Verse:
And God blessed the seventh day, and sanctified ( qadash ) it: because that in it he had rested from all his work which God created and made.
Verse 3.
And God blessed the seventh day Because that in it he had rested
The original word barach, which is generally rendered to bless, has a very extensive meaning. It is frequently used in Scripture in the sense of speaking good of or to a person; and hence literally and properly rendered by the Septuagint, from, good or well, and , I speak. So God has spoken well of the Sabbath, and good to them who conscientiously observe it. Blessing is applied both to God and man: when God is said to bless, we generally understand by the expression that he communicates some good; but when man is said to bless God, we surely cannot imagine that he bestows any gifts or confers any benefit on his Maker. When God is said to bless, either in the Old or New Testament, it signifies his speaking good TO man; and this comprises the whole of his exceeding great and precious promises. And when man is said to bless God, it ever implies that he speaks good OF him, for the giving and fulfilment of his promises. This observation will be of general use in considering the various places where the word occurs in the sacred writings. Reader, God blesses thee when by his promises he speaks good TO thee; and thou dost bless him when, from a consciousness of his kindness to thy body and soul, thou art thankful to him, and speakest good OF his name. Scripture References
shabath, he rested; hence Sabbath, the name of the seventh day, signifying a day of rest-rest to the body from labour and toil, and rest to the soul from all worldly care and anxieties. He who labours with his mind by worldly schemes and plans on the Sabbath day is as culpable as he who labours with his hands in his accustomed calling. It is by the authority of God that the Sabbath is set apart for rest and religious purposes, as the six days of the week are appointed for labour. How wise is this provision! It is essentially necessary, not only to the body of man, but to all the animals employed in his service: take this away and the labour is too great, both man and beast would fail under it. Without this consecrated day religion itself would fail, and the human mind, becoming sensualized, would soon forget its origin and end. Even as a political regulation, it is one of the wisest and most beneficent in its effects of any ever instituted. Those who habitually disregard its moral obligation are, to a man, not only good for nothing, but are wretched in themselves, a curse to society, and often end their lives miserably. See Clarke on Exodus 20:8.; "Ex 23:12"; "Ex 24:16"; and See Clarke on Exodus 31:13.; to which the reader is particularly desired to refer.
As God formed both the mind and body of man on principles of activity, so he assigned him proper employment; and it is his decree that the mind shall improve by exercise, and the body find increase of vigour and health in honest labour. He who idles away his time in the six days is equally culpable in the sight of God as he who works on the seventh. The idle person is ordinarily clothed with rags, and the Sabbath-breakers frequently come to an ignominions death. Reader, beware.
Ex 23:12 Ex 24:16
12 "Six days do your work, but on the seventh day do not work, so that your ox and your donkey may rest and the slave born in your household, and the alien as well, may be refreshed.
16 and the glory of the LORD settled on Mount Sinai. For six days the cloud covered the mountain, and on the seventh day the LORD called to Moses from within the cloud.
Source
Gen 2:3 And God blessed (spoke good of) the seventh day, set it apart as His own, and hallowed it, because on it God rested from all His work which He had created and done. [Exod. 20:11.]
Exod. 20:11
11 For in six days the LORD made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but he rested on the seventh day. Therefore the LORD blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy.
Verse 3
And God blessed the seventh day, and hallowed it; because that in it he rested from all his work which God had created and made. Source
Note that here also, the specific thing from which it is stated that God rested is the work of creation, a fact which is manifest enough in the fact that the creation is not still going on. There is also no mention here of "evening and morning," as indicating the close of the seventh day, for it is still in progress.
All efforts to associate the creation sabbath with the Jewish sabbath should be resisted. The sabbath that God blessed was the first day of Adam's life, not the seventh; and there is no indication whatever that Adam ever heard of a sabbath. The sabbath was made known, not to Adam, but to Moses (Nehemiah 9:13-14); and the reason for the Jewish observance of the sabbath given to them was not because God rested on the creation sabbath, but "the deliverance of Israel from slavery in Egypt" (Deuteronomy 5:15). The sabbath was never a sign between God and all men, but, "It is a sign between me (God) and the children of Israel" (Exodus 31:17).
