Gen 1:1-3; *smikhut or not?

[nili]

Because of the presence of the אֵת particle, I don't think that we should go with "creation of." This is expressed in Hebrew as בְּרִיאַת הָעוֹלָם. Avraham Ahuvya's translation of the Bible (תָּנָ״ךְ רָם),* which is a translation from classical Hebrew to modern Hebrew, the author phrases the first verse in this way:

בִּתְחִלַּת הַבְּרִיאָה, כְּשֶׁבָּרָא אֱלוֹהִים אֶת הָעוֹלָם...

He renders the second phrase, which is also temporal (since it is following כְּשֶׁ־ "when"), as something dependent. He renders it as: "In the beginning of the creation, when God created the world...." He then follows it with a comma. The main verb still appears in verse 3 with אָמַר אֱלוֹהִים, and verse 2 has commas that make it continue into verse 3.

Similarly, the Hadassah Magazine article Israeli Life: Translating the Bible into Hebrew, notes:

Take Genesis 1:1, which the King James version rendered “In the beginning, God created the heaven and the earth.” Ahuvia translates this as “At the beginning of creation, when God created the world,” ending with a comma leading into the next verse.

“I didn’t say ‘heaven and earth’ but ‘the world,’ because on the second day he created the firmament and called it heaven,” noted Ahuvia. “In the Bible, the phrase ha-shamayim ve-ha’aretz means ‘the world.’”

I'd be interested in seeing an English translation of Ahuvya's Gen. 1:1-3.

I'm also curious about the last sentence quoted above. I could understand treating אֵ֥ת הַשָּׁמַ֖יִם וְאֵ֥ת הָאָֽרֶץ as a merism, but Ahuvia seems to be making a different claim. If, indeed, the BH phrase means "the world," I'm rather surprised that none of my commentaries seem to be aware of this fact. Perhaps I'ver overlooked something.