Wikipedia's first sentence called it “biblical hebrew word meaning "the deep"”. Today it says “northwest semitic and biblical hebrew word meaning "the deep" or "abyss"”.
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Machine-checked against the full current article on 2026-08-03.
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The opening as it read in 2015
Tehom ( ), literally the Deep or Abyss (Greek Septuagint : ábyssos ), refers to the Great Deep of the primordial waters of creation in the Bible .1Tehom is a cognate of the Akkadian word tamtu and Ugaritic t-h-m which have similar meaning.2As such it was equated with the earlier Sumerian Tiamat .3It is first mentioned in Genesis 1:2: And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. ( King James version ) It was from here that the waters of Noah's flood had their origin and the place that God temporarily receded the Red Sea for the Israelites to pass over before destroying the pursuing Egyptian army, and the place that God will dry up for the righteous to walk on towards their redemption at the End of Days (Isaiah 11:15, context entire ch. 11). In contrast to this, in another book from the Jewish Bible the drying of the Tehom will be a punishment to the wicked rather than a reward. (Isaiah 19:5) Gnostics used this text to propose that the original creator god , called the " Pléroma " or " Bythós " (from the Greek, meaning "Deep") pre-existed Elohim , and gave rise to such later divinities and spirits by way of emanations , progressively more distant and removed from the original form. Tehom is also the first of seven " Infernal Habitations " that correspond to the ten Qliphoth (literally "peels") of Jewish Kabbalistic tradition. Stieglitz stated that Eblaitic texts demonstrate the equation of the goddess Beruth in the mythology of Sanchuniathon with Ugaritic thmt and Akkadian Tiâmat. Gen. 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 (Isaiah 51:10) [Art] thou not it which hath dried the sea, the waters of the great deep; that hath made the depths of the sea a way for the ransomed to pass over? Eblaitica: essays on the Ebla archives and Eblaite language .4
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The opening as it stood in 2010
Tehom ( ), literally " deep " or " abyss ". Tehom in the Bible refers to the great deep of the primordial waters of creation. It is first mentioned in Genesis 1:2: " veharetz hayta tohu vavohu vekhoshekh al-pnei tehom veruach elohim merakhefet al-pnei hamayyim ". And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.". ( King James version ) It was from this place that the waters of Noah 's flood had their origin (Gen. 7:11) and the place that God temporarily receded the sea for the Israelites to pass over (Isaiah 51:10) before destroying a pursuing army with a tidal wave, and the place that God will dry up for the righteous to walk on towards their redemption at the end of days (Isaiah 11:15, context entire ch. 11). In contrast to this, in another book from the Jewish Bible the drying of the Tehom will be a punishment to the wicked rather than a reward. (Isaiah 19:5) In Gnostic Belief used this text to propose the original creator God, called the "Pleroma" or "Bythos" (from the Greek, meaning "Deep") was supposed to pre-exist Elohim, and gave rise to such later divinities and spirits by way of emanations, progressively more distant and removed from the original form. Tehom is also the first of seven "Infernal Habitations" that correspond to the ten Qliphoth (literally "peels") of Jewish Kabbalic tradition. "Tehom" is a cognate of the Akkadian word tamtu and Ugaritic t-h-m which have similar meaning. As such it was equated with the earlier Sumerian Tiamat .
Red text was written in or rewritten since the previous snapshot. Their copy is revision 367626023.
The opening as it stood in 2020 9 passages from the previous snapshot no longer appear
Tehom ( ), literally the Deep or Abyss (Greek Septuagint : ábyssos ), refers to the Great Deep of the primordial waters of creation in the Bible . Tehom is a cognate of the Akkadian word tamtu and Ugaritic t-h-m which have similar meaning. As such it was equated with the earlier Sumerian Tiamat . In Modern Arabic, Tihamah refers to a coastal plain of the Red Sea .
Red text was written in or rewritten since the previous snapshot. Their copy is revision 958779893.
The opening as it stood on October 6, 2023 4 passages from the previous snapshot no longer appear
Primordial waters of creation in the Bible Tehom ( təhôm ) is a Biblical Hebrew word meaning "the deep".It is used to describe the primeval ocean and the post-creation waters of the earth.It derives from a Semitic root which denoted the sea as an unpersonified entity with mythological import.
Red text was written in or rewritten since the previous snapshot. Their copy is revision 1172165402.
The opening as it stood in 2025
Primordial waters of creation in the Bible Illustration by Wenceslas Hollar : the spirit of God (with Tetragrammaton ) moves over the face of the deep.Tehom ( Hebrew : תְּהוֹם təhôm ) is a Northwest Semitic and Biblical Hebrew word meaning "the deep" or "abyss" (literally "the deeps"). It is used to describe the primeval ocean and the post- creation waters of the earth. It is a cognate of the Akkadian words tiāmtum and tâmtum as well as Ugaritic t-h-m which have similar meanings.According to a theological dictionary, tehom derives from a Semitic root which denoted the sea as a non-personified entity with mythological import.
Red text was written in or rewritten since the previous snapshot. Their copy is revision 1290832856. This is our newest snapshot; the live article may have moved again since.
Today
Wikipedia's first sentence called it “biblical hebrew word meaning "the deep"”. Today it says “northwest semitic and biblical hebrew word meaning "the deep" or "abyss"”. Read the current article and compare.
2010
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Oct '23
2025
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What Wikipedia says this is
Every article opens by defining its subject. This one was redefined since October 7, and today's defining sentence is their current revision.
Then
biblical hebrew word meaning "the deep"
Now
northwest semitic and biblical hebrew word meaning "the deep" or "abyss"
Struck red text is no longer in the article; dotted amber text was rewritten. Every revision id links to Wikipedia's copy; the text shown is our own saved copy. Data: /data. Wikipedia text is CC BY-SA; quoted for the record; not affiliated with Wikipedia.