Nehemiah 9:13-14 Deuteronomy 5:15
13 "You came down on Mount Sinai; you spoke to them from heaven. You gave them regulations and laws that are just and right, and decrees and commands that are good.
14 You made known to them your holy Sabbath and gave them commands, decrees and laws through your servant Moses.Exodus 31:17
15 Remember that you were slaves in Egypt and that the LORD your God brought you out of there with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm. Therefore the LORD your God has commanded you to observe the Sabbath day.
17 It will be a sign between me and the Israelites forever, for in six days the LORD made the heavens and the earth, and on the seventh day he abstained from work and rested.' "
Commentary by Jamieson, Fausset, Brown
3. blessed and sanctified the seventh day Source
--a peculiar distinction put upon it above the other six days, and showing it was devoted to sacred purposes. The institution of the Sabbath is as old as creation, giving rise to that weekly division of time which prevailed in the earliest ages. It is a wise and beneficent law, affording that regular interval of rest which the physical nature of man and the animals employed in his service requires, and the neglect of which brings both to premature decay. Moreover, it secures an appointed season for religious worship, and if it was necessary in a state of primeval innocence, how much more so now, when mankind has a strong tendency to forget God and His claims?
Commentary by John Calvin
3. And God blessed the seventh day. It appears that God is here said to bless according to the manner of men, because they bless him whom they highly extol. Nevertheless, even in this sense, it would not be unsuitable to the character of God; because his blessing sometimes means the favor which he bestows upon his people, as the Hebrews call that man the blessed of God, who, by a certain special favor, has power with God. (See Genesis 24:31.) Enter thou blessed of God. Thus we may be allowed to describe the day as blessed by him which he has embraced with love, to the end that the excellence and dignity of his works may therein be celebrated. Yet I have no doubt that Moses, by adding the word sanctified, wished immediately to explain what he had said, and thus all ambiguity is removed, because the second word is exegetical of the former. For sdq (kadesh,) with the Hebrews, is to separate from the common number. God therefore sanctifies the seventh day, when he renders it illustrious, that by a special law it may be distinguished from the rest.
Genesis 24:31
31 "Come, you who are blessed by the LORD ," he said. "Why are you standing out here? I have prepared the house and a place for the camels."
Whence it also appears, that God always had respect to the welfare of men. I have said above, that six days were employed in the formation of the world; not that God, to whom one moment is as a thousand years, had need of this succession of time, but that he might engage us in the consideration of his works. He had the same end in view in the appointment of his own rest, for he set apart a day selected out of the remainder for this special use. Wherefore, that benediction is nothing else than a solemn consecration, by which God claims for himself the meditations and employments of men on the seventh day. This is, indeed, the proper business of the whole life, in which men should daily exercise themselves, to consider the infinite goodness, justice, power, and wisdom of God, in this magnificent theater of heaven and earth. But, lest men should prove less sedulously attentive to it than they ought, every seventh day has been especially selected for the purpose of supplying what was wanting in daily meditation.
First, therefore, God rested; then he blessed this rest, that in all ages it might be held sacred among men: or he dedicated every seventh day to rest, that his own example might be a perpetual rule. The design of the institution must be always kept in memory: for God did not command men simply to keep holiday every seventh day, as if he delighted in their indolence; but rather that they, being released from all other business, might the more readily apply their minds to the Creator of the world. Lastly, that is a sacred rest,
6 which withdraws men from the impediments of the world, that it may dedicate them entirely to God. But now, since men are so backward to celebrate the justice, wisdom, and power of God, and to consider his benefits, that even when they are most faithfully admonished they still remain torpid, no slight stimulus is given by God's own example, and the very precept itself is thereby rendered amiable. For God cannot either more gently allure, or more effectually incite us to obedience, than by inviting and exhorting us to the imitation of himself. Besides, we must know, that this is to be the common employment not of one age or people only, but of the whole human race.
