Isaiah 40:17

כָּל־הַגּוֹיִם כְּאַיִן נֶגְדּוֹ מֵאֶפֶס וָתֹהוּ נֶחְשְׁבוּ־לוֹ׃

17 All the nations are like nothing before him. They are accounted by him as less than nothing; formless.

כָּל־הַגּוֹיִם כְּאַיִן נֶגְדּוֹ All the nations are like nothing before him. Once again here, Isaiah prefers to use אַיִן as a noun construct, "like nothing."

מֵאֶפֶס וָתֹהוּ נֶחְשְׁבוּ־לוֹ They are accounted by him as less than nothing; formless. Isaiah seems fond of the word תֹהוּ, "formless." He turns to it in both halves of his book with enough frequency to make it clear that he's calling up our memory of Genesis 1:2 to illustrate his point: Isaiah 24:10; 29:21; 34:11; 40:17; 40:23; 41:29; 44:9; 45:18; 45:19; 49:4; 59:4. The Mp note catches some of this list, telling us that only here and in Isaiah 41:29 does the form וָתֹהוּ occur.

The textual variant has enough force to take it under serious consideration. Normally if one or two versions pile up a reading over against the MT, it is not to be taken unless the MT makes no sense at all and the alternate reading makes a verse crystal clear; and if a version or two are also shown that they have a manuscript in their support, then the variant reading becomes more likely to be original. Here is a case like this, since the Qumran Isaiah scroll is supported by the Syriac and Vulgate in reading a comparative כְּאֶפֶס rather than the separative מֵאֶפֶס that we have in the MT.

In essence, this verse has announced the score to the universe: The nations: zero; God: infinity.