Babylonian Talmud

English

It was taught in a Baraita, Chaos is a green line encompassing all the world, and from it darkness springs, as it is said, (Psalms 18:12) "He made darkness His hiding place round about Him." Desolation, these are smooth stones sunk in the deep, from which waters come forth, as it is said, (Isaiah 34:11) "and He shall stretch upon it the line of chaos and the stones of desolation."

Sefaria Community Translation · cc0

Hebrew / Aramaic

b. Chagigah 12a (Vilna) · cc-by-sa

Notes

Two sentences, and they answer the crux's second question in the way no Latin does: the pair names two things, and you could point at them. Tohu is a green line that encircles the whole world and darkness comes out of it (Ps 18:12); bohu are the slimy stones sunk in the deep from which the waters come out — and the proof is Isa 34:11, 'he shall stretch over it the line of tohu and the stones of bohu', read as an inventory rather than as a curse. The baraita stands in the list of the ten things created on the first day (segments 4–5 here, which are K5's text), so tohu and bohu are creatures with a day of creation. Ibn Ezra knows this tradition from Sefer Yetzirah and sets it aside; Ramban knows it and keeps the proof-text while turning the line into a builder's measuring cord.

Threads

• ← contests · Abraham ibn Ezra
  'Now in Sefer Yetzira: tohu — this is the green line, and bohu — these are the mefulamot stones. What is correct is as the Aramaic translator said.' Ibn Ezra names the tradition the Chagigah baraita carries and sets it aside in favour of Onkelos: the pair is a privation, not two objects.
• ← echoes · Moses ben Naḥman (Naḥmanides)
  Both build on Isa 34:11, 'the line of tohu and the stones of bohu', and read it as an inventory of what tohu and bohu are. The baraita: a green line encircling the world, and slimy stones sunk in the deep. Ramban: the cord with which the craftsman marks out the plan of his building, and the stones as the forms in it. Ramban cites Sefer Yetzirah by name in the same paragraph, so the tradition is in front of him.
• ← parallel · Philo of Alexandria
  Both give tohu and the abyss a physical identification rather than a moral one, and the two identifications have nothing in common. The Bavli: tohu is a green line that encircles the whole world and from which darkness goes out. Philo: the darkness is the air, which is black by nature, and the abyss is the void. Each bench reaches for the physics it has, and each ends with the same conviction, that the second verse names things and not merely states.
• ← parallel · Nicholas of Lyra
  Two benches derive the meaning of the verse's hardest words from the words themselves, and neither could have used the other's language. The Bavli makes tohu a green line that encircles the world and from which darkness goes out. Lyra takes the Greek-derived Latin abyssus apart into a-byssus, without whiteness, and gets the darkness of v. 2 out of the etymology of the name for the deep. Both are answering the same question -- what does the verse mean by darkness -- with the resources of the language each happens to be reading it in.