Afterwards, in the Law, a new precept concerning the Sabbath was given, which should be peculiar to the Jews, and but for a season; because it was a legal ceremony shadowing forth a spiritual rest, the truth of which was manifested in Christ. Therefore the Lord the more frequently testifies that he had given, in the Sabbath, a symbol of sanctification to his ancient people.
7 Therefore when we hear that the Sabbath was abrogated by the coming of Christy we must distinguish between what belongs to the perpetual government of human life, and what properly belongs to ancient figures, the use of which was abolished when the truth was fulfilled. Spiritual rest is the mortification of the flesh; so that the sons of God should no longer live unto themselves, or indulge their own inclination. So far as the Sabbath was a figure of this rest, I say, it was but for a season; but inasmuch as it was commanded to men from the beginning that they might employ themselves in the worship of God, it is right that it should continue to the end of the world.
Which God created and made.
8 Here the Jews, in their usual method, foolishly trifle, saying, that God being anticipated in his work by the last evening, left certain animals imperfect, of which kind are fauns and satyrs, as though he had been one of the ordinary class of artifices who have need of time. Ravings so monstrous prove the authors of them to have been delivered over to a reprobate mind, as a dreadful example of the wrath of God. As to the meaning of Moses, some take it thus: that God created his Works in order to make them, inasmuch as from the time he gave them being, he did not withdraw his hand from their preservation. But this exposition is harsh. Nor do I more willingly subscribe to the opinion of those who refer the word make to man, whom God placed over his works, that he might apply them to use, and in a certain sense perfect them by his industry. I rather think that the perfect form of God's works is here noted; as if he had said God so created his works that nothing should be wanting to their perfection; or the creation has proceeded to sucks a point, that the work is in all respects perfect.
Source
Commentary by John Gill
And God blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it because that in it he had rested from all his work, which God created and made;
A day in which he took delight and pleasure, having finished all his works, and resting from them, and looking over them as very good; and so he pronounced this day a good and happy day, and "sanctified" or appointed it in his mind to be a day separated from others, for holy service and worship; as it was with the Jews when they became a body of people, both civil and ecclesiastical: or this is all said by way of prolepsis or anticipation, as many things in this chapter are, many names of countries and rivers, by which being called in the times of Moses, are here given them, though they were not called by them so early, nor till many ages after: and according to Jarchi this passage respects future time, when God "blessed" this day with the manna, which descended on all the days of the week, an omer for a man, and on the sixth day double food; and he "sanctified" it with the manna which did not descend at all on that day: besides, these words may be read in a parenthesis, as containing an account of a fact that was done, not at the beginning of the world, and on the first seventh day of it; but of what had been done in the times of Moses, who wrote this, after the giving of the law of the sabbath; and this being given through his hands to the people of Israel, he takes this opportunity here to insert it, and very pertinently, seeing the reason why God then, in the times of Moses, blessed the sabbath day, and hallowed it, was, because he had rested on that day from all his works, (Exodus 20:11) and the same reason is given here, taken plainly out of that law which he had delivered to them:
Exodus 20:11
11 For in six days the LORD made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but he rested on the seventh day. Therefore the LORD blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy. Source
which shows, that this refers not to the same time when God blessed and hallowed the seventh day, which was done in the times of Moses, but to what had been long before, and was then given as a reason enforcing it; for it is not here said, as in the preceding verse, "he rested", but "had rested", even from the foundation of the world, when his works were finished, as in (Hebrews 4:3) even what "he created to make" F5, as the words may be here rendered; which he created out of nothing, as he did the first matter, in order to make all things out of it, and put them in that order, and bring them to that perfection he did.
Commentary by John Wesley
V. 1, 2, 3. We have here, Source
(1.) The settlement of the kingdom of nature, in God's resting from the work of creation, Genesis 2:1,2. Where observe,
1. That the creatures made both in heaven and earth, are the hosts or armies of them, which speaks them numerous, but marshalled, disciplined, and under command. God useth them as his hosts for the defence of his people, and the destruction of his enemies.
