BibleProject - The Significance of 7 - 7th Day Rest E2

Episode Date: October 21, 2019

QUOTE“Genesis 1 isn’t just telling you about what type of world you’re living in; it’s showing you, as a Israelite reader, that your life of worship rhythms are woven into the fabric of the universe.”KEY TAKEAWAYSThe idea of resting and the number seven are intimately connected in the Bible.In Genesis 1, the word or number "seven" has two key symbolic meanings: seven represents a full and complete world, and getting to seven is a linear journey from one to seven.The rhythm of practicing sabbath or resting every seventh day is one way that humans can imitate God and act like they are participating in the new creation.SHOW NOTESWelcome to our second episode tracing the theme of seventh-day rest in the Bible!In part 1 (0-18:30), Tim shares some of the numeric symbolism in Genesis 1. The opening line of Genesis 1 has seven words, and the central word, untranslated in English, is two Hebrew letters, the first and last letters of the Hebrew alphabet: aleph and taw.When one isolates the theme of time in Genesis 1, another design pattern emerges that provides a foundation for all of Israel’s rituals of sacred time.Tim points out that there are many other ways the number seven is symbolic in the Genesis narrative: there are seven words in Genesis 1:1, and fourteen words in Genesis 1:2. There are seven paragraphs in Genesis 1:1-2:3 marked by “evening and morning.” The concluding seventh paragraph in Genesis 2:1-3 begins three lines which have seven words each (Gen 2:2-3a).In part 2 (18:30-28:30), Tim summarizes a series of details about the literary design of Genesis ch. 1 from Umberto Cassuto's commentary on Genesis:"In view of the importance ascribed to the number seven generally, and particularly in the story of Creation, this number occurs again and again in the structure of our section. The following details are deserving of note:(a). After the introductory verse (1:1), the section is divided into seven paragraphs, each of which appertains to one of the seven days. An obvious indication of this division is to be seen in the recurring sentence, And there was evening and there was morning, such-and-such a day. Hence the Masoretes were right in placing an open paragraph [i.e. one that begins on a new line] after each of these verses. Other ways of dividing the section suggested by some modern scholars are unsatisfactory.(b–d). Each of the three nouns that occur in the first verse and express the basic concepts of the section, viz God [אֱלֹהִים ʾElōhīm] heavens [שָׁמַיִם šāmayim], earth [אֶרֶץ ʾereṣ], are repeated in the section a given number of times that is a multiple of seven: thus the name of God occurs thirty-five times, that is, five times seven (on the fact that the Divine Name, in one of its forms, occurs seventy times in the first four chapters, see below); earth is found twenty-one times, that is, three times seven; similarly heavens (or firmament, רָקִיעַ rāqīaʿ) appears twenty-one times.(e). The ten sayings with which, according to the Talmud, the world was created (Aboth v 1; in B. Rosh Hashana 32a and B. Megilla 21b only nine of them are enumerated, the one in 1:29, apparently, being omitted)—that is, the ten utterances of God beginning with the words, and … said—are clearly divisible into two groups: the first group contains seven Divine fiats enjoining the creation of the creatures, to wit, ‛Let there be light’, ‘Let there be a firmament’, ‘Let the waters be gathered together’, ‘Let the earth put forth vegetation’, ‘Let there be lights’, ‘Let the waters bring forth swarms’, ‘Let the earth bring forth’; the second group comprises three pronouncements that emphasize God’s concern for man’s welfare (three being the number of emphasis), namely, ‘Let us make man’ (not a command but an expression of the will to create man), ‘Be fruitful and multiply’, ‘Behold I have given unto you every plant yielding seed’. Thus we have here, too, a series of seven corresponding dicta.(f). The terms light and day are found, in all, seven times in the first paragraph, and there are seven references to light in the fourth paragraph.(g). Water is mentioned seven times in the course of paragraphs two and three.(h). In the fifth and sixth paragraphs forms of the word חַיָּה ḥayyā [rendered ‘living’ or ‘beasts’] occur seven times.(i). The expression it was good appears seven times (the seventh time—very good).(j). The first verse has seven words.(k). The second verse contains fourteen words—twice seven.(l). In the seventh paragraph, which deals with the seventh day, there occur the following three consecutive sentences (three for emphasis), each of which consists of seven words and contains in the middle the expression the seventh day:And on the seventh day God finished His work which He had done, and He rested on the seventh day from all His work whichHe had done.So God blessed the seventh day and hallowed it.