The Sabbath in Eden

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What better place to begin than the beginning? In the beginning God spoke the universe into existence. He preserved the record of that event for us in the first chapter of Genesis as a wonderful poem. But a Hebrew poem is not a poem such as would be seen in modern English literature. In it ideas rhyme rather than words, and the use of poetic form emphasizes the truth of the account. This poem has a prologue which tells us the outline of the verses to follow, the rhyming verses, and an epilogue which completes the account.

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The poem opens with that familiar passage, "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth." This tells us that the subject is Creation. The structure of the poem is defined in the next verse "And the earth was formless and void." The Hebrew words used here, tohu and bohu, literally mean "unformed" and "unfilled." The story of creation will be built around the rhyming ideas of forming and filling. On the first day God calls light into existence, forming it. Then on the fourth day he fills light by creating the greater and lesser lights. This pattern continues with the second day rhyming with the fifth day and the third with the sixth.

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forming
filling
Day 1
Light formed (1:3-5)
Day 4
Light filled ("Greater and Lesser lights", the sun and moon) (1:14-110)
Day 2
Sky and Sea formed (1:6-8)
Day 5
Sky and Sea filled (birds and fish) (1:20-23)
Day 3
Dry land formed (with plants) (1:10-13)
Day 6
Dry land filled (animals and man) (1:24-31)
Each day begins with "Then God said" (wayo’mer elohim) and ends with "there was evening, there was morning, the nth day" (way ereb way boqer). This formula sets each verse of the rhyme apart. But rhyming pairs can only complete six days, and creation week has seven. And the seventh is special. It does not have the formulaic words at the beginning and end. Instead, its account begins with "Thus the heavens and the earth were completed, and all their hosts." (Gen 2:1) All of physical creation was completed. But one thing remained.

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"On the seventh day God finished his work which he had done." (Gen 2:2 RSV)

This is perhaps the only modern translation which accurately portrays the impact of the Hebrew. The seventh day was the crowning act of creation. It, like the other works which God had done, was a special creative act. But it was more. It was to be a special time, set aside forever.

"Then God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it, because in it He rested from all His work which God had created and made." (Gen 2:3)

This act of blessing is the epilogue to the creation account. It completes the poem and finishes the week. But it does far more. When God blessed the seventh day, he set it aside for man to use for holy purposes. God did not need such a holy day in that he personifies holiness, and all he does is holy. But man requires by his very nature a time set apart for holy purposes, to meet with his God, separate from the needs of the rest of the week. Such a time is holy to the Lord, defined by God’s sovereign act of consecration.

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The act of blessing and sanctifying the seventh day is stated in the Hebrew in the piel imperfect tense. This grammatical form has a special importance. First, it intensifies the action. In a sense, the seventh day was not merely made holy, it was made specially holy. We might say that since God had made all of the earth, that it was all holy in a sense. But the seventh day was holy beyond any holiness that might be attributed to the rest of creation. While Adam and Eve were to protect all of creation as God’s own property, they were to be specially careful to guard the seventh day.

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In all of the scriptures, each time holiness was conferred, the object which was so consecrated was placed into immediate service (cf. Ex 30, Lev 9, Num 7, etc.). This follows the pattern of the Sabbath, which was immediately used this way. Adam and Eve did not even have to wait a week or even overnight to shabat with their creator. At the close of the day on which they were made, the Sabbath began. That sundown started their opportunity to cease from labor and commune with God. The naming of animals was sufficient for them to understand the concept of work and to appreciate the benefits of shabat.

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Next, the piel imperfect tense indicates a continuing action. The consecration did not end on the seventh day of creation. A continuing action requires that every seventh day be holy. It further requires that Adam and Eve were to keep track of the days of the week in order to keep the seventh day holy each week. Nor did the blessing end on that first seventh day. God’s intense blessing would continue on for every seventh day thereafter.

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Finally, we are directed by God’s example to the proper way to keep the seventh day holy. In English, we see that God "rested" from his work. The Hebrew is shabat. It literally means "to cease." God did not need to rest, since he never gets tired. But he ceased from his work as an example for man, who was also to cease from his work on the seventh day. On the sixth day God made Adam, who was then given the task of naming the animals. Having found no helper suitable for Adam among them, God then made Eve from Adam’s rib, and performed the first marriage. Their honeymoon was in the most beautiful place on earth, in the most beautiful company possible, God Almighty. Adam and God had both worked on the sixth day, and now they both rested from their labors. This "shabatting" gives the day its name: Shabbat. In English we call it Sabbath. The original Hebrew was sbt. Since the original Hebrew was written without any vowels, the word "Shabbat" is also sbt. They have the same root meaning. Sabbath is a day to rest or cease from labor, and to shabat is to rest or cease from labor.

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When we see that God taught by example that the proper observance of the holiness of the seventh day is to shabat, then it becomes clear that Genesis 2:3 is actually saying that man is to remember each shabat day to keep it holy. This exact command is repeated in Exodus 20:8. ""Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy. " When the next verse begins the instruction of how to cease from daily labor, it is merely repeating in detailed verbal form the instruction God gave in Eden by example.

