The Sabbath Rest of Genesis 2

Was the weekly Sabbath instituted as a binding ordinance for all mankind in Genesis 2? I believed that myself for years. But the text doesn’t actually say that.

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One of the most common claims of Sabbatarianism is that by resting on the seventh day of creation week and blessing that day, God instituted and commanded the weekly Sabbath for all mankind. I am currently reading a book published in 1724 that makes this claim. The thinking is, if the Sabbath was created before Sinai then it is outside of the Covenants. It also creates a new version of history where mankind observed a weekly Sabbath for a while, but it was later lost and then reinstituted in Exodus 16.

This may come as a shock, but I disagree.

I've already gone over this topic in a more general way in the post "The Sabbath Rest of Hebrews 4". That post skimmed many ideas beyond Hebrews 4. Today's post will be more specific. This time, I want to focus on Genesis 2:2-3.

Let's start by learning a little Hebrew.

SHABATH vs SHABBAT

In Genesis, the seventh day of creation is not called a Sabbath, but at a glance it might look like it is.

Genesis 2: 2 uses the Hebrew word shabath (שָׁבַת). Some see shabath and conclude it means a Sabbath day, but shabath does not mean Sabbath day. We have two different kinds of words being confused. Closely related, but not the same.

Let's look at these two words and see a few things, starting with shabath.

shabath (שָׁבַת) verb, to cease

Shabath is a verb. It describes stopping, ceasing, desisting an action. Contrary to what you might think, the heart of the word is not "to rest", but rest can be implied depending on context. I will emphasize “to cease” because it helps bring out an important idea that might be easy to miss.

Side note: When you look in Strong's you will see shabath, but when you look in interlinear Bibles you will see wayyišbōṯ (וַיִּשְׁבֹּת֙) instead. What's up with that? The reason is, they are the same basic word. Shabath is the root form. Using roots makes things simpler for Strong's (and me) rather than listing and defining every possible conjugation of every word. And wayyišbōṯ is shabath after it has been conjugated quite a bit. Shabath is "to cease" and wayyišbōṯ is "and He ceased". Same word, different form.
Lesson: use more tools than just Strong's in your word studies.

Moving on.

Here is a critical idea for today:

In Genesis 2:2, the one who ceases is God, and the specific action God ceases from is creating. 

Why is this critical? Because only God was creating, and only God could cease from this work. Only God can shabath here, hence how it was conjugated to "and He ceased", not "they". There is nothing here for Adam to cease from. This cessation was not general, it was quite specific - "He rested [ceased / shabath] from all His work which God had created and made". This pattern repeats in the next verse. This is all about what God did, and no one besides. God's acting alone and God's intentionality in creating is absolutely critical to understanding the Judao-Christian creation narrative versus any other. And nothing in the narrative suggests it was ever repeated, let alone weekly.

Do you see how expanding this shabath to all mankind not only has no foundation in the language used, but it does damage to the creation narrative and God's unique role in it? This is why I am emphasizing "cease" over "rest". It's too easy to see rest and think God and Adam rested. It's not so easy to see cease and think God and Adam ceased from creating.

Notice another important point:
Genesis 2:2 says God finished (kâlâh) His work and that He ceased (shabath) His work. 

Why is that important? If Genesis only said kâlâh (finished), you would know creation was complete, but you would not see that God purposefully ceased from it (as if to say He kept tweaking it, or did more to it later on). If it only said shabath (cease), you would know God purposefully ceased from work, but not necessarily that the creation was complete (as if to say He stopped early or was interrupted). The two are complementary, not redundant. Put everything together and you get a purposeful end to creation when it was fully ready to be ended. He ceased when it was time to cease.

Every word here is purposeful and careful. Nothing is assumed. Nothing is implied. There is a completeness here. There is a perfection here.

I ask myself, would the author of Genesis take such care to be this specific only to leave out huge ideas like a command for all mankind to cease from their own work repeatedly every week for the rest of time? Remember, Sabbatarians aren't just saying it's a good idea, they are claiming it's a requirement. Most claim we are not saved by it, but we cannot be saved without it. This is salvation-level importance, and we are reviewing one of its most popular proof texts. An idea this big, this foundational, should be in-your-face blatant. But where is it? Nowhere in Genesis 2.

