an inky blackness. God’s Spirit brooded like a bird above the watery abyss.

Read full chapter

The Creation

In the beginning God ([a]Elohim) [b]created [by forming from nothing] the heavens and the earth.(A)

Read full chapter

Footnotes

  1. Genesis 1:1 This is originally a plural form based on el (root meaning: strength), which itself is used to refer to God in compounds like El Shaddai (Almighty God). The word el is also used to refer to false gods, so the context determines whether Elohim means “God” or is better understood as “gods” (elohim).
  2. Genesis 1:1 Heb bara. Here and in 1:21, God created from nothing which is something only He can do. In 1:27, God used preexisting materials (man from the dust of the ground; Eve from Adam’s rib); each use of the word bara (“create”) must be considered in its specific context.

The Account of Creation

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.[a]

Read full chapter

Footnotes

  1. 1:1 Or In the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth, . . . Or When God began to create the heavens and the earth, . . .