DEEP (THE) (צוּלָה, H7425, deep water; מְצﯴלָה, H5185, depth of the sea; תְּהﯴם, H9333, deep sea, deep wells, deep river; ἄβυσσος, G12, the deep, bottomless pit; βάθος, βυθός, the deep [sea]). These words are sometimes used in an adjectival sense to mean any depth, but their chief usage refers to a lake or sea. The word abyssos is fig. used for the bottomless pit in Revelation. A similar usage of t^ehôm for the underworld is debatable.

The word ṩûlâ is used only in Isaiah 44:27, where it seems to refer to the canals of Babylon. Its derivatives, m^eṩôlâ and m^eṩûlâ are used of the depths of the sea crossed by Israel (Exod 15:5), also of the Mediterranean Sea (Ps 107:24; Jonah 2:5).

The word t^ehôm is of more import. It is thought by some to be used mythologically of the waters of a nether world. This view sees in t^ehôm (Gen 1:2) a parallel to Tiamat of the Babylonian creation story. Tiamat was the demon of chaos from whose split body Marduk made the earth and sky. This Babylonian story, called Enuma Elish, has little if anything else in common with the Biblical account.

It should be noted that t^ehôm is not used elsewhere in the OT of mythical subterranean waters. It is used repeatedly of the Red Sea through which Israel passed (Exod 15:5, 8; Ps 77:16; Isa 51:10; Hab 3:10). It is used also many times of the Mediterranean or the deep ocean in general (Gen 7:11; Ps 107:26; Jonah 2:5). In several places the poetic parallel for the word is yām, “sea” or the word for “waters,” etc. (Job 38:16; Pss 33:7; 135:6; Ezek 26:19; 31:4, 15). The Biblical cosmology does not picture any subterranean watery chaos. Such terms as “the waters under the earth” (Deut 4:16-18) refer only to waters below shore line as the mention of fish in them clearly shows (see the author’s “Bible and Cosmology” ETSB V [1962] pp. 11-17).

It is clear that t^ehôm could not be borrowed from the Babylonian Tiamat because the Akkad. language lacks the laryngeal consonant “h” which a borrowed Heb. word would not acquire. It is far better to assume that the old Sem. root thm indicated “ocean,” of which the Babylonian demon Tiamat was a personification.

The NT abyssos is used only nine times. In the LXX it regularly trs. the Heb. t^ehôm and thus about thirty times means merely the ocean and lakes. However, as the seas were the deepest things known to the ancients the word gained a fig. usage and is used seven times in Revelation of the bottomless pit, the abode of evil spirits. It is possible that Luke 8:31 (KJV) also shows this usage. The other reference (Rom 10:7 RSV) uses the word abyssos of the place from which Christ was raised. Opinions will differ whether abyssos refers merely to the grave, as the author believes, or to the underworld (cf. the author’s “Meaning of the Word Sheol,” ETSB, IV [1961], pp. 129-135).

Bibliography A. Heidel, The Babylonian Genesis (1951), 98-101.