From the Kabbalistic Zohar - The Book of Light: Selection from Chapter I, Part 2 of 2

“And the earth was tohu and bohu,” that is , without form and void. That dispelled the darkness in which was the hidden and concealed fire that transformed the world from tohu into bohu, and from a state of chaos made it receptive of seeds and germs of life. In all the various phases of development from tohu (chaotic state) to bohu (purified state), through countless ages of silent, secret and ceaseless progression from lower to higher stages and states of being, the Divine has manifested Itself under many and different aspects or characters corresponding to and symbolic of them.