Commentary - Genesis 2:1-3

Bird's-eye view

This short passage serves as the majestic capstone to the creation account of Genesis 1. It is the final chord of a grand symphony, and that chord is one of rest. God's work of creation is brought to its glorious and intended conclusion, not with a final flurry of activity, but with a holy cessation of it. The universe is now finished, complete, and lacking nothing. In response, God does three things: He ceases His creative work, He rests, and He blesses and sanctifies the seventh day as a perpetual memorial of this completion. This is not the rest of exhaustion, but the rest of satisfaction and enthronement. The King has built His palace, ordered His kingdom, and now He sits down on His throne to enjoy it. By blessing and hallowing this day, God embeds a rhythm of work and worship, of labor and delight, into the very fabric of the cosmos. This is a creation ordinance, not a Mosaic afterthought, and it establishes the pattern for mankind, who is created to image God in both his work and his rest.

Ultimately, this primordial Sabbath rest is a type, a shadow, of a greater rest to come. It points forward to the rest that God's people find in the finished work of Jesus Christ. Just as God the Father rested from His work of the old creation, so God the Son rested from His work of the new creation when He declared "It is finished" and rose victorious on the first day of the week. This passage, therefore, is foundational for understanding not only the doctrine of creation, but also the Christian doctrine of the Lord's Day and the nature of our salvation, which is itself a rest from our own dead works as we trust in Christ alone.

Outline

Context In Genesis

Genesis 2:1-3 is the hinge between the panoramic, seven-day account of creation in Genesis 1 and the more focused, ground-level narrative of man's place in that creation that begins in Genesis 2:4. It formally concludes the first major section of the book. Chapter 1 shows us God as the transcendent architect, speaking worlds into existence. Chapter 2 will zoom in to show us God as the immanent gardener, forming man from the dust and breathing life into him. This passage provides the crucial transition by establishing the purpose, or telos, of all that creative activity. The goal of work is rest. The goal of making is enjoyment. The establishment of the Sabbath here, before the fall, demonstrates that this rhythm is part of God's perfect design for humanity and is not a consequence of sin. It is a fundamental aspect of what it means to be made in the image of a God who both works and rests.

Key Issues

Creation's Consummation

We must not read this passage as though God simply ran out of things to do and decided to take a break. The language is far more profound. The creation is not just stopped; it is completed. It is finished. It has reached its intended state of perfection. And the act that completes it is the rest itself. The seventh day is not an appendix to creation; it is the pinnacle of the creation week. The first six days are the building of the temple; the seventh day is God coming to dwell in it. It is the enthronement of the Great King. This is why the Sabbath is so central to the biblical worldview. It is the celebration of a finished work. First, it is a celebration of God's finished work in creation. For the Christian, it is a celebration of Christ's finished work in redemption. The pattern is the same: God works, God finishes, God rests, and God invites us into that rest.

Verse by Verse Commentary

1 Thus the heavens and the earth were completed, and all their hosts.

This is a summary statement, a grand concluding declaration. The Hebrew word for "completed" (kalah) means to be finished, accomplished, or perfected. Nothing was left undone. The project was complete. The phrase "heavens and the earth" is a merism, a figure of speech that combines two opposites to signify a totality. It means "everything," the entire cosmos. And "all their hosts" (tsaba) refers to the inhabitants of those realms. It is a military term, suggesting an ordered army. The stars in the heavens are their host, and all the creatures on the earth, including man, are their host. So, the universe and everything in it, in all its ordered array, was brought to its perfect and finished state.

2 And on the seventh day God completed His work which He had done, and He rested on the seventh day from all His work which He had done.

Here we see that the rest itself is the completion of the work. God's work was not truly finished until He had rested. This is crucial. The rest is not an afterthought; it is the capstone. The word for "rested" here is shabath, from which we get the word Sabbath. It means to cease, to desist from activity. This is not the rest of a weary deity. The prophet Isaiah tells us the Creator "does not faint or grow weary" (Isa 40:28). This is the rest of satisfaction. It is the rest of a king who has subdued all things and established his kingdom. It is the rest of an artist who has put the final brushstroke on his masterpiece and steps back to enjoy it. By resting, God sets the pattern for His image-bearers. Six days of work are good and necessary, but they are not the goal. The goal is the rest that follows, a time of ceasing from our labors to delight in God and the fruit of His work and ours.

3 Then God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it, because on it He rested from all His work which God had created in making it.

God does two things to this day that He did to no other day. First, He blessed it. This means He infused it with His favor, marking it out as a day of special goodness and benefit for His creation. The Sabbath is a gift. As Jesus would later say, "The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath" (Mark 2:27). It is a day designed for our refreshment, joy, and delight in God. Second, He sanctified it. This means He set it apart, He made it holy. It was declared to be unique, distinct from the other six days, belonging to God in a special way. The reason for this is explicitly tied to His own act of resting. Because God ceased His work of creation on this day, this day is to be set apart for all time. This establishes the Sabbath as a creation ordinance, not something that originated with the Law of Moses. The Ten Commandments would later call Israel to remember the Sabbath day, not to invent it (Ex. 20:8). The principle of one holy day in seven is woven into the very fabric of time and space.

Application

The modern Christian is tempted to view the Sabbath principle in one of two erroneous ways. The first is to see it as a dreary, legalistic burden, a day filled with a long list of "thou shalt nots," which is the error of the Pharisees. The second is to see it as an obsolete Jewish relic that has been completely abolished, leaving all days the same, which is the error of the antinomian. This passage corrects both.

The Sabbath principle, established here at creation, is a gift of grace. It is God's gracious provision for the rhythm of our lives. Six days are for labor, for subduing the earth, for building and making. One day is for rest, for worship, for feasting, for fellowship, and for celebrating the finished work of God. For the Christian, this principle finds its fulfillment in the Lord's Day, the first day of the week. Why the change from the seventh to the first? Because the Sabbath was tied to the old creation, and the resurrection of Christ on the first day of the week inaugurated a new creation. Just as God the Father rested from His work, so Christ the Son, after His work of redemption, entered into His rest through His resurrection. Our Lord's Day rest is a weekly celebration of that new creation.

Therefore, we should not treat the Lord's Day as just another day. We should prepare for it. We should guard it. We should fill it with worship, both corporate and private, with feasting with family and friends, and with works of mercy and necessity. We should delight in it. Six days of blessed work are more productive than seven days of unblessed work. By honoring the rhythm God has built into the world, we find not only spiritual renewal but also physical and mental refreshment. We cease from our own works to rest in Christ's, and in so doing, we enjoy a foretaste of the eternal Sabbath rest that awaits the people of God in the new heavens and the new earth.