Genesis 1:2

Tohu v’Vohu

And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. (Genesis 1:2, KJV)

The phrase תהו ובהו (tohu v’vohu), underlined in the verse above, employs two different and common styles of Hebrew poetry. The first is the use of similar sounding words together. While the sentence, “The painter painted a painting with paint,” would be poor English, it is a perfect example of Hebrew poetry. The second is the use of parallelisms where multiple words are used to express one idea. The two words tohu and vohu are not expressing two different states, but rather, one state with two different words that have the same basic meaning.