Why did God rest on the 7th day of creation?
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Why did God rest on the 7th day of creation?
Let’s read Genesis 2:1-3 we read, “Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them. And on the seventh day God finished his work that he had done, and he rested on the seventh day from all his work that he had done. So God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it God rested from all his work that he had done in creation. ” All of God’s works were completed on the sixth day, and there was no more need for God to work on the seventh day. So God blessed the seventh day and made the seventh day a Holy Day. This meant that this day would be set apart from all of the other days of the week.
Let’s recall that the books of Genesis through Deuteronomy were written by Moses for the children of Israel. Genesis was written to give the nation of Israel their origins and history. The book of Genesis also serves as precedent for the Law of Moses in that events that happened in the book of Genesis serve as examples to Israel on both how and how not to act. One of the Ten Commandments that God gave Israel was to honor the Sabbath and keep it holy. Exodus 20:8-11 says:
Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days you shall labor, and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the LORD your God. On it you shall not do any work, you, or your son, or your daughter, your male servant, or your female servant, or your livestock, or the sojourner who is within your gates. For in six days the LORD made heaven and 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.
What God rested from on the seventh day was His acts of creation. We should not infer from this that God did nothing whatsoever. God continued, on the seventh day, to provide for His creation, maintain it, love it, and communicate with mankind as was needed.
Let’s go back a few days into the creation, however, to the fourth day of creation in Genesis 1:14-19:
And God said, “Let there be lights in the expanse of the heavens to separate the day from the night. And let them be for signs and for seasons, and for days and years, and let them be lights in the expanse of the heavens to give light upon the earth.” And it was so. And God made the two great lights—the greater light to rule the day and the lesser light to rule the night—and the stars. And God set them in the expanse of the heavens to give light on the earth, to rule over the day and over the night, and to separate the light from the darkness. And God saw that it was good. And there was evening and there was morning, the fourth day.
You may notice here that there was the greater light and the lesser light. The great light is the Sun and the lesser light is the moon. The twenty-four hour day is based upon the rising and setting of the sun as we see it. However, we also have the month, which is governed by the cycles of the moon. The Lunar cycle occurs every twenty-eight days. This breaks the days down into four seven-day periods. So, after God created the lunar cycle, the seven-day week came into being. Since God’s creation was finished in six days, there was one day left over, and God chose to rest on that day.
God rested on the seventh day to serve as an example to mankind. God did not desire mankind to be burdened with grievous work every day of His life. He wanted us to have a day of rest. So He rested from His works and set aside a day of rest so that man could rest also. In doing this, Israel imitated God.