(3) In the beginning: Rashi wrote, "If you are coming to explain it according to its simple meaning, explain it thus: At the beginning of the creation of the heavens and the earth and the earth was chaos and void and darkness, God said, 'let there be light'" If so, everything follows the creation of the light. And Rabbi Avraham (Ibn Ezra) himself [also] explained it in this way; except he [added] that the letter, vav, in the word, vehaarets (and the earth) does not come to serve [what it introduces, as it generally does to indicate a sequence] and there are many [examples] of this in Scripture. And [its explanation according to Ibn Ezra] is that at the beginning of the creation of the firmament and the dry land, there was no habitation on the earth, but [rather] there was chaos and void covered in water, and God said, 'let there be light.' And according to his opinion, nothing [else] was created on the first day, only the light. And the difficulty for our teacher, Shlomo (Rashi), in this explanation is that he said, that if [the verse] is coming to teach the order of the creation with [the heavens and the earth], to tell us that they came first, it should have written, barishona (at first); as there is no [usage of the word,] reishit (beginning of) in the Bible except as a relational [term, and so it is indication that light was created at the beginning of God's creating the heavens and the earth]. And behold, "He will tell the beginning (reishit) from the end" (Isaiah 46:10) [is not relational to anything explicit]. And if he can make that relational to 'the word' (so that the verse would read, "the beginning of the word from the end of the word"), [which does not appear] (something which Rashi actually does), then he can make this relational [to a word which does not appear as well, in which case, the verse would read, "In the beginning of everything, God created the heavens and the earth]. And also [the same applies to (Deuteronomy 33:21), "and he saw a beginning (reishit ) for himself." And our teacher made more claims about this. And now, listen to a correct and clear explanation of the text according to its simple understanding (peshuto). The Holy One, blessed be He, created all of the creations from absolute nothingness. And we have no other expression in the Holy Tongue for bringing out something from nothing than "bara" (which is found almost exclusively in this verse). And none of all that which was made - 'under the sun' or above - existed [directly] from nothing. Rather, He brought out a very fine element from complete nothingness; it has no substance, but it is the energy that can create, that is able to accept a form and to go from the potential to the actual. And this is the first material [and] is called hyle by the Greeks. And after hyle, He didn't create anything, but [rather] formed and made [the creations]; since it is from it that He brought everything forth and clothed the forms and refined them. And know that the heavens and all that is in them are one material, and the earth and all that is within it is [another] material; and the Holy One, blessed be He, created both of them from nothing - and the two of them alone were created, and everything was made from them. And this material that they called hyle is called tohu (chaos) in the Holy Tongue. And the word['s definition is understood by looking at] the language of [the Sages] (Kiddushin 40b), "with one that is toha (wonders) about the earlier ones." Since were a person to define a name for it, he would wonder and deliberate to give it another name, since it has not taken a form, such that a name would fit it at all. And the form that fashions this material is called bohu (void) in the Holy Tongue. And this word is [a] compound [that is made up of two words, bo (within it) and hu (it)], meaning within it, is it. [And even though it is missing the letter vav in the first part of the compound,] it is like the word, [osehu (to do it), in the phrase] (Exodus 18:18) "you are not able to do it," which is missing a vav and an alef, [and fully spelled out would be the two words,] oseh (to do) and hu (it). And this is what the verse is stating (Isaiah 34:11), "and He shall stretch upon it the line of tohu and the stones of bohu;" since [this] is the line (kav) with which the craftsman will seal the plans of his building and that which he hopes (yikveh) to do - [and that word's] definition [is understood] from [the phrase], (Psalms 27:14) "Hope (kaveh) to the Lord." And the stones are the forms of the building. And so it is written (Isaiah 40:17), "less than nothing and tohu are they considered to Him;" [such] that tohu is after nothing and [is also] not a thing. And this is what they stated in Sefer Yetzirah, "He created substance from tohu and made 'it is not' [into] 'it is.'" And they also said in the midrash of Rabbi Nechunia ben Hakaneh (Sefer HaBahir), "Rabbi Berachia said, 'that which is written, "and the earth was tohu and bohu," what is meant [by] "was?" That it already was tohu. And [if so,] what is bohu? Rather, it was tohu - and what is tohu? Something that makes people wonder - and it went back to being bohu - and what is bohu? Something that has substance to it, as it is written, "in it is it (bo hu)."'"

(4) And it stated, Elohim (God), [which means] the master of all the forces, as the root word [here] is el, which is power; and it is a compound word, [made up of] el [and] hem (them), as if 'power' were relational (and would be understood as power of them), and 'them' refers to all the other powers; meaning 'the Power over all the powers.' And a secret will also be elucidated about this [later]. If so, the correct simple meaning of the verses is that its meaning is: At first, "God created the heavens" since he brought forth their material from nothing, "and the earth," bringing forth its material from nothing. "And the earth" includes the four basic elements, as per (Genesis 2:1), "And the earth and the heavens and all their hosts were completed," which includes the whole terrestrial globe. And so [too] (Psalms 148:7), "Praise the Lord from the earth, the sea monsters and all the depths," and besides them, [there] are many other [such references]. And behold, with this creation, which was like a small [and] fine dot, and without substance, were created all of the creations in the heavens and the earth.