The Pulpit Commentaries
Genesis 2:1-3
EXPOSITION
Thus the heavens and the earth were finished. Literally, and finished were the heavens and the earth, the emphatic position being occupied by the verb. With the creation of man upon the sixth day the Divine Artificer's labors were brought to a termination, and his work to a completion. The two ideas of cessation and perfection are embraced in the import of calais. Not simply had Elohim paused in his activity, but the Divine idea of his universe had been realized. The finished world was a cosmos, arranged, ornamented, and filled with organized, sentient, and rational beings, with plants, animals, and man; and now the resplendent fabric shone before him a magnificent success—"lo! very good." This appears to be by no means obscurely hinted at in the appended clause, and all the host of them, which suggests the picture of a military armament arranged in marching order. Tsebaam, derived from tsaba, to go forth as a soldier (Gesenius), to join together for service (Furst), and applied to the angels (στρατία οὐράνιος, Luk 2:13; 1 Kings 22:19; 2 Chronicles 18:18; Psalms 148:2) and to the celestial bodies (δυìναμεις τῶν οὐρανῶν, Matthew 24:29. Isaiah 34:4; Isaiah 40:26; Daniel 8:10), here includes, by Zeugma, the material heavens and earth with the angelic and human races (cf. Nehemiah 9:6). If the primary signification of the root be splendor, glory, like tsavah, to some forth or shine out as a star (T. Lewis), then will the LXX. and the Vulgate be correct in translating πᾶς ὁ κοìσμος αὐτῶν and omnis ornatus eorum, the conception being that when the heavens and the earth were completed they were a brilliant army.
And on the seventh day God (Elohim) ended his work which he had made. To avert the possibility of imagining that any portion of the seventh day was consumed in working, which the English version seems to favor, the LXX; the Samaritan, and Syriac versions insert the sixth day in the text instead of the seventh. Calvin, Drusius, Le Clerc, Rosenmüller, and Kalisch translate had finished. Others understand the sense to be declared the work to be finished, while Baumgarten and Delitzsch regard the resting as included in the completion of the work, and Von Bohlen thinks "the language is not quite precise." But calah followed by min signifies to cease from prosecuting any work (Exo 34:33; 1 Samuel 10:13; Ezekiel 43:23), and this was, negatively, the aspect of that sabbatic rest into which the Creator entered. And he rested on the seventh day from all his work which he had made. Shavath, the primary idea of which is to sit still, depicts Elohim as desisting from his creative labors, and assuming a posture of quiescent repose. The expression is a pure anthropomorphism. "He who fainteth not, neither is weary" (Isaiah 40:28), can be conceived of neither as resting nor as needing rest through either exhaustion or fatigue. Cessation from previous occupation is all that is implied in the figure, and is quite compatible with continuous activity in other directions. John 5:17 represents the Father as working from that period onward in the preservation and redemption of that world which by his preceding labors he had created and made.
And God blessed the seventh day. The blessing (cf. Genesis 1:22, Genesis 1:28) of the seventh day implied—
