tohu · formlessness, emptiness

What it means

tohu (תֹּהוּ) is a Hebrew word of the Bible that means “formlessness, emptiness”.

Something without form or order: a desolate place, a wasteland. It describes the earth before God set it in order: not yet a place to live in. Figuratively, something empty or worthless; in vain.

How to say it

Approximate pronunciation. Vowels sound as in Spanish (a as in father, e as in bed, i as in machine, o as in note, u as in rule); the syllable in bold is stressed. The voice is your device's.

Its senses in the Bible

1. Without form or order, like the earth at first, or a desolate place.
2. Something empty and worthless; "in vain".

From Brown-Driver-Briggs (1906)

How it is translated

The words this translation uses for it, most frequent first.

• emptiness ×11
• void ×4
• formless ×3
• formlessness ×2

Where it appears

• Genesis×1
• Deuteronomy×1
• 1 Samuel×2
• Job×3
• Psalms×1
• Isaiah×11
• Jeremiah×1

• Genesis 1:2

  Now the earth was formless and empty, and darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the spirit of Elohim was hovering over the surface of the waters.

• Deuteronomy 32:10

  He found him in a land of wilderness, and in an emptiness of howling, a wasteland; he surrounded him, he cared for him, he guarded him like the pupil of his eye.

• 1 Samuel 12:21

  And do not turn aside, for that would be going after emptiness that does not profit or deliver, for they are emptiness.

• Job 6:18

  The caravans turn aside from their way; they go up into the void and perish.

• Job 12:24

  He removes the heart of the heads of the people of the land, and makes them wander in a void without a way.

• Job 26:7

  He stretches out the north over the void; he hangs the earth upon nothing.

• Psalms 107:40

  He pours contempt on nobles, and makes them wander in a void without a way.

• Isaiah 24:10

  The town of formlessness is broken; every house is shut, so that no one enters.

• Isaiah 29:21

  who make a person sin by a word, and for him who reproves in the gate lay snares, and turn aside the righteous with emptiness.

• Isaiah 34:11

  And the pelican and the hedgehog will possess it, and the ibis and the raven will dwell in it; and he will stretch over it the line of formlessness and the stones of emptiness.

• Isaiah 40:17

  All the nations are as nothing before him; as less than nothing and emptiness they are regarded by him.

• Isaiah 40:23

  who brings rulers to nothing; the judges of the earth he makes like emptiness.

• Isaiah 41:29

  Look, all of them are wickedness; nothing are their works; wind and emptiness are their cast images.

• Isaiah 44:9

  Those who form carved images, all of them are emptiness, and their desired things do not profit; and their witnesses, they do not see and do not know, so that they will be put to shame.

• Isaiah 45:18

  For thus says YHWH, who creates the heavens —he is the Elohim—, who formed the earth and made it —he established it; not as formless did he create it; to be inhabited he formed it—: “I am YHWH, and there is no other.

• Isaiah 45:19

  I have not spoken in secret, in a place of a land of darkness; I did not say to the offspring of Jacob, ‘Seek me in emptiness.’ I, YHWH, speak righteousness, I declare uprightness.

• Isaiah 49:4

  But I said, “In vain I have worn myself out; for emptiness and vapor I have spent my strength; yet surely my right is with YHWH, and my wages with my Elohim.”

• Isaiah 59:4

  There is no one who calls with righteousness, and no one who pleads his case with faithfulness; they trust in emptiness and speak falsehood; they conceive suffering and give birth to wickedness.

• Jeremiah 4:23

  I looked at the earth, and look, it was formless and void; and to the heavens, and their light was not there.

And 1 more times.