Now, will you please notice very keenly the connection in which it occurs.
It was because the earth was "waste and void, and darkness upon the face
of the deep," that the Spirit of God was brooding. It is only fair to say
that our scholarly friends who think in Hebrew are divided as to the
meaning here. Some think that these words, "waste and void," simply
indicate a stage, or step, in the processes of creation.

But others of them are just as positive in saying that the words point
plainly to a disaster of some sort that took place. In their view the
whole story of creation is in the ten opening words of the chapter. Then
follows a bad break of some sort; then the brooding of God in verse two;
and the rest of the chapter is taken up in what is practically a reshaping
up again of the whole affair. Some of this second group of Hebrew scholars
have made this translation,--"the earth became a waste," or "a wreck," or
"a ruin," or "without inhabitant."

If we may so read it now, it gives a world of additional meaning to this
word "brooding." Here was love not merely giving life, but giving itself
to overcome a disaster. The brooding was to mend a break. Love creates. It
also redeems. It stoops down with great patience, and washes the dirt and
filth thoroughly off, in the best cleansing liquid to be found, and brings
the cleansed, redeemed man back again.

Love does indeed create. It gave man the power to choose freely, without
any restriction, whatever he would choose to choose. Redeeming love does
more. It woos him to choose the right, and only the right. It gets down by
his side after his eyesight has become twisted, and his will badly kinked
by wrong choosing, and patiently, persistently works to draw him up to the
level of choosing right. Love makes us like God in the power of choice.
But there's a greater task ahead. It makes us yet more like Him in the