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Tehom (Hebrew:תְּהוֹםtəhôm) is aNorthwest Semitic andBiblical Hebrew word meaning "the deep" or "abyss" (literally "the deeps").[1] It is used to describe the primevalocean and the post-creation waters of the earth. It is acognate of theAkkadian wordstiāmtum andtâmtum as well asUgaritict-h-m which have similar meanings.[2] According to a theological dictionary,tehom derives from a Semitic root which denoted the sea as a non-personified entity with mythological import.[3]
Tehom is mentioned inGenesis1:2, where it is translated as "deep":
And the earth waswithout form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And theSpirit ofGod moved upon the face of the waters.
The same word is used for the origin ofNoah's flood inGenesis 7:11:
In the six hundredth year of Noah's life, in the second month, the seventeenth day of the month, the same day were all the fountains of the great deep broken up, and the windows of heaven were opened.
Gnostics usedGenesis 1:2 to propose that the originalcreator deity, called thePléroma "Totality" orBythós "Deep" preexistedElohim and gave rise to such later divinities and spirits by way ofemanations, progressively more distant and removed from the original form.
InMandaean cosmology, theSea of Suf is a primordial sea in theWorld of Darkness.[4][5][6]
Tehom is also mentioned as the first of seven "Infernal Habitations" that correspond to the tenqlippoth (literally "peels") of JewishKabbalistic tradition, often in place ofSheol.
Robert R. Stieglitz stated thatEblaitic texts demonstrate the equation of the goddess Berouth in the mythology ofSanchuniathon with Ugaritic thmt and Akkadian Tiâmat, as the sea was calledtihamatum, and alsobuʾrâtum = Canaanitebeʾerôt ("fountains").[7]
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