Here we discover two more important fundamentals: 1) that YHWH has blessed and made holy one day per week, the 7th, and 2) that He rested in that day so that all that He had created could, itself, produce and re-produce.
The first part of this is pretty straightforward; YHWH created everything in 6 days. It was complete after 6 days. There was nothing more to create after 6 days. It was a 100% finished work after 6 days. So He declared the 7th day as Holy AND He blessed that day AND He separated it…..He divided it…..He set it apart and made it different from all the other days.
You might find it interesting to note that the Hebrews only assign a name to one day of the week, the 7th. They call it Shabbat from which we get our word “Sabbath”. The other days of the week, they only assign numbers (first day, 2nd day, 3rd, and so on).
Now let’s take a look at that word that is typically translated as “rest”, as in “YHWH rested in that (the 7th) day”. The Hebrew word used is “Sabbath” (note it’s similarity to the name of the 7th day, Shabbat). The word Sabbath means to cease, to stop, to desist (to quit working). Rest might be a result, but it’s not really the meaning of the word. What the Hebrew sages say it most points to is quitting your normal activities; it doesn’t mean that you necessarily stop doing everything. In fact there are several words in the Tanakh, the OT, that are translated as “rest” but they each mean slightly different things. For instance the Hebrew word nachan is usually translated “rest” but it more means to comfort or console; nachan is the root word for the name “noach”….Noah. Another word for rest is sha’an, which means to lean against something. Then there is shamat, which means to throw down or lay down; and there are others. But here in Genesis the word is Sabbath and it means to cease because creation was finished. You see up and through day 6 the universe and then the earth was a bee hive of activity, YHWH’s activity. However YHWH didn’t create something that had to constantly be re-created or tinkered with. No; He created something that could produce and re-produce without further direct creative intervention. This is why Yeshua tells us to accept Him as Savior, and then “rest in Him”. When we are re-created as a new being upon our salvation in Him we are 100% complete. We don’t have to undergo further re-creation. We need to cease our human works that aim to make us acceptable by YHWH, to be Holy, because everything that needed to be done on our behalf to become acceptable to YHWH WAS completed….just like Creation itself was completed.
But there is also something else very special about that 7th day; it’s blessed and holy. YHWH didn’t simply commemorate a day like we would a street name or a statue of a dignitary or remember a president’s birthday. Shabbat is a very special day, a Holy day, in which He takes special delight. YHWH said that He “qadash” the 7th day; that is He consecrated it. That means He set it completely apart from any other day. This is a good opportunity to address a pet peeve of mine; there is one authority and only one who can consecrate, who can declare anything holy; YHWH Almighty. Man tends to play fast and loose with the word “Holy” and often makes it a word that simply denotes something “of YHWH” or that has special religious significance. Holiness is accomplished exclusively by YHWH’s fiat; it is by God’s decision and declaration and God’s alone. For mankind to believe that we can declare by means of any church government, or by our own ideas, something as holy is chutzpah beyond the pale. Do you desire to know EXACTLY what is holy? It’s those things in the Scriptures that are specifically called holy; NOTHING ELSE IS HOLY. The problem with what we the church have done by throwing the designation “holy” on whatever suits us, is that it has greatly watered down the impact and importance of the word. Holiness is a lost term. Later on we’ll get a better picture of just how important of a day and how holy Shabbat is to YHWH, and therefore how critical its significance ought to be to us.
So here is something I’d like you to hang onto: the Sabbath was NOT first given to Israel, through Moses, on Mt. Sinai. Notice that here in Genesis Shabbat is the actual name for a specific day of the week. Shabbat is the name of the 7th day that YHWH set apart as holy. Yet the name also embodies its purpose. One of the reasons often given why the Church does not observe the 7th day Shabbat (or in some people’s view the church has CHANGED Shabbat from the 7th day to the 1st day of the week) is that the Sabbath was given to Israel and therefore is ONLY intended for Israel. Or it is taught that Shabbat was simply part of the Laws of Moses; that is, Sabbath observance is commanded in those rules and ordinances YHWH set down at Mt. Sinai shortly after Israel departed Egypt. And because around the late 2nd century AD it became a goal of the now gentile dominated church to abandon anything that seemed to apply to the Jewish people, eventually in the 4th century the church officially abolished the Shabbat.
Some of you may be questioning that last statement (that the church abolished the Sabbath) but all you need to do to know the truth is read the actual church documents from the several meetings of the ecumenical councils convened by Emperor Constantine; specifically read the Council of Laodicea document, Canon #29, as established in the middle part of the 4th century AD, and you will find that the Church explicitly declared the Sabbath to be a Jewish holy day and therefore the church should have no part it. The council decided it would be better to end the practice of Sabbath observance altogether and begin a new observance. This new observance was to take place on the day of the week that Messiah arose: the 1st day of the week. Thus the Council of Laodicea declared that Sabbath observance (as well as meeting together for worship on the 7th day, Saturday, the Shabbat) was to end. Instead communal worship should occur on a NEW day…the 1st day of the week…..which was already the standard day of meeting together to worship the most widely accepted and politically correct god of the Roman Empire, the Sun God. This is why that the 1st day of the week’s name is Sun-day because it was the Roman Empire’s set apart day of worship of the Sun-god. And since this newly minted celebration needed a name to replace “Sabbath”, that new name was The Lord’s Day. So what the majority of the institutional church has been practicing for 1700 years is NOT a Sabbath that has been moved by one day from the 7th to the 1st day; rather it is an entirely different celebration, established by the Roman Church at the Council of Laodicea in 364 AD, at the direction of the (then) current emperor of Rome, Constantine. By the way, this fact is not disputed by Christian scholars. The heads of religious governments of all the great Christian denominations like the Catholics, Protestants, Greek Orthodox, Anglican, and others agree that what I just told you is factual and that the church long ago made a decision to stop observing the Sabbath (although a few hang on to the notion that what they did was to declare that the Sabbath can be any day we choose).
To sum it up we find that in reality YHWH established the Shabbat immediately upon finishing His Creation, as we have just read (long before there was such a thing as an Israelite). So whatever your doctrine on the Sabbath has been, just get it straight that the Sabbath was NOT something given to and reserved for some specific group of people, namely Israel. It is simply historically and scripturally inaccurate to say that the Sabbath was first given to Israel. It was given to humanity in general immediately upon the finish of creation (and we just finished reading it).
After the Great Flood, because mankind had again become so wicked and pagan, apparently only a few humans continued to honor YHWH’s Sabbath so YHWH found it necessary to re-establish the validity of the Sabbath for mankind. In fact YHWH wanted to re-establish all of His principles that had always existed; and He chose to set-apart a group of people, an especially chosen nation, that would He would use to serve Him and to achieve this purpose; that nation was Israel. One of the myriads of things that YHWH told Moses to do (as the leader of this newly formed nation of YHWH, Israel) was to bring back Shabbat worship. Observing the Shabbat, the 7th day, was a sign of those who were members of the congregation of people who trusted YHWH; that is, Sabbath observance was an indicator of those who gave their allegiance to YHWH. In turn such observance also indicted all those who YHWH declared as sanctified, holy.