Six, Seven, Rest

These past few months, we've taken a tour, step by step, through the wonderful works of God who created this whole universe out of nothing and then shaped it, organized it, filled it. But now it's time to pull back from the details and take a wider look at what's been going on. The saga of creation has been recounted to us in the span of six days, and there's a lovely symmetry to it. In the first three days, God is addressing the dark formlessness of the world he made, giving it light and shape. In each of these days, he makes a particular domain. Then, in the second set of three days, God is addressing the emptiness of the world he made. Each of these last three days is a partner to the corresponding day in the first set, and fills that domain with something that moves there.¹

So on day 1, 'let there be light,' God created domains called 'day' and 'night' (Genesis 1:3-5). On its partner-day 4, God installs lights to govern the domains of 'day' and 'night' (Genesis 1:14-19). On day 2, God uses the firmament to create the sky and portion out the waters below (Genesis 1:6-8). On its partner-day 5, God calls forth all the creatures that are going to move in the waters, like fish, or in the sky, like birds (Genesis 1:20-23). On day 3, God separates out something new called dry land (Genesis 1:9-10). Not only that, but as a second work, he then covers the dry land with plants – now it's productive, hospitable land (Genesis 1:11-13). So, as a partner-day to day 3, day 6 also gets two works done on it. The first work is that God calls forth the creatures that are going to move on the dry land (Genesis 1:24-25). And the second work is that God personally makes a very special creature that's not according to its own kind but according to God's image (Genesis 1:26-31).

Now we've walked through these matching pairs of days – 1, 2, 3, 1, 2, 3 – and “thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them” (Genesis 2:1). We're about to hear about what happens on the seventh day (Genesis 2:2-3). But if we pause here a moment, we find out that the number 7 was with us all along. “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth” (Genesis 1:1), guess how many words that is in Hebrew? Seven. Then verse 2 is fourteen words, which is two sevens. From the beginning to the end of the story, the word 'God' shows up thirty-five times, which is five sevens. Seven times we hear the phrase 'God said,' seven times we hear 'and it was so,' seven times we hear that it was 'good.' And then, with a five-times-seven-word last paragraph, the whole narrative comes to 469 words, which is of course sixty-seven times seven.² Now, would you guess that all that is an accident? Or is it more likely this rich stew of sevens is shouting something?

Why all the sevens? Well, centuries before Abraham, there was a king who built a temple for his idol, and he wrote a poem about it. He gave the temple seven blessings, then in seven days he put up seven special stones around it, and when everything was finished he celebrated the temple dedication with a feast that lasted for, can you guess how long? If you said seven days, you're right. King Gudea's temple was just full of sevens.³ When the Canaanites told a story about a god building himself a palace, they said he purified it with fire on six days, and “on the seventh day the fire was removed from the house,” leaving behind a pure temple of silver and gold.⁴

But now let's get closer to home. When Moses climbs Mount Sinai, “the cloud covered it six days, and on the seventh day he called to Moses out of the midst of the cloud” (Exodus 24:16). Over the next few chapters, God gives Moses seven speeches, each introduced by “the LORD said to Moses.” When work finally begins on the tabernacle, the Spirit of God – the same one that hovered over the waters in the beginning (Genesis 1:2) – fills the architect Bezalel (Exodus 35:31). He weaves fabric the color of the sky into a tent and veil, and inside this sky he puts 'lights' (Exodus 35:14). During construction, we hear twice seven times that things were done “as the LORD commanded Moses.” Then, once “all the work... was finished” (Exodus 39:23), “Moses saw the work” and “blessed them” (Exodus 39:43), and God moved in (Exodus 40:33-34).

Centuries later, the tabernacle was replaced by a permanent temple thanks to King Solomon, who oversaw its construction over the course of seven years (1 Kings 6:38). Not only did it keep the sky-colored veil inside, but it had a basin it called a 'sea' (1 Kings 7:23-26) and two 'pillars' like the pillars of the earth (1 Kings 7:15-22). It was decorated with carvings of many plants and animals (1 Kings 6:18, 29, 32; 7:29, 36), all under a roof that was compared to the firmament (Psalm 150:1). Once “all the work was finished” (1 Kings 7:51), Solomon gathered Israel in the seventh month (1 Kings 8:2) and led a dedication prayer made up of seven requests (1 Kings 8:31-53), leading to a celebratory feast “before the LORD our God, seven days” (1 Kings 8:65).

