try, "over the surface of the waters" and "let the dry land appear"
notice the command is that the dry land appear, not be created. that creation is already from verse 1
water is formless, but takes on whatever the form forces applied to it describe. and void refers to there being no life, not nonexistence. if the earth didn't exist it could not be described as being empty.
Gen 1:9 And God said, Let the waters under the heaven be gathered together unto one place, and let the dry
land appear (i.e. be seen, W-TeRa"eR, Niphal Imperfective Waw-sequential, hence having a Perfective sense): and it was so.
In the Gen. 1 account the verb to see (רָאָה Ra"aH) is used in various forms many times.
1 In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.
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.
3 And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.
4 And God
saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness.
5 And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day.
6 And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters.
7 And God made the firmament, and divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament: and it was so.
8 And God called the firmament Heaven. And the evening and the morning were the second day.
9 And God said, Let the waters under the heaven be gathered together unto one place, and let the dry land
appear: and it was so.
10 And God called the dry land Earth; and the gathering together of the waters called he Seas: and God
saw that it was good.
11 And God said, Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed, and the fruit tree yielding fruit after his kind, whose seed is in itself, upon the earth: and it was so.
12 And the earth brought forth grass, and herb yielding seed after his kind, and the tree yielding fruit, whose seed was in itself, after his kind: and God
saw that it was good.
13 And the evening and the morning were the third day.
14 And God said, Let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and years:
15 And let them be for lights in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth: and it was so.
16 And God made two great lights; the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night: he made the stars also.
17 And God set them in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth,
18 And to rule over the day and over the night, and to divide the light from the darkness: and God
saw that it was good.
19 And the evening and the morning were the fourth day.
20 And God said, Let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creature that hath life, and fowl that may fly above the earth in the open firmament of heaven.
21 And God created great whales, and every living creature that moveth, which the waters brought forth abundantly, after their kind, and every winged fowl after his kind: and God
saw that it was good.
22 And God blessed them, saying, Be fruitful, and multiply, and fill the waters in the seas, and let fowl multiply in the earth.
23 And the evening and the morning were the fifth day.
24 And God said, Let the earth bring forth the living creature after his kind, cattle, and creeping thing, and beast of the earth after his kind: and it was so.
25 And God made the beast of the earth after his kind, and cattle after their kind, and every thing that creepeth upon the earth after his kind: and God
saw that it was good.
26 And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.
27 So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.
28 And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.
29 And God said, Behold, I have given you every herb bearing seed, which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree, in the which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed; to you it shall be for meat.
30 And to every beast of the earth, and to every fowl of the air, and to every thing that creepeth upon the earth, wherein there is life, I have given every green herb for meat: and it was so.
31 And God
saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good. And the evening and the morning were the sixth day.
All of them refer to
God seeing. The form of verb used for appear (the passive of רָאָה, therefore "
be seen" is waw-Imperfective meaning it should be considered as perfective and subsequential to the previous verb. It seems to be God commanding the land
to be seen by Himself. Since God
sees all that exists, if the land already existed inside the water,
it could already be seen by God. and God commanding it
to be seen seems a redundant command for God to give. However, if there was no land yet formed, and it was formed at God's command from the elements suspended in the waters, the command makes sense and the land
came into full visibility to God as land, after He had ordered it to do so. And this both fits the Hebrew text and is also a viable sequence of events.
I am not averse to the idea that angels were some carry over from some previous world that was dissolved and reformed, as will also happen to this one in the future, and we will be watching it happen as resurrected saints. But there is no evidence that the present day angels, including the one who became satan, WERE created in the previous age. So, any argument based on an assumption that they WERE and which goes further and builds an entire mythology upon that assumption, is only a theory, not mandatory doctrine. My mythology re when satan's became satan is also based on some assumptions and is not mandatory doctrine. Individuals are free to explore the various theories and come to their own conclusions. You are doingme a service to point out where my assumptions are not explicitly in scripture. And I am doing the same for you, Knowing which ideas we have are assumptions and which are biblical assertions enables us to make a reasonable assessment of how probable ourr own and other theories are. We do not have to be certain of everything.
..... but that does not mean that angels existed before man?