1. That it was thereby declared to be the special object of the Divine favor.
2. That it was thenceforth to be a day or epoch of blessing for his creation. And—
3. That it was to be invested with a permanence which did not belong to the other six days—every one of which passed away and gave place to a successor. And sanctified it. Literally, declared it holy, or set it apart for holy purposes. As afterwards Mount Sinai was sanctified (Exodus 19:23), or, for the time being, invested with a sacred character as the residence of God; and Aaron and his sons were sanctified, or consecrated to the priestly office (Exodus 29:44); and the year of Jubilee was sanctified, or devoted to the purposes of religion (Le Genesis 25:10), so here was the seventh day sanctified, or instituted in the interests of holiness, and as such proclaimed to be a holy day. Because that in it he had rested from all his work which God had created and made. Literally, created to make, the exact import of which has been variously explained. The "ω}n h!rcato o( qeo j poih=sai" of the LXX. is obviously incorrect. Calvin, Ainsworth, Bush, et alii take the second verb emphatice, as intensifying the action of the first, and conveying the idea of a perfect creation. Kalisch, Alford, and others explain the second as epexegetic of the first, as in the similar phrases, "spoke, saying, literally, spoke to speak" (Exodus 6:10), and "labored to do" (Ecclesiastes 2:11). Onkelos, the Vulgate (quod Dens creavit ut faceret), Calvin, Tayler Lewis, c. understand the infinitive in a relic sense, as expressive of the purpose for which the heavens and the earth were at first created, viz; that by the six days' work they might be fashioned into a cosmos. It has been observed that the usual concluding formula is not appended to the record of the seventh day, and the reason has perhaps been declared by Augustine: "Dies autem septimus sine vespera eat, nee habet occasum, quia sanctificasti eum ad permansionem sempiternam" ('Confess.,' 13:36). But now what was this seventh day which received Elohim's benediction? On the principle of interpretation applied to the creative days, this must be regarded as a period of indefinite duration, compounding to the human era of both Scripture and geology. But other Scriptures (Exodus 20:8; Exodus 23:12; Deuteronomy 5:12, c.) show that the Hebrews were enjoined by God to observe a seventh day rest in imitation of himself. There are also indications that sabbatic observance was not unknown to the patriarchs (Genesis 29:27, Genesis 29:28), to the antediluvians (Genesis 8:6-1), and to Cain and Abel (Genesis 4:3). Profane history likewise vouches for the veracity of the statement of Josephus, that "there is not any city of the Grecians, nor any of the barbarians, nor any nation whatsoever, whither our custom of resting on the seventh day hath not come" ('Contra Apionem,' 2.40). The ancient Persians, Indians, and Germans esteemed the number seven as sacred. By the Greeks and Phoenicians a sacred character was ascribed to the seventh day. The Assyrians, Babylonians, Egyptians, and other nations of antiquity were acquainted with the hebdomadal division of time. Travelers have detected traces of it among the African and American aborigines. To account for its existence among nations so widely apart, both chronologically and geographically, recourse has been had to some violent hypotheses; as, e.g; to the number of the primary planets known to the ancients (Humboldt), the division of a lunar month into four nearly equal periods of seven days (Ideler, Baden Powell, c.), Jewish example (Josephus). Its true genesis, however, must be sought for in the primitive observance of a seventh day rest in accordance with Divine appointment. Precisely as we reason that the early and widespread prevalence of sacrifice can only be explained by an authoritative revelation to the first parents of the human family of such a mode of worship, so do we conclude that a seventh day sabbath must have been prescribed to man in Eden. The question then arises, Is this sabbath also referred to in the Mosaic record of the seventh day? The popular Belief is that the institution of the weekly sabbath alone is the subject spoken of in the opening verses of the present chapter; and the language of Exodus 20:11 may at first sight appear to warrant this conclusion. A more careful consideration of the phraseology employed by Moses, how ever, shows that in the mind of the Hebrew lawgiver there existed a distinction between God's seventh day and man's sabbath, and that, instead of identifying the two, he meant to teach that the first was the reason of the second; as thus—"In six days God made …. and rested on the seventh day; where fore God blessed the (weekly) sabbath day, and hallowed it." Here it is commonly assumed that the words are exactly parallel to those in Genesis 2:3, and that the sabbath in Exodus corresponds to the seventh day of Genesis. But this is open to debate. The seventh day which God blessed in Eden was the first day of human life, and not the seventh day; and it is certain that God did not rest from his labors on man's seventh day, but on man's first. We feel inclined then to hold with Luther that in Genesis 2:3 Moses says nothing about man's day, and that the seventh day which received the Divine benediction was God's own great aeonian period of sabbatic rest. At the same time, for the reasons above specified, believing that a weekly sabbath was pre scribed to man from the beginning, we have no difficulty in assenting to the words of Tayler Lewis: "'And God blessed the seventh day.' Which seventh day, the greater or the less, the Divine or the human, the aeonian or the astronomical? Both, is the easy answer; both, as commencing at the same time, so far as the one connects with astronomical time; both, as the greater including the less; both, as being (the one as represented, the other as typically representing) the same essence and idea." It does not appear necessary to refute the idea that the weekly sabbath had no existence till the giving of the law, and that it is only here proleptically referred to by Moses. In addition to the above-mentioned historical testimonies to the antiquity of the Sabbath, the Fifth Tablet in the Chaldean Creation Series, after referring to the fourth day's work, proceeds:—
"On the seventh day he appointed a holy day,
And to cease from all business he commanded.