And if it is a Sabbath, then why isn't the word Sabbath (shabbat) used here?

shabbat (שַׁבָּת) noun, Sabbath

The word shabbat is a noun, not an action word. It is a designated day where the main characteristic was ceasing from normal work. Shabbat (שַׁבָּת) is a day for Israel to shabath (שָׁבַת) from normal duties. Creation was certainly not normal duties.

The word shabbat is not in Genesis 2. The word shabbat is not in Genesis at all. If a Sabbath day were intended here, it is not unreasonable to expect it to be written. It is not.

Perhaps I can understand why recorded history outside the Bible would have been lost, but for the Bible itself to be so silent about it that the very word is not used until sixteen chapters into Exodus is telling. I will not hang my hat on an argument from silence, but I think in this case we cannot ignore the silence either. If the weekly Sabbath idea is not there, then silence is expected.

Now that we've talked about the language used, let's talk about the central idea.

BLESSED AND HALLOWED

In Genesis 2: 3, God blesses and hallows the seventh day of creation. Sabbatarians claim this is the part that implies the creation of a weekly Sabbath. I admit, for most of my life I believed this. The Sabbatarian position was the only one that made sense to me. Why would God bless and hallow a single day only to move on and leave that behind. It seemed like a waste. I was thinking in the wrong direction - towards the future.

Let's consider this from another direction - in the context of creation, where it appears. Not with verses from other chapters, but from this chapter. Not with words and ideas that aren't there, but with words and ideas that are there. Not forward to thousands of years in the future, but back to all that had happened that week. Not where Adam rests from work he didn't have in paradise, or from sin he hadn't fallen to yet, or where he keeps an appointment with a God who was ever-present, but for God's final act in ceasing and blessing His own work of creation.

This is the last verse of the creation narrative, before it strongly shifts focus onto Adam and Eve and the buildup to their fall (some scholars even say verse 4 starts a second, separate creation narrative). Verse 3 is still about God and what He did.

Creation was finished, God ceased from creating, and He blessed that time as a time to be refreshed by and to delight in what He had made. He was present in it. He saw that it was good. This blessing is the very last piece that completes and seals the creation act.
He didn't just create it then run off, He stayed and enjoyed all that He had made.

Sabbatarians will want to continue on, "Yes, but then Adam..."

No. There is no "but then" or Adam in this verse. It isn't written. It isn't the point. I am not saying Adam is utterly absent here. But this is about who God is, not Adam.
God is the One who creates ex nihilo, purposefully not by accident, as a blessing not a curse, and He received a personal blessing from what He made. We cannot completely remove mankind from the creation act because we are part of it, ultimately it was for us, and God was refreshed by all that He had made which includes Adam - Adam is part of what God ceased from and was refreshed by - but the star of this section is God. He is the only one who creates or ceases from creating. We are still talking about the creation act here.

The reason Sabbatarians turn the spotlight onto mankind is because of an attempt to force a predetermined conclusion into the narrative. The assumption comes first, then the reading, and then the reading is used to justify the assumption. It's circular. And it detracts.

ANECDOTAL EVIDENCE

Something else never sat right with me. Why would God create Adam then immediately tell him to take a day off?

God: "Adam! Welcome to Earth. I just finished a lot of work and the sun is going down, so why don't you take tomorrow off." Adam: "Great! Uhhh... What's a 'tomorrow'?"

Adam was created mere hours before the seventh day began. He had no sin, no toil, no exhaustion -nothing to cease from. He had a big day planned of reaching out to grab food, and wondering what things are called. He lived in the Garden of Eden, God’s own earthly dwelling place, walking with Him in unbroken fellowship every single day. Nothing separated Adam from God (not even clothes). In that perfect setting, every moment was like a Sabbath.

A mandatory weekly Sabbath in Eden feels like a solution in search of a problem that didn’t exist yet. The entire experience of Eden was already sabbath-like. Why insert a special day to “do what you’re doing now, only a little less”? It would have been rather pointless.

HAVES AND HAVE NOTS

Let's go over once again what we do and do not have in front of us.

