So we begin our first reflection on the theme of ‘Sabbath’ by noting that our English word ‘Sabbath’ comes from the Hebrew word ‘shabbath’, which means to ‘cease’, ‘desist’, or ‘rest’. The origins of this idea can be traced to the opening chapters of Genesis despite the fact that the word itself is not found there. However, Genesis tells us that after creating the heavens and the earth in six days, God is said to have ‘rested on the seventh day from all the work that he had done’ (Gen 2:2) and the word for ‘rested’ here is the verb ‘shavath’, which comes from the same root as the word for ‘sabbath’. Later, in the book of Exodus, when God gives his people the Law, we find that this pattern of God working for six days before pausing for one day of rest served as an example that Israel were to follow (Exod. 20:8-11). So it is clear that a fundamental part of what it means to keep the Sabbath is simply that we are to rest from our work and to enjoy the fruit of our labours.
But is that all that is going on here?
Old Testament scholar John Walton doesn’t seem to think so, and after careful study he suggests that ‘rest’, in the ancient world, ‘is what results when a crisis has been resolved or when stability has been achieved, when things have “settled down”‘1. This adds another dimension to how we understand what it means to rest on the Sabbath and is really interesting given that God only rests after He has brought order and structure to what was originally began as a mysterious and chaotic affair.
Rest is what results when a crisis has been resolved or when stability has been achieved, when things have ‘settled down’
John Walton
For in Genesis 1:2 we are told that the earth was both formless and empty and that there was a darkness that covered the face of the watery abyss. It is into this that God begins to work and on the first three days of creation God brings form to that which was formless (night and day, sea, sky, earth etc.) and on the second three days he begins to fill that which was empty (sun, moon, and stars, birds, fish, humanity etc). Therefore, since the crisis of chaos has been averted, stability has been achieved, and things have settled down, God can now enter fully into his rest on the seventh day.
Genesis then tells us that, as part of his Sabbath, God does three things; he blesses the day; sets it apart as holy, and he rests (Gen. 2:3). God spends the first six days creating sacred space and now he brings creation to completion by creating sacred time! God does not rest because he is tired but because chaos has been overcome and a good and orderly world has been established, he can pause and enjoy the work of his hands.
Sabbath then is bound up with the idea of resting from our labours but it is also so much more than that; it is about the subjugation of chaos and the establishment of God’s good rule and reign in the cosmos! Tomorrow we will explore how this sacred and holy Sabbath day relates to what it means to be human!