(m). The words in the seventh paragraph total thirty-five—five times seven.To suppose that all this is a mere coincidence is not possible.§ 6. This numerical symmetry is, as it were, the golden thread that binds together all the parts of the section and serves as a convincing proof of its unity against the view of those—and they comprise the majority of modern commentators—who consider that our section is not a unity but was formed by the fusion of two different accounts, or as the result of the adaptation and elaboration of a shorter earlier version."U. Cassuto, A Commentary on the Book of Genesis: Part I, From Adam to Noah (Genesis I–VI 8), trans. Israel Abrahams (Jerusalem: The Magnes Press, The Hebrew University, 1998), pages 13–15.Tim says all of this numerical symbolism is completely intentional. The authors want us to learn that seven represents both a whole completed creation and a journey to that completeness.In part 3 (28:30-41:00), Jon asks why the number seven became so symbolic in ancient Hebrew culture. Tim says the origins of the number seven being associated with completeness is likely tied to the lunar calendar of moon cycles. The biblical Hebrew word for “month” is “moon” (חדש). Each month consisted of 29.5 days, and each month consisted of four 7.3-day cycles, making a “complete” cycle of time. However, the sabbath cycle is independent of the moon cycle, and sabbaths do not coincide with the new moon. It is patterned after creation, and stands outside of any natural cycle of time.Tim then makes an important note on Hebrew word play. Seven was symbolic in ancient near eastern and Israelite culture and literature. It communicated a sense of “fullness” or “completeness” (שבע “seven” is spelled with the same consonants as the word שבע “complete/full”). This makes sense of the pervasive appearance of “seven” patterns in the Bible. For more information on this, Tim cites Maurice H. Farbridge’s book, Studies in Biblical and Semitic Symbolism, 134-37.In part 4 (41:00-52:30), Jon asks what it means for God to rest?In response, Tim says there are two separate but related Hebrew concepts and words for rest.The Hebrew word shabat means “to cease from.” God ceases from his work because “it is finished” (Gen 2:1). Compare with Joshua 5:12, “The manna ceased (shabat) on that day….”The Hebrew word nuakh means “to take up residence.” Compare with Exodus 10:14, “The locusts came up over the land of Egypt and rested (nuakh) in all the land.” When God or people nuakh, it always involves settling into a place that is safe, secure, and stable. 2 Samuel 7:1 says, “Now when King David dwelt in his house, for Yahweh had provided rest from his enemies….”The drama of the story, Tim notes, is the question as to whether humans and God will nuakh together? All of this sets a foundation for later biblical stories of Israel entering in the Promised Land, a land of rest.In part 5 (52:30-end), Tim asks what it means that God blessed the seventh day?Tim cites scholar Mathilde Frey:“Set apart from all other days, the blessing of the seventh day establishes the seventh part of created time as a day when God grants his presence in the created world. It is then his presence that provides the blessing and the sanctification. The seventh day is blessed and established as the part of time that assures fruitfulness, future-orientation, continuity, and permanence for every aspect of life within the dimension of time. The seventh day is blessed by God’s presence for the sake of the created world, for all nature, and for all living beings.” (Mathilde Frey, The Sabbath in the Pentateuch, 45)Tim says in Genesis 1, the symbolism of seven is a view that the “seventh day” is the culmination of all history. Tim cites scholar Samuel H. Balentine.“Unlike the previous days, the seventh day is simply announced. There is no mention of evening or morning, no mention of a beginning or ending. The suggestion is that the primordial seventh day exists in perpetuity, a sacred day that cannot be abrogated by the limitations common to the rest of the created order.” (Samuel H. Balentine, The Torah’s Vision of Worship, 93)Tim also cites scholar Robert Lowry: “The seventh-day account does not end with the expected formula, “there was evening and morning,” that concluded days one through six. Breaking the pattern in this way emphasizes the uniqueness of the seventh day and opens the door to an eschatological interpretation. Literarily, the sun has not yet set on God’s Sabbath.” (Richard H. Lowery, Sabbath and Jubilee, 90)Show Music:Defender Instrumental by TentsOptimistic by Lo Fi Type BeatKame House by Lofi Hip Hop InstrumentalIt’s Ok to Not Be Ok by Highkey BeatsHometown by nymano x PandressResources:Maurice H. Farbridge, Studies in Biblical and Semitic SymbolismUmberto Cassuto, From Adam to Noah: A Commentary on the Book of GenesisMathilde Frey, The Sabbath in the PentateuchSamuel H. Balentine, The Torah’s Vision of WorshipRichard H. Lowery, Sabbath and JubileeShow Produced By:Dan GummelPowered and distributed by Simplecast.

