Table of Contents
beho
בהו
The word beho appears only three times in the entire Hebrew scriptures, making it difficult to cross-reference to determine an exact meaning. However a general sense can be gleaned by the fact that in each case, the word occurs in a rhyming couplet with the word 'teho', which does have a known meaning of “useless”.
See Genesis 1, Isaiah 34:11, Jeremiah 4:23
Contextually, it is clearly a derogatory statement, probably meaning something like “junk” or “crap”.
Empty Nothingness
Typically, the traditional translations have interpreted 'teho beho' as “empty and void” but this misrepresents the semantics of both the words.
We know that teho is “useless”, not “emptyness”
There is no evidence that beho should be understood as “nothingness” or “void”. In fact a surfeit of words already exists for these concepts. There are a lot of words that are typically translated as “nothing”
audit these:
- owen 205
- ain 369
- apes 657
- beli 1099
- debar 1687
- hown 1952
- henem 2600
- mahshim 2814, 92814
- hekel 3605
- mowmah 3972
- ra 7451
LexID 922