FORMLESSNESS, chaos, emptiness — the earth's condition before the first day, 'formless and empty' (tohu va-vohu, Genesis 1:2, its most famous appearance, paired there with its usual companion bohu). ⚠ Isaiah reaches for the same bare word, alone, twice in one chapter (40:17, 23) to describe the nations and their rulers before God — not merely small, but measured against the raw uncreated condition that existed before God spoke order into anything at all. Deuteronomy 32:10 uses it of literal desert waste ('a howling tohu of a wilderness'); 1 Samuel 12:21 of idols themselves, 'tohu that cannot profit or deliver.' A word for the specific nothing that precedes shape. → first discussed at Isaiah 40:17