תֹּהוּ tôhûw

Meaning

a desolation (of surface), i.e. desert; figuratively, a worthless thing; adverbially, in vain

In the King James Version: confusion, empty place, without form, nothing, (thing of) nought, vain, vanity, waste, wilderness.

Derivation: from an unused root meaning to lie waste;

Where it is used

• Genesis 1:2 Now the earth was formless and void, and darkness was over the surface of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the surface of the waters.
• Deuteronomy 32:10 He found him in a desert land, in a barren, howling wilderness; He surrounded him, He instructed him, He guarded him as the apple of His eye.
• 1 Samuel 12:21 Do not turn aside after worthless things that cannot profit you or deliver you, for they are empty.
• Job 6:18 Caravans turn aside from their routes; they go into the wasteland and perish.
• Job 12:24 He deprives the earth’s leaders of reason and makes them wander in a trackless wasteland.
• Job 26:7 He stretches out the north over empty space; He hangs the earth upon nothing.
• Psalms 107:40 He pours out contempt on the nobles and makes them wander in a trackless wasteland.
• Isaiah 24:10 The city of chaos is shattered; every house is closed to entry.
• Isaiah 29:21 those who indict a man with a word, who ensnare the mediator at the gate, and who with false charges deprive the innocent of justice.
• Isaiah 34:11 The desert owl and screech owl will possess it, and the great owl and raven will dwell in it. The LORD will stretch out over Edom a measuring line of chaos and a plumb line of destruction.
• Isaiah 40:17 All the nations are as nothing before Him; He regards them as nothingness and emptiness.
• Isaiah 40:23 He brings the princes to nothing and makes the rulers of the earth meaningless.
• Isaiah 41:29 See, they are all a delusion; their works amount to nothing; their images are as empty as the wind.
• Isaiah 44:9 All makers of idols are nothing, and the things they treasure are worthless. Their witnesses fail to see or comprehend, so they are put to shame.
• Isaiah 45:18 For thus says the LORD, who created the heavens—He is God; He formed the earth and fashioned it; He established it; He did not create it to be empty, but formed it to be inhabited: “I am the LORD, and there is no other.
• Isaiah 45:19 I have not spoken in secret, from a place in a land of darkness. I did not say to the descendants of Jacob, ‘Seek Me in a wasteland.’ I, the LORD, speak the truth; I say what is right.
• Isaiah 49:4 But I said, “I have labored in vain, I have spent My strength in futility and vanity; yet My vindication is with the LORD, and My reward is with My God.”
• Isaiah 59:4 No one calls for justice; no one pleads his case honestly. They rely on empty pleas; they tell lies; they conceive mischief and give birth to iniquity.
• Jeremiah 4:23 I looked at the earth, and it was formless and void; I looked to the heavens, and they had no light.