Journeying in Genesis: Learning From the Seventh Day

We have much to learn from God’s Word, and will not exhaust it this side of eternity. We have witnessed God bless living creatures on the sixth day. On day seven, He blessed the actual day and made it holy. Let’s dig into this.

“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."

Genesis 2:3

The Hebrew for holy is קָדַשׁ qâdash meaning to pronounce clean, hallow, or sanctify (which means to set apart). He did this because it was on this day that He rested; the work was finished. There was nothing more that needed to be done. The number seven in Scripture often represents completion.

This seventh day is set apart. It is part of the story and it teaches. We learn that we are invited into the rest, the celebration, the appreciation of the work finished…or we can miss it. Hebrews 3 and 4 warn of how some Israelites missed the rest of the Promised Land because of unbelief and disobedience.

“For we who have believed enter that rest, as he has said,

‘As I swore in my wrath,

They shall not enter my rest,’

although his works were finished from the foundation of the world.

For he has somewhere spoken of the seventh day in this way:

‘And God rested on the seventh day from all his works.’”

Hebrews 4:3-4

God shares these things, so that we don’t make the same mistakes. It’s not a physical entrance into rest we could miss, but the ultimate, eternal one. We’ll continue to look at this in our next post as we consider the only way to enter true and eternal rest. It is only found in Jesus.