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The linkage between creation and the Sabbath is then made explicit in verse 11.

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"For in six days the LORD made the heavens and the earth, the sea and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day; therefore the LORD blessed the sabbath day and made it holy.

Here God records with his own finger a summary of the creation story. Then he actually names the seventh day the shabat day. There can be no misunderstanding here. The seventh day of creation was in fact the first Sabbath day. The oldest account in history, that of creation, was dictated by God, since no one else was present to observe it. Then the Sabbath command is recorded explicitly by God in the very same language. No higher authority may be invoked, nor is interpretation required.

The Sabbath commandment tells us more about the duties of man. While the account of the original Sabbath day only implied the "keeping" of the Sabbath, Exodus 20:8 uses the word. And the word "keep" has a special scriptural emphasis. Adam and Eve were to "keep" (shamar) the Garden of Eden (Gen 2:15). That is, they were to tend the Garden to preserve it in the best possible condition. In the same way, the Sabbath was to be preserved. And since the fall, the Sabbath was to protected from its detractors. It was to be a prized possession. In Eden, Adam and Eve were busy during the week with their task of keeping the Garden. But on the Sabbath day, they were able to rest from this work and spend time with their maker, who walked in the Garden with them (Gen 3:8). Even today, the Sabbath is a time for us to rest from our daily work and enjoy the presence of God more fully.

Adam and Eve were created in a covenant relationship with their maker. While no specific text of that covenant exists today, we may unequivocally state that there were specific commands that they were to follow. We know that they were to keep the Garden (Gen 2:15), observe the Sabbath (Gen 2:2-3), cleave to each other as husband and wife (Gen 2:24), and not eat of the tree of knowledge of good and evil (Gen 2:16-17). As long as they observed their part of the covenant, God would allow them to live forever. Failure would begin the process of death (lit: "dying you shall die" Gen 2:17). The weekly sabbatical visit with their maker was the sign that the covenant was being observed. The failure of Adam and Eve to keep the covenant is instructive.

Prior to the fall, Adam and Eve walked freely with God on the Sabbath. They were not occupied with their daily duties, and could devote themselves totally to communion with him. But when they broke the covenant and sinned, Adam and Eve hid from God (Gen 3:8). They were unable to keep their Sabbath properly. Their inability to meet face to face with God was the indication that they had broken the covenant. In other words, the Sabbath was the sign of the covenant from the first days of man’s existence. On the very first Sabbath, man was in perfect communion with God. This continued for every Sabbath thereafter until man sinned. Then man was unable to keep the Sabbath appointment with God, and that signified the broken covenant. As we will see later, the Sabbath has always been the sign of obedience to God’s covenant, and will be until the Jesus returns in the clouds of glory to redeem us all.

The New Testament directly comments regarding the Sabbath’s origin in Eden. The first is by the author of the two passages studied so far.

And He was saying to them, "The Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath. "Consequently, the Son of Man is Lord even of the Sabbath." Mark 2:27-28

We must first consider the Greek of this passage, or Jesus’ specific intent may be missed. The word used for "made" here is ginomai, "to create" rather than any other Greek word for "make." It is the word used in the Septuagint (the Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible, ca. 200 B.C.) to translate the Hebrew bara’ (to create from nothingness) in Genesis 1:1. There we find that "In the beginning, God ‘bara’ed’ the heavens and the earth." Therefore, when Jesus spoke, he actually said that the Sabbath was created out of nothingness for man. Further, because of his own status as creator, the Sabbath is his own possession. Jesus could have used other words for "make," but those common words would not have emphasized his creatorship, and thus would not lend support for his claim of Lordship. Only if Jesus created the Sabbath could he be Lord over it.

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This statement by God incarnate emphasizes the fact that, contrary to the common English translations of Genesis 2:2, the Sabbath was an act of creation. This places its origin at the beginning, just as we have already discovered. As always, scripture speaks with one voice. In this we should not be surprised, since it has only one true author.

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Finally, the book of Hebrews speaks of the origin of the Sabbath.

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For He has thus said somewhere concerning the seventh day, "And God rested on the seventh day from all His works"; ...There remains therefore a Sabbath rest for the people of God. Heb 4:4, 10

The argument presented in Hebrews is beyond the scope of this chapter. But one salient point is present for our view. The writer of Hebrews is convinced that the Sabbath had its origin in Eden. He quotes Genesis 2:2 in a discussion of the Sabbath, repeating what we have said. The seventh day is the shabat day, the Sabbath. It was the final act of creation. It is the sign of man’s covenant with God, to be a most prized possession. Because this covenant began before the fall, while man was sinless, it represents God’s intention for us when we return to a sinless state after we enter the new Jerusalem. It is God’s gift to us forever.

Adam and Eve walked with God in the Garden. We now see God only as well as a bad reflection in a poor mirror, where the best of us has only a faint glimmer of his glory (1 Cor 13:9-12). But when we are rescued finally from sin, we will see Jesus face to face, just as Adam and Eve did. What a Sabbath that will be!