How did water come to existence before creation?

QUESTION:

Gen 1:2 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. please explain how 'water' came into existence prior to actual act of creation?

T.E.

ANSWER:

T.E.:

The best answer, I think, of those two verses rests in the Hebrew construction of the sentence. The way to put verse one and two together is this: “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth, BUT (rather than and) the earth was formless and void.” In other words, verse one says the earth was created, that is the materials were all there, including water. Verse two and following goes on to explain how God began to arrange the mass of matter into the earth as we know it. Even if you leave “and” between the two verses, the meaning of “but” is still valid. 

An example is this: when Esmie and I moved into this house, the movers just stacked everything into my office – which is very large. There were chairs, stacked everywhere, books piled in heaps here and there, and computers, wires, and printers strung all over the floor. Pictures were tucked away in boxes set at random. There were no bookshelves to put the books. It was a mess.

And then Esmie got busy. She hired some people to build book shelves, arranged the couches, tables, desks and chairs in order, put the books in the shelves, and beautifully arranged the pictures on the wall. It is beautiful the way she ordered everything with a place for everything, and everything in its place. 

Such is the relationship of Genesis chapter one verse one and two. The water in verse two assumes that God put it there in verse one. Water is part of the earth, as you can see from satellite pictures of the world. The earth consists of dirt, rocks, water, plants – and life of all kinds.

T.E., thank you for your question, all the best to you, and may God bless.

Dr. Newman