A Hebrew Word--A New Understanding
“In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” It seems like a simple sentence. Not much to talk about. However, I always enjoy asking the question, “Why did the author choose ‘this word,’ rather than ‘that word’?” Today, I want to look at the word “create” and ask, “Why did Moses use this word?” He could have used the word asah and said, “In the beginning God made the heavens and the earth.” He could have also used the word yāṣar and said, “In the beginning God formed/fashioned the heavens and the earth.” Yet, Moses did not choose either of those words. Instead he chose to use the word bārā. God did not simply make the heavens and the earth or form the heavens and the earth. God created the heavens and the earth.
As we look at how bārā is used throughout the Old Testament we find a couple interesting aspects of this word. First, bārā “never occurs in a context in which materials are mentioned.” This helps us to understand why Moses chose to use this word in the first place. If God had only “made” or “formed” the heavens and the earth, it would give the sense of material being present for him to use. However, Moses used bārā, which gives the sense of God creating without the use of material--ex nihilo.
Another nuance of this verb is the fact that God is always the subject. Nobody else, or nothing else, is able to accomplish what this verb accomplishes. No human is able to “create” in the same way bārā is used. Not even the gods of the nations outside of Israel are able to “create” in the way bārā is used. It is solely the God of Israel that is able to create in a bārā way--able to create something from nothing. The Theological Dictionary of the Old Testament says, “This verb does not denote an act that somehow can be described, but simply states that unconditionally, without further intervention, through God’s command something comes into being that had not existed before.”
With those things in mind, I want you to look at a very familiar verse from the Psalms. David says, “Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean; wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow. Let me hear joy and gladness; let the bones that you have broken rejoice. Hide your face from my sins, and blot out all my iniquities. Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me. Cast me not away from your presence, and take not your Holy Spirit from me. Restore to me the joy of your salvation, and uphold me with a willing spirit.” (Psalm 51:7–12, ESV).
When we understand bārā as an act that only God can do, bringing about something from nothing, this passage takes on a new flavor. You can feel David’s desperation. You can feel David’s lostness. He fully realizes his depravity. David cannot bārā anything, only God. David brings nothing into the equation but his sin. Therefore, he doesn’t ask God to shape (yāṣar) his old heart because his old heart is beyond purification. His old heart is beyond restoration. David needs God to do a new creating work inside of him. He needs God to bring something from nothing--something only God can do. He needs God to create a new, clean heart inside of him.
Along with David, we must cry out for God to do a new work inside of us--to bring something from nothing. We bring nothing to the table for God to begin forming or shaping. We completely rely on God to make us “new creations” in the same way, and by the same power, that he brought the world around us into being out of nothing.