Have we been noticing any patterns here? These big concentrations of sevens are stories of setting up temples and getting them running, and the biblical foundation stories of tabernacle and temple even use some of the same language as Genesis 1. Later, a psalmist says outright that God “built his sanctuary like the high heavens, like the earth which he has founded forever” (Psalm 78:69). What that tells us – and I know I've belabored these examples – is that Genesis 1 is also a story about the foundation of the temple. What temple? The entire universe God creates! That's what Genesis 1 is trying to hammer home with all its sevens. What the tabernacle was in miniature, what Solomon built in Jerusalem a little less in miniature, is a scale model of what Genesis 1 is talking about.⁵ The whole world, all of heaven and earth, is the grand temple of the living God!

And isn't that a radical way to see the world around you? Every patch of dirt, every fathom beneath the ocean, every cubic centimeter of air, and the farthest reaches of space beyond – it's all part of the temple of the Lord, a holy place, according to the way God made and designed the world. Every living creature he made, he made to install it as a functionary in his temple. Every object God made, he made as temple furniture. And all those things are pure, all those things are holy.⁶ The entire world is, to borrow one scholar's words, “the very site of divine goodness given by God..., informed by the light of God..., imbued with divine word and revelation.”⁷ Temples are places of rule and refuge, and so that's how the world itself must be. Best of all, a temple is the place where God lives and shines, where he's accessible and available. That's why the rules, that's why the refuge. Just by living here, you tread on holy ground every day, dwelling with the Holy One, the Most High!

But Genesis gets even more specific. We read that “on the seventh day, God finished his work that he had done, and he ceased on the seventh day from all his work that he had done” (Genesis 2:2). The word Genesis picks is shabat, 'to stop' – and it sounds a lot like the word shabbat, or 'sabbath.' Having overcome all the chaos, having fixed everything that wasn't yet ready, having accomplished all he set out to do as described in the framework of the six days, now on this seventh day God stops. God stops his creative works because he's done, he's built the temple he wanted. And once he stops, then – as he tells Moses later – “on the seventh day he rested and was refreshed” (Exodus 31:17). Stopping the work leads to rest and refreshment.

In the world Genesis was written to, a king often had to go out and fight, lead his armies against whatever was threatening the nation. But if victory was won, then the king could stop or cease the war, and return in triumph to his palace. After King David had fought all his battles and made Israel supreme, then we read that “the king lived in his house and the LORD had given him rest from all his surrounding enemies” (2 Samuel 7:1). In fact, in the cultures around Israel, another name for a king's throne was “the resting place.”⁸

In the stories those cultures told, what was true for their kings was true for their gods. The Babylonians said that after their god Ea “had achieved victory over his foes,” he built himself a shrine and then “rested quietly in his chamber.”⁹ Later, they said that Ea's son Marduk had to win a great battle before the world could be created, but once he'd defeated Tiamat, he “rested, surveying the corpse,” and from it he began to create the world.¹⁰ As a final touch, the other gods suggested that they “make a shrine of great renown... wherein we may repose when we finish the work.”¹¹ And it was as “a man of rest” that David's son King Solomon would be able to build the temple, as a sign that victory had been given, that a hard-won peace had been established (1 Chronicles 22:9). The psalmist calls this temple the LORD's “resting place” where God is enthroned on earth (Psalm 132:8, 14).

What Genesis is saying, again, is that what was true of the temple in miniature is true of the world writ large. If God 'stops' his work after six days and makes the seventh day his 'rest,' it means just what it means when a king or a god 'rests' in those neighboring cultures: that the battle has been won, that things have changed! Rest says that the crisis is over, that normal operations can start, “engagement without obstacles” in the different kinds of activity that God is going to do now.¹² When a king sat back on his palace throne after the war, when the myths told of God's resting in their shrines after combat and construction, it was like when a presidential candidate can stop the work of campaigning because the election is over, the inauguration has happened, so he sits down behind his desk at the Oval Office. That's the president's 'resting place,' his 'throne.' And what Genesis is saying is that the Creator campaigned unopposed for this world he created, and now he's in office, he's seated in the control center of the universe, he's indwelling his temple as an abiding presence there.

Now that the 'crisis' of the campaign is done, the works of administration and governance and enjoyment can begin. One medieval theologian emphasized that, when God rested on the seventh day, “he did not cease from conserving and fostering and governing the natures... he had made” during the works of creation.¹³ After all, it was Jesus who insisted that, even with the seventh day begun, “my Father is working until now” (John 5:17). But it's a restful work, the work of a king commanding from his throne, the work of God at home and at rest in the world.¹⁴ And this sustaining work creates a realm of peace, order, and blessing where the temple is. The rest of God creates the possibility of feasting and celebration, enjoyment and communion, with his creation.¹⁵

So that's what day 7 is all about. Picture the king sitting back on his throne, picture the glory-cloud filling up the temple. That's what God does in the whole world here. The kingdom has begun! The temple is open for business! You can come and be heard, come and be seen, come and listen to his voice, come and bask in his light, come and seek his face, come and find shelter and splendor, celebration and communion! So feast in joy, for “the LORD reigns! Yes, the world is established, it shall never be moved” (Psalm 96:10). “The LORD reigns, let the earth rejoice!” (Psalm 97:1). “Sing praises to God, sing praises..., for God is the King of all the earth..., God reigns over the nations, God sits on his holy throne” (Psalm 47:6-8), “in his holy temple” (Psalm 11:4).

