Beeke and Smalley on The Spirit at Creation

Beeke and Smalley write,

[W]e read next, "And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was over the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters" (v. 2). The phrase "the Spirit of God" is the same expression used elsewhere for the Holy Spirit, who empowers God's servants. We interpret the image of the Spirit's activity according to Deuteronomy 32:10-12: "He found him in a desert land, and in the waste [tohu, the same word as "without form"] howling wilderness; he led him about, he instructed him, he kept him as the apple of his eye. As an eagle stirreth up her nest, fluttereth [rakhaph, the same word as "moved"] over her young, spreadeth abroad her wings, taketh them, beareth them on her wings: so the LORD alone did lead him, and there was no strange god with him." Therefore, we interpret Genesis 1:2 not as speaking of "the wind of God," but as revealing that the Spirit of God acted upon the primeval creation like a tender mother bird over its children in a wilderness, nurturing God's work.

Reformed Systematic Theology. Vol. 2. Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2020. p. 65-6