Then arose the sun in the horizon of heaven in (glory)."
thus apparently affirming that, in the opinion of the early Babylonians, the institution of the sabbath was coeval with the creation.
HOMILETICS
The two sabbaths: the Divine and the human.
I. THE SABBATH OF GOD. A period of—
1. Cessation from toil, or discontinuance of those world-making operations which had occupied the six preceding days (Hebrews 4:4). Never since the close of the creative week has God interfered to fundamentally rearrange the material structure of the globe. The Deluge produced no alteration on the constitution of nature. Nor is there evidence that any new species have been added to its living creatures.
2. Holy delight. On the seventh day Elohim rested and was" refreshed" (Exodus 31:17); which refreshment consisted partly in the satisfaction he experienced in beholding the cosmos—a satisfaction prefigured and anticipated by the solemn pauses intervening at the end of each creative day, accompanied by the "good," "lo! very good," of Divine approbation; and partly in the pleasure with which he contemplated the peculiar work of blessing his creation which lay before him, a work which also had its foreshadowings in the benedictions pronounced on the living creatures of the fifth day, and on man on the sixth.
3. Beneficent activity. Even man, unless where his intellectual and moral faculties are dormant, finds it difficult to rest in indolence and inactivity. Absence of motion, with complete negation of effort, may constitute the refreshment of the physical system. The mind seeks its rest in change of occupation. Still less can the supreme Intelligence, who is pure Spirit, rest in absolute inaction; only the Divine energy is now directed towards the happiness of his creatures (Psalms 145:9). Having finished his creative labors, what else could Elohim do but outpour his own blessedness upon his creatures, in proportion to their capacities to receive it? His nature as God necessitated such communication of good to his creatures (Psalms 34:8; James 1:5, James 1:17). The capacities of his creatures for such blessing required it. Hence God's rest may be said to have been man's birthright. He was created in that rest, as the sphere of his existence.
4. Continuous duration. That which secures its perpetuity is the Divine resolution to bless it, i.e. constitute it an era of blessing for man, and in particular to sanctify it, or devote it to the interests of holiness. And in this Divine determination lies the pledge of man's salvation. Without it God's rest might have been broken into by man's sin, and the era of blessing ended. But, because of it, man's sin could not change the character of God's seventh day, so as to prevent it from dropping down gifts and exercising holy influences on the creature for whose sake it was appointed. The security of the world as a cosmos may also be said to be involved in the permanence of God's sabbath. So long as it continues nothing shall occur to resolve the present goodly framework of this globe into another lightless, formless, lifeless chaos, at least until the Divine purpose with the human race has been fulfilled.
II. THE SABBATH OF MAN.
1. Of Divine institution (Exodus 20:8; Leviticus 19:30; Psalms 118:24). That God had a right to enact a weekly sabbath for man is implied in his relation to man as Creator and Lawgiver. For man, therefore, to withhold the seventh portion of his time is to be guilty of disobedience against God as a moral Governor, ingratitude towards God as Creator and Preserver, robbery of God as the original Proprietor of both man's powers and time's days. As an institution of God's appointing, the sabbath deserves our honor and esteem. To neglect to render this God counts a sin (Isaiah 58:13).
2. Of sacred character. Among the Israelites its sanctity was to be recognized by abstinence from bodily labor (Exodus 20:10; Exodus 34:21, c.) and holy convocations (Le Genesis 23:3). That this was the manner of its observance prior to the giving of the law may be judged from the regulations concerning the manna (Exodus 16:22). That from the beginning it was a day of rest and religious worship may be reasonably inferred. That it was so used by Christ and his apostles the Gospels attest (Luke 4:16). That the same character was held to attach to the first day of the week after Christ's resurrection may be deduced from the practice of the apostolic Church (Acts 20:7). The sanctity of the sabbath may be profaned, positively, by prosecuting one's ordinary labors in its hours (Isaiah 58:13; Jeremiah 17:24); negatively, by neglecting to devote them to Divine worship and spiritual improvement (Ezekiel 44:24). Christianity has not obliterated the distinction between the sabbath and the other days of the week; not even by elevating them to the position of holy days. An attempt to equalize the seven days always results in the degradation of the seventh, never in the elevation of the other six.