2. That the heavens and the earth are finished pieces, and so are all the creatures in them. So perfect is God's work that nothing can be added to it or taken from it, Ecclesiastes 3:14.3. That after the end of the first six days, God ceased from all work of creation. He hath so ended his work, as that though in his providence he worketh hitherto, John 5:17. preserving and governing all the creatures, yet he doth not make any new species of creatures.
Ecclesiastes 3:14
14 I know that everything God does will endure forever; nothing can be added to it and nothing taken from it. God does it so that men will revere him. 4. That the eternal God, tho' infinitely happy in himself, yet took a satisfaction in the work of his own hands. He did not rest as one weary, but as one well-pleased with the instances of his own goodness.
John 5:17
17 Jesus said to them, "My Father is always at his work to this very day, and I, too, am working."
(2.) The commencement of the kingdom of grace, in the sanctification of the sabbath day, Genesis 2:3. He rested on that day, and took a complacency in his creatures, and then sanctified it, and appointed us on that day to rest and take a complacency in the Creator; and his rest is in the fourth commandment made a reason for ours after six days labour. Observe,
1. That the solemn observation of one day in seven as a day of holy rest, and holy work, is the indispensible duty of all those to whom God has revealed his holy sabbaths.
2. That sabbaths are as ancient as the world.
3. That the sabbath of the Lord is truly honourable, and we have reason to honour it; honour it for the sake of its antiquity, its great author, and the sanctification of the first sabbath by the holy God himself, and in obedience to him, by our first parents in innocency.
Commentary by Matthew Henry
II. The commencement of the kingdom of grace, in the sanctification of the sabbath day, Genesis 2:3. He rested on that day, and took a complacency in his creatures, and then sanctified it, and appointed us, on that day, to rest and take a complacency in the Creator; and his rest is, in the fourth commandment, made a reason for ours, after six days' labour. Observe,
1. The solemn observance of one day in seven, as a day of holy rest and holy work, to God's honour, is the indispensable duty of all those to whom God has revealed his holy sabbaths.
2. The way of sabbath-sanctification is the good old way, Jeremiah 6:16. Sabbaths are as ancient as the world; and I see no reason to doubt that the sabbath, being now instituted in innocency, was religiously observed by the people of God throughout the patriarchal age.
3. The sabbath of the Lord is truly honourable, and we have reason to honour it--honour it for the sake of its antiquity, its great Author, the sanctification of the first sabbath by the holy God himself, and by our first parents in innocency, in obedience to him.
4. The sabbath day is a blessed day, for God blessed it, and that which he blesses is blessed indeed. God has put an honour upon it, has appointed us, on that day, to bless him, and has promised, on that day, to meet us and bless us.
5. The sabbath day is a holy day, for God has sanctified it. He has separated and distinguished it from the rest of the days of the week, and he has consecrated it and set it apart to himself and his own service and honour. Though it is commonly taken for granted that the Christian sabbath we observe, reckoning from the creation, is not the seventh but the first day of the week, yet being a seventh day, and we in it, celebrating the rest of God the Son, and the finishing of the work of our redemption, we may and ought to act faith upon this original institution of the sabbath day, and to commemorate the work of creation, to the honour of the great Creator, who is therefore worthy to receive, on that day, blessing, and honour, and praise, from all religious assemblies.
Scripture References:Source
Jeremiah 6:16
16 This is what the LORD says:
"Stand at the crossroads and look;
ask for the ancient paths,
ask where the good way is, and walk in it,
and you will find rest for your souls.
But you said, 'We will not walk in it.'
Commentary by Scofield
2:3 And God blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it: because that in it he had rested from all his work which God created and made.
sanctifiedSource
In the O.T. the same Hebrew word (qodesh) is translated sanctify, consecrate, dedicate, and holy. It means, set apart for the service of God. See refs. following "Sanctify," (See Scofield "Genesis 2:3")
About Commentary Authors
Prepared by William C. Barman for George Young Memorial United Methodist Church -- Palm Harbor, FL on 10/3/03; 5:34:28 PM