Hey, this is Cooper at Bible Project. I produce the podcast in Classroom. We've been exploring a theme called the City, and it's a pretty big theme. So we decided to do two separate Q and R episodes about it. We're currently taking questions for the second Q and R and we'd love to hear from you. Just record your question by July 21st

and send it to us at infoatbiboproject.com. Let us know your name and where you're from, try to keep your question to about 20 seconds and please transcribe your question when you email it in, try to keep your question to about 20 seconds, and please transcribe your question when you email it in. That's a huge help to our team. We're excited to hear from you. Here's the episode.

Hey, this is John Collins at The Bible Project. Last week, we began a brand new series examining the theme of the seventh day in the Bible, or in Hebrew, Shabbat. God created the heavens and the earth out of disorder and chaos in six days and on the seventh day, he Shabbat. And in the same way, God's recreating the cosmos and rescuing people from chaos and disorder. So what can we say about Genesis 1? We can say that the portrait of time is that the seventh day is a culminating ideal.

The seventh day also is something you have to wait for. Genesis one, it's like a template that's just gonna keep replaying over and over again, the design pattern. For the attentive Bible reader, the idea of resting and the number seven are intimately connected. God stopped on the seventh day.

In Hebrew, the number seven has the same consonants as the word for completeness, a wholeness. So in Genesis 1, 7 develops two key symbolic associations. One of them is that one through 7 altogether is a symbol of completeness. But then also, the journey to get to that completeness requires you to go through one, two, three, four, five, six. So then it's about a linear journey towards completeness. And this picture in Genesis 1 of God creating gives us a way to think about how God continues

to recreate the world. Genesis 1 is not just telling you about what kind of world I'm living in. It's giving you as an Israelite reader seeing that your worship, your life of worship rhythms is woven into the fabric of the universe. Thanks for joining us. Here we go. All right, we're talking about the Sabbath.

Yes. And not strictly the practice. Yes, we made a distinction. Yeah. As we prepare for a theme video that we're not quite sure now what we're going to call it. Yeah. That by saying Sabbath, we're not talking about the observance of one day, although we are talking about that.

We're not only talking about that. What happens in Jewish tradition and some Christian traditions on Friday night to Saturday night. By Sabbath, we're talking about the idea that God is over all time. And time is a culminating. Yeah, taking time in a direction that culminates in a seventh day of rest. And this all begins in Genesis 1. Yeah, it begins in the first sentence of Genesis 1. It begins in the beginning. Yeah. So, yeah, this conversation, we're going to focus on page 1 of the Bible. Genesis 1, which actually, the first creation narrative, goes from Genesis 1, 1 to Genesis

2, verse 3. It's where the chapter break. Such a bummer on the first page of the Bible, the chapter break kind of gets a little bit more. The literary unit is not the chapter. Right. And there's many clear clues as to why that's the case. However, the idea of a culminating seventh day and the symbolic importance of the number seven is introduced in the first sentence

of Genesis 1, which consists of seven words in Hebrew, which I would never know. Beryeshi Burah, Elohim et Hashemayim veta Arat. Seven words. The center word, so you think of seven. One of the great things about seven, we'll talk about more. One of the things is that the number itself gives possibility of a perfect symmetry, of three with a center and then another three. And literary structures in the Hebrew Bible just doing stuff with sevens all over the place.

In the first sentence, people pointed this out for a long time. Of those seven words, the central word of Genesis 1-1 is actually not translated in any English translation. No. It's the Hebrew word, et, which is a grammar term that marks the direct object of a verb. So in English, we don't have a word. My brain begins to seize up whenever we talk about grammar. So you know.

