[Fatalist]

It means just what it says - the earth was a lump of rock awaiting God to give it form. God had just created it and was now going to form it and populate it. There is absolutely nothing in the text to suggest that the earth had form or life prior to this.

[Just mythoughts]

Isaiah 45:18 For thus saith the LORD That created the heavens; God Himself That formed the earth and made it: He hath established it, He created it NOT in vain, He formed it to be inhabited: I am the LORD; and there is none else.


The "in vain" is the same as used in Genesis 1:2 does in fact describe an event which cause the earth to become without form and void = waste.

One might call what follows Genesis 1:2 an environmental clean up.

[Iscool]

Gen 1:28 And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.

Just something to think about...