3. Of beneficent design (Mark 2:27). The sabbath is adapted to the wants of man physically, intellectually, socially, politically. Innumerable facts and testimonies establish the beneficial influence of a seventh day's rest from toil upon the manual laborer, the professional thinker, the social fabric, the body politic, in respect of health, wealth, strength, happiness. It is, however, chiefly man's elevation as a religious being at which it aims. In the paradisiacal state it was designed to hedge him round and, if possible, prevent his fall; since the tragedy in Eden it has been seeking his reinstatement in that purity from which he fell.
4. Of permanent obligation. Implied in the terms of its institution, its permanence would not be affected by the abolition of the Decalogue. The Decalogue presupposed its previous appointment. Christianity takes it up, just as Judaism took it up, as one of God's existing ordinances for the good of man, and seeks through it to bring its higher influences to bear on man, just as Judaism sought, through it, to operate with its inferior agency. Till it merges in the rest of which it is a shadow by the accomplishment of its grand design, it must abide.
III. THE CONNECTION OF THE TWO. God's rest is—
1. The reason of man's sabbath. The Almighty could have no higher reason for enjoining a seventh day's rest upon his creature than that by so resting that creature would be like himself.
2. The pattern of man's sabbath. As God worked through six of his days and rested on the seventh, so should man toil through six of his days and rest on the seventh. As God did all his work in the six creative days, so should all man's labor be performed in the six days of the week. As God employs his rest in contemplation of his finished work and in blessing his creature man, so should man devote his sabbath to pious meditation on his past life and to a believing reception of God's gifts of grace and salvation.
3. The life of man's sabbath. Whatever blessing comes to man on his weekly day of rest has its primal fountain in the rest of God. As man himself is God's image, so is man's sabbath the image of God's rest; and as man lives and moves and has his being in God, so does man's sabbath live and move and have its being in God's rest.
4. The end of man's sabbath. The reinstatement of man in God's rest is the purpose at which man's sabbath aims, the goal towards which it is tending. God's rest remains on high (Hebrews 4:9), drawing men towards it. Man's weekly sabbath will ultimately lose itself m God's eternal rest.
HOMILIES BY R.A. REDFORD
Rest and Light.
The finished heavens and earth and their host prepare the day of rest. God ended his work as an interchange of darkness and light.
I. THE REST OF THE SABBATH IS NOT INACTION, BUT THE CESSATION FROM THE LOWER ORDER OF WORK FOE THE HIGHER. The idea of the first proclamation seems to be that creation was perfectly adjusted through the six days into a settled harmony which puts heaven and earth in their abiding relation to one another.
II. Then THERE IS NO MORE SAID OF EVENING AND MORNING. The seventh day is only light. God's rest is complacency in his works. The blessing on the seventh day which hallowed it is the blessing on that which the day represents—perfect peace between heaven and earth, God satisfied in his creation, and inviting his intelligent creatures to "enter into his rest" by communion with him. It seems quite unnecessary to vindicate such a sanctification of the seventh day from the insinuations of critics that it was a late addition made by the Jewish legislator to support the fourth commandment. In that case the whole cosmogony must be renounced. Such an observance of a day of rest seems a natural antecedent to the patriarchal as well as the Mosaic economy. We have already intimated that the whole account of creation is placed at the commencement of revelation because it has a bearing upon the positive ordinances of religion. It is not either a scientific or poetic sketch of the universe; it is the broad, fundamental outline of a System of religious truth connected with a body of Divine commandments. The sabbath is thus described in its original breadth. The sanctification of it is—
1. Negative. It is separation from the lower conditions of work, which in the case of man are the characteristics of days which are sinful days—days of toil and conflict, of darkness and light mingled.
2. Positive. It is the restful enjoyment of a higher life, a life which is not laboring after emancipation from bondage, but perfect with a glorious liberty; the true day, "sacred, high, eternal noon," God and man rejoicing m one another, the creature reflecting the glory of the Creator.—R.