Direct object of a verb. So you have in English, John hit the ball. Okay, I hit it once. John's the subject. I'm the subject. You're the actor of a verb. Which is hit. I'm the one hitting. The object, the thing that is hit, the object of the verb is the ball.

Now what's the difference between an object and a direct object? Oh, there isn't. Okay. Yeah. Well, because you can have an indirect object. And what John hit? Hit the ball into the field. And the field is the indirect object. So, which is marked as a prepositional phrase.

Anyway, so the direct object marker is the Hebrew word. In English, we indicate objects by word order. It's the noun that comes after the verb. John hit the ball. In other words, in English, you wouldn't say John hit into the field of ball. Into the field. Oh yeah, okay. Well, you could, but it's awkward.

Yeah, it's awkward. Normally. John hit, you know, you'd be like, it would be like, why is he talking all politically? Yeah, like Yoda or something. Yeah, totally. Yeah, that's right. So the reason we're having this conversation is because there is a distinct word in Hebrew that marks the object of a verb.

Okay. It's the Hebrew word at. At. When at is in Hebrew, it doesn't get translated in English by an English word, it gets translated by word order. By word order, that's right. So the center word, which is word number four, in the Hebrew of Genesis 1, 1, is the word

et. And, especially if you look at older Jewish commentators, they note that the word et consists of two letters, all if and tov, which are the first and the last letters of the Hebrew alphabet. Tov is the last. Tov is the last. Yep. So the opening line of the Bible is seven words in the center. And the center is a word that contains the first and the last letters of

the Hebrew alphabet. Okay. Come now. Oh, I'm just saying like someone designed it that way. Or it could be that there's a subtle nuance being communicated there. The opening is itself an image of completeness and wholeness. Seven, what we're going to see is a symbol of completeness and wholeness. There's a beautiful amount of symmetry in that. Yep. And then the center word is about from the beginning to the end. So it's both about wholeness and the completion completion but moving in a direction. The beginning means you begin, then you go on a journey, and then you reach the end. So there's something, even in the opening sentence, we have our eye that this story is about

something that's going to go on and on and on and then finally reach the top. What's the object here? Heavens, Skyland, and the top. What's the object here? Heaven, sky, land. The sky and the land. Yeah, the heavens and the sky. There's two direct object objects. Yes, that's right. So is there two tops? Or two? There's two ets.

Yeah, yeah. Word number six is the word et. Mm-hmm. Oh, it looks different. It has the word and in front of it. Et, Hashemayem is marking the skies. The and et to audits, the land. Okay.

In Revelation, in the New Testament, in the Revelation, chapter one, when Jesus appears to John the visionary, and he, Jesus's first words in the Revelation are, I am the, Alpha. Yeah, so he takes the Greek letters of the alphabet, the Alpha and the Omega.

Because the Omega is the last in the Greek alphabet. Correct, yeah. So he's picking up this concept. I am the beginning in the end. I am the first letter of the alphabet in the last letter. Almost certainly, he's riffing off of Genesis 1-1. He's riffing off of the fourth word. The fourth word, the Bible. In Genesis 1.1, which has the first and

the last letter. And likely also off of passage in Isaiah 41, but that's a deeper rebel. Go in right now. The whole point is that the first sentence puts the number seven in front of us. Sure. If you're if I'm reading it in Hebrew. if you're if you're reading it in Hebrew, correct. The next thing, let's go back, the most obvious structure or part of literary design for any reader, no matter what language you're reading it in, translation about the the structure of this first narrative. Yeah, this literary unit. Literary unit is the days. Yeah, seven days.

The days. So you have the first sentence, Genesis 1, 1 has seven words. Okay. In Genesis 1, 2, this is, now the land was wild and wastes. Yep. Darkness over the face of the deep abyss, but the ruach, the breath, spirit, wind, wind, of God was hovering over the face of the waters. Genesis 1 verse 2 contains 14 Hebrew words. Okay. So the opening sentence contains seven words. The next sentence contains two times seven words.

