Before the world had shape, it had nothing. No animals. No people. Not even a horizon. The Aramaic of Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 1:2) calls it tohu va-vohu, rendered as "vacancy and desolation" — solitary of the sons of men, void of every animal. And over this abyss lay darkness, complete and uncontested.
Then something moves. The verse does not say the Spirit of God hovered; Pseudo-Jonathan names it more tenderly: ruach rachamin, the Spirit of mercies from before the Lord. Compassion, not power, is what first breathes upon the waters. Before light, before speech, before the first word that splits day from night, mercy arrives.
This single word-choice reframes creation. The world is not carved by force alone — it is breathed into being by a patient, merciful wind that refuses to leave the void alone. The lesson the Targumist hands us is that before any structure exists to judge or reward, compassion has already shown up.