The early Jewish Aramaic translation Neophyti I provides an early attestation to this understanding in its expansive translation of תֹּהוּ וָבֹהוּ: “desolate without human beings or beast and void of all cultivation of plants and of trees.”26 Tsumura writes, “In conclusion, both the biblical context and extra-biblical parallels suggest that the phrase tōhû wāḇōhû in Gen. 1:2 has nothing to do with ‘chaos’ and simply means ‘emptiness’ and refers to the earth which is an empty place, i.e. ‘an