Yeah. Then starting in verse three, begins the pattern of days. Day one. Day one that culminates in seven days. Yeah. So just think through seven words, two times seven words, then out of that flows the whole narrative of,

now even if this is work in English, I don't make a habit of counting how many words are in a sentence. And when I'm reading something. I hear that, yeah. It's like a Easter egg. Yeah, it is. It all depends on what expectations you bring to a text. If you were brought up in the first generations of when the Hebrew Scriptures came into the

Tenoch collection, you would have been taught how to read it, and you would have been taught, the Genesis 1 is teaching you how to read biblical literature. That's why it's probably one of the most exquisitely designed pages of the Hebrew Bible, down to syllables and word numbers. Every sentence has this exquisite design. It's remarkable page of the Hebrew Bible. And I think it's because it's also, it's the tutorial lesson. And it's the Psalm one.

Here's things you should pay attention to. Yeah, you learn how to read the book of literature by spending a lot of time staring at every possible facet of Genesis one. And this is a great example. So seven words in Genesis 1, 1. Yep. It's 14 words in Genesis 1, 2.

In the third verse, we began day one, and throughout this entire literary unit poem, Christian story, is seven days. Seven days. Yeah, that's right. Now, let's take the next step. Remember the first sentence of Genesis 1-1, we had seven words, and then the fourth word was at the head of the first and the last.

So now all of a sudden I've learned from the first sentence, oh, when there are seven, pay attention to the middle and see what happens. So once I've learned that principle, when I look at the seven days, if I look at the middle, something happens. That would be day four. It would be day four. So when you look at the beginning and the middle and the end of the seven days, namely, days one, four, and seven, the first and the last in the middle, you notice that all of those three days are about time. They're all about time. Day one is the darkness is interrupted by God's light. And he names it day and night.

It's the order of time. Day four is about God appointing the sun and the moon as rulers of day and night, and also the stars. Oh, and remember in verse 14, actually in Genesis 1, 14, it says, let the lights be for signs. We've talked a lot about that. They're symbols. And then the next word is, and for Molladeem is the Hebrew word, but it's the word for Israel's feast days.

It gets translated seasons in English, which makes English readers think of fall, winter, spring. That is not what it means. It means when should you do these feasts? Look, Modem, that word seasons in our English translations of Genesis 1, verse 14, is the word used in the rest of the Torah for Passover, for the New Year, for Pentecost,

for Tabernacles and the Day of Atonement, and then also for the Year of Release and for Shabbat. We get to live it because 23, there are seven of these Moadim that Israel was to celebrate. How convenient. They're hyperlinked right here, in this word right here.

I see. Yep. So then you move to the seventh day, the last day of Genesis 1, which is the seventh. Here we're introduced to God's Shabbat. God's Shabbats on the seventh day. And then that Shabbat, the culminating seventh day, becomes the model for the seventh year of release, which becomes the model for the seventh year of release, which becomes the model for the seven times seven year of release in the Jubilee. So, if you think about it, this is setting you up for this is setting up in ancient Israelite to see that all of the patterns of my building, my life around patterns of honoring Yahweh, day and night, day one.

I say the Shema. Hmm. In the beginning of the day, I say the shema. In the beginning of the day, I say the shema at the end of the day. That represents day one. Day four is all about the annual festivals. Day seven is all about Shabbat on the seventh, final Shabbat. The final Shabbat. The final Shabbat. The seventh year of release, the seven times seven year of jubilee. So the whole of Jewish... So I only generally see the ship bought in day seven. Yep. But you're saying day one and day four are also speaking to it.

The beginning, the middle and the end of the seven days are all about different aspects of time that God is orchestrating and organizing. And conveniently, all three of those days represent the entirety of the daily, monthly, yearly, seven times seven yearly. The whole calendar of Israel's liturgy and worship is outlined in these three days of Genesis one. Dude, it's just like. So stepping back, you come to Genesis one and this story about everything coming into

existence. And so it's like, why do we exist? Why does any of this matter? And day one, light and darkness are separated. And they're named day and night, which are units of time that are meaningful to humans. Yeah. Yeah.