What we have:

• God finishing His work (kālāh)
• God ceasing from His finished work (shābat/wayyišbōṯ)
• God as the only one acting or ceasing from acting
• A very specific action being ceased from - creating
• God blessing a day and personally being refreshed in it by what He had made
• A completed creation account
• A clear focus on what God did
• An illustration of who God is (the Creator and source of existence)

What we do NOT have:

• Any mention of an action by Adam
• Any mention of Adam ceasing an action
• Any command for anyone
• Any indication of a weekly cycle being established
• Any mention that all seventh days were blessed
• Any mention of the word shabbat (Sabbath) itself
• Any connection to ordinary human work, or sin, or an appointment with God
• Any indication that the blessing is meant as a pattern for all mankind
• Any clear focus on man
• Any hint of going to church
• Any hint of annual sabbaths

Notice, no weekly Sabbath language or command exists here in Genesis 2:2-3.
Now, let's look at the imagery.

THE SINCEREST FORM OF FLATTERY

I am certain someone will have a hard time with this because the weekly Sabbath and the creation narrative are obviously related. I fully agree they are!

Exodus does look back at Genesis for imagery. But that does not mean Exodus forces Genesis to secretly create a repeating event that later gets lost and then reinstituted in Exodus. It simply does not follow.

Some even say Genesis anticipates Exodus. That is reasonable. God is fully capable of knowing how mankind could fall and planning how He would respond. But that does not force His hand. Jesus was “crucified from the foundation of the world,” yet He does not die in Genesis 3.

Even if we accept these forward- and backward-looking connections (I personally do), the claim that “God created the Sabbath day in Genesis and commanded it for all mankind” still goes beyond what the text can support. Borrowing themes does not make them the same thing.

Many have noticed these bi-directional thematic connections over time, but not a binding ordinance for all mankind.

Search the Jewish and Samaritan commentaries and extra-biblical writings. You will find connections between creation and the Sabbath, and even angels keeping it in heaven. But the clear, repeated emphasis is that the commanded weekly Sabbath was a special sign for Israel alone, not a universal requirement given to all mankind. And we can't blame this on the Jews not understanding the Sabbath because they didn't observe it.

Search the early Christian writings. You will find all sorts of discussion on the seventh day of creation - its symbolism, patterns, its future fulfillment, and even references to an “eighth day.” But in all their analysis - literal, mystical, polemical, or otherwise - there is no mention of a binding weekly Sabbath for all mankind hidden in creation week.

I am not appealing to authority or silence. It's a simple observation. If a weekly Sabbath were really in Genesis 2, it is reasonable to expect to see this claim repeated plainly and often throughout history. We should see at least a couple people saying it. But we do not. It's so important that it didn't make it into the text or the commentary. That tells us something about where this idea comes from and why.

This strong claim does not appear until after the Reformation, more than a thousand years after Christ and several thousand years after Genesis. Even then, it doesn't appear fully formed. It takes several years to develop. Which group seems to have developed it? Sabbatarians. And that raises a fair question - did they fit their ideas to what they read in Genesis 2, or do they read Genesis 2 to fit their ideas?

CONCLUSION

Is the weekly seventh-day Sabbath in Genesis 2? Only if you bring it in with you. The text does not give it. It is not stated, not implied, and not hinted at in any straightforward reading of the passage. It has to be imported.

What do we actually see? God.
God the Creator and source of existence purposefully ceasing from His creative activity when all was ready, and then blessing the seventh day as the final act to seal what He had done, and then He was refreshed in what He had made. I emphasized shabath as "to cease" to illustrate that this was all about God.
What we do not see? Man.
Any work for man, any ceasing of work for man, any command for mankind, or any statement about repetition.

When that absence of evidence is compared with how important this claim is said to be, the silence is hard to ignore. And when we consider this claim appears to have been developed by Sabbatarians after the Reformation, the silence becomes deafening. It isn't that the passage is unclear. It's exactingly clear. It is that the conclusion being drawn goes well beyond what the passage actually says. It is the attempt to cram the Sabbath in there which makes it seem unclear.

I no longer believe God ceasing from His own work in Genesis 2 also establishes a weekly Sabbath command for all mankind. I genuinely do not see any compelling reason to agree. I accepted it because I needed it as a Sabbatarian, not because I couldn't avoid it in the text. That is the very definition of eisegesis: "the process of interpreting a text by imposing one's own presuppositions, agendas, or biases into it, rather than drawing meaning from the text itself."

If you are wondering how Deuteronomy 5: 15 or Exodus 20: 11 fit in, I address those in my post "The Sabbath Rest of Hebrews 4".

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It is important that you understand; Everything on this blog is based on the current understanding of each author. Never take anyone's word for it, always prove it for yourself, it is your responsibility. You cannot ride someone else's coattail into the Kingdom. ; )

Acts 17:11

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