And through Israel, this same God taught the human race to organize time accordingly. In creation, we read that “God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it God ceased from all his work that he had done in creation” (Genesis 2:3). God taught Israel that “the seventh day is a sabbath to the LORD your God” (Exodus 20:10), one on which they were to behave differently than on their six working days. That created a seven-day week for them, unconnected to whatever the sun, moon, and stars were up to. And every time we organize our calendar by this same seven-day week, we're commemorating creation, bearing silent witness that all space is holy space, that every week we pass is “a constant reminder of God's creative sovereignty.”¹⁶

For Israel, the sabbath was a repeated celebration that God is on his throne and in his temple, that the world as such is holy ground, and that he really does dwell within and rule the universe. The myths of ancient Babylon say that the gods decided to create us because they needed someone to take over the hard work of life. So one of them “created mankind, on whom he imposed the service of the gods, and set the gods free” to rest.¹⁷ And thereafter they had to jealously guard their peace and quiet from us, because human life remained a threat to the gods' rest.¹⁸ Israel's sabbath proclaims a different story. God didn't make us so that he could rest at our expense. His restfulness doesn't exploit us, nor is it threatened by us; his rest invites us, embraces us, includes us!

In ancient Babylon, there were days – called sapattu – where important work was to be avoided, but it wasn't to celebrate; it was because those were considered unlucky days, dangerous days, Friday-the-13th kinds of days, so just hunker down and ride it out and don't take big risks. But to Israel, the sabbath was a day to transcend work, not because work is bad or because the day is bad, but because the day is good, because God is good – he is good, and he invites us to his goodness. Sabbath was given to Israel as an invitation for creatures to make themselves at home and be at peace in God's cosmic temple where he rests.

Sabbath insists, even demands, that every seventh day we put down our mundane works, stop slaving away for whatever's been demanding our time and talents (Exodus 34:21). On the sabbath, Israel was invited to look to God on his throne, God filling his temple, and to realize that God will keep the world driving fine without your hands and my hands on the wheel. For Israel, it's a day of faith in the God of providence, a day of hope in the God of promise, a day in love with the God of plenty. It's a day shared for our own good (Mark 12:27) – not because we need rest for a functional purpose like recharging for further work, but because work isn't the same thing as life. The point of rest is not to serve work; the point of work is to serve rest, because rest is life. God worked the works of creation so that he can rest on his throne, not being dormant but savoring and governing his creation. He asks us to work our works for the sake of resting in him. And so sabbath says to every now and then stop and “be still and know that he is God” (cf. Psalm 46:10). And God blesses the day of rest because it's rest, not work, that's ultimately fruitful and radiant, the birthday of blessing, the gala of glory.

Sabbath was a symbol of laying down burdens and falling to the holy ground at the foot of the throne of God, and being lifted and carried in his arms. And it was as the Lord of the Sabbath that Jesus said to “come to me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest” (Matthew 11:28). What he's saying is, “I will give you what Sabbath was always about; I will open the gates of the seventh day to you.” A spiritual writer in the Middle Ages put it like this: “How should we understand the sabbath, except that it means Christ? In this sabbath, to be sure, we take our rest, since we place our hope in him alone and love him with all our heart's affection and, despising all desire for temporal goods, we stop performing all servile work.”¹⁹

To Christians from the start, true sabbath wasn't just weekly interruption of working rhythms, but a hope and a future. We each, over the ages of our lives, are working ourselves into something, but when we are finished, we hope to be pronounced 'very good,' so that at the end of our days we too can lay down our works and “rest from our labors” in God (Revelation 14:13), “rest he is going to give us from all our works if we too have done good works.”²⁰ “So then,” says Scripture, “there remains a sabbath rest for the people of God, for whoever has entered God's rest has also rested from his works as God did from his” (Hebrews 4:9-10). We “share in a heavenly calling” (Hebrews 3:1) to enter “the supreme sabbath, the sabbath which has no evening.”²¹

Each of the six days of creation has a partner. But the only partner for the seventh day is day 0, the act of initial creation itself, perhaps even eternity!²² Sabbath is something like eternity's twin, because it points to eternal rest, heavenly rest, rest no more interrupted than God's unending dominion in his world. That's the rest he asks us to accept from his hands, when we lay down the works of life. If we don't trust him like the sabbath taught, if we aren't obedient as we do our works, then we'll remain restless forever (Hebrews 3:18; 4:11). But if we believe, if we faithfully labor our hard labors for him, then to us “the promise of entering his rest still stands” (Hebrews 4:1). The Lord rests, the Lord reigns, in hopes that you and I will rest and reign with him, celebrate and enjoy him forever! So as you even now savor the grand temple of the living God in which you already live, “let us therefore strive to enter that rest” (Hebrews 4:11), the day of delight in God which has no end! Amen.

1  Nahum M. Sarna, Genesis, JPS Torah Commentary (Jewish Publication Society, 1989), 4.

2  G. K. Beale, The Temple and the Church's Mission: A Biblical Theology of the Dwelling Place of God (IVP Academic, 2004), 61; J. Richard Middleton, The Liberating Image: The Imago Dei in Genesis 1 (Baker Academic, 2005), 83; William P. Brown, The Seven Pillars of Creation: The Bible, Science, and the Ecology of Wonder (Oxford University Press, 2010), 37; Steven C. Smith, The House of the Lord: A Catholic Biblical Theology of God's Temple Presence... (Franciscan University Press, 2017), 70-71; etc.

3  Gudea of Lagash, cylinder A.xx.24—xxi.12, xxii.24-xxiii.4; cylinder B.xvii.18-21, in Thorkild Jacobsen, The Harps That Once...: Sumerian Poetry in Translation (Yale University Press, 1987), 413-414, 417, 440.

4  KTU 1.4 vi.22-38, in Nicolas Wyatt, Religious Texts from Ugarit, 2^nd ed. (Sheffield Academic Press, 2002), 106.

5  John H. Walton, The Lost World of Genesis One: Ancient Cosmology and the Origins Debate (IVP Academic, 2009), 80.

6  Bryan C. Hodge, Revisiting the Days of Genesis: A Study of the Use of Time in Genesis 1-11 in Light of Its Ancient Near Eastern and Literary Context (Wipf and Stock, 2011), 51-52.

7  Mark S. Smith, The Priestly Vision of Genesis 1 (Fortress Press, 2009), 108.

8  KTU 1.3 iv.3; 1.16 vi.23-24; KTU 1.22 ii.17-18, in, e.g., Writings from the Ancient World 9:40, 89, 202.

9  Enuma elish I.73-76, in Wilfrid G. Lambert, Babylonian Creation Myths (Eisenbrauns, 2013), 55.

10  Enuma elish IV.135, in Wilfrid G. Lambert, Babylonian Creation Myths (Eisenbrauns, 2013), 95.

11  Enuma elish VI.51, 54, in Wilfrid G. Lambert, Babylonian Creation Myths (Eisenbrauns, 2013), 113.

12  John H. Walton, The Lost World of Genesis One: Ancient Cosmology and the Origins Debate (IVP Academic, 2009), 72.

13  Robert Grosseteste, Hexaemeron 9.3.1, in C. F. J. Martin, tr., Robert Grosseteste: On the Six Days of Creation (Oxford University Press, 1996), 275.

14  James Chukwuma Okoye, Genesis 1-11: A Narrative-Theological Commentary (Wipf and Stock, 2018), 36.

15  Bryan C. Hodge, Revisiting the Days of Genesis: A Study of the Use of Time in Genesis 1-11 in Light of Its Ancient Near Eastern and Literary Context (Wipf and Stock, 2011), 36; Michael LeFebvre, The Liturgy of Creation: Understanding Calendars in Old Testament Context (IVP Academic, 2019), 187.

16  Bill T. Arnold, Genesis, New Cambridge Bible Commentary (Cambridge University Press, 2008), 49.

17  Enuma elish VI.34, in Wilfrid G. Lambert, Babylonian Creation Myths (Eisenbrauns, 2013), 113.

18  See, e.g., Atrahasis II.7-8, in Benjamin R. Foster, Before the Muses: An Anthology of Akkadian Literature (CDL Press, 2005), 241.

19  Peter Damian, Letter 49.3, in Fathers of the Church: Medieval Continuation 2:273.

20  Augustine of Hippo, On Genesis Against the Manichees 1.22 §34, in Works of St. Augustine I/13:61.

21  Augustine of Hippo, City of God 22.30, in Works of St. Augustine I/7:553.

22  William P. Brown, The Seven Pillars of Creation: The Bible, Science, and the Ecology of Wonder (Oxford University Press, 2010), 39.