And a life, right, cycles of life. And then day four, the sun, moon,. Yeah, that's when they show up. Yep. And we've talked about these in depth and other conversations. Yeah, they're rulers of the sky. Mm-hmm. And that's a whole nother conversation. But they're also symbols. Yeah. And they're also helping you know when to do the feast days. Correct. All seven of them. All seven of them. And all the feast days, and I'm sure we'll get into this, like have all of this. Totally.

They're all about. They're different facets of the seventh day diamond. And then you get to day seven. God rests on the seventh day. And that one really stands out. It's culminating. It's culminating. And it's the one I always think of when I culminating. It's culminating. Yeah.

And it's the one I was thinking of when I think of Sabet. That's right. Yeah. So in other words, the seventh day is part of think of like Lego blocks or something. Okay. Maybe think of a pyramid.

Okay. Forget Lego blocks. Think of a pyramid. Like what kind of pyramid? The seventh day, well maybe a pyramid made of like a side. I don't know. But the seventh day is like the top piece. It's the most visible and it's prominent. But it is actually one piece of a whole superstructure of networked patterns of time.

And so the smallest block is day and night, the daily repetition of the shema, which corresponds to the daily morning and evening sacrifice in the temple, which corresponds to the daily maintenance of the lights, the candles of the menorah in the holy place. I don't know about that. We'll talk at length about it. Because there's seven of those lights

in the holy place. So day one gives you the most basic little Lego block. Day four gives you the big within the scope of one year. It tells you all of the seven larger blocks that make up the whole year's worth of sacred time. Day seven points to the seventh day, which connects to the seventh year, which connects to the seven times seventh year. And so you put day one, four, and seven together. Genesis one is not just telling you about what kind of world I'm living in. It's giving you as a Israelite reader, seeing that your worship, your life of worship rhythms is woven into the fabric of the universe. I'm not quite set up that way before, but what else would it mean?

Because this is the first chapter of a book that's going to go on to tell you about all these things in the course of the narrative. And likely, if you're reading this chapter, you are practicing all those things. Totally. Yeah, at least when these sorts came into existence. Yeah. Nowadays it's a much wider audience. But the authors by whom these texts were written and for whom the first generations read

it, they're seeing their own worship patterns reflected in the structure of Genesis. Right. And it's surely that's what it's part of what it's for. Mm. 1,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5, I discover in Genesis 2.1, I get a little epilogue. Remember the opening line of Genesis 1? In the beginning. God created the skies in the land. Genesis 2, verse 1, will epilogue? Thus we're finished.

The skies in the land. While they're host. And then what you get next is three lines of seven words. Oh wow. About the seventh day. Wow. And God completed on the seventh day the work that he had done. And he rested on the seventh day, the work that he had done. And he rested on the seventh day

from his work which he had done. And God blessed the seventh day, and he made it holy, three lines of seven words. Followed by a final summary clause, because on it he rested from all his work which God created to do, which links the create, that last word there, second to last word there,

links it back to, is create, which links you all the way back up to the first line of create. So think in the first sentence, you get seven words. Genesis one, two, you get two times seven words. Now here we are at the last little stanza, and you get three times seven words with a little ski jump. Sentence that launches you with the word create all the way back up to the beginning again. And then you go, oh, I guess I'm supposed to reread the chapter. And you just do that a hundred times for 10 years and you've gotten your tutorial and how to read.

Isn't this amazing? Yeah. Now, since you didn't mention it, that final phrase isn't seven words. No, but it has, it's the God completes his work on the seventh day, he rests on the seventh day, he blessed the seventh day, you get this little try out of verbs, then you get a repetition. Why did he bless it and make it holy? Because on it he rested. It's the only line in the conclusion that tells you why he blessed and sanctified it. So it stands out of a sequence of main sentences. Okay, dude, we're just getting started on sevens. Oh, that's right, because there's a whole bunch of words that appear seven times. Yeah. Yeah. This is a people of noses for a long time. There was an Italian, Jewish commentator Umberto Kasuto who has a majestic commentary on Genesis 1 through 11.

So he yeah points out all these things. So here's some other ones. We've already mentioned some of these. There's seven words in Genesis 1-1. Okay. There's two times seven words in Genesis 1-2. Yeah. There's seven paragraphs. Yeah, seven days. In the seven days. The concluding seventh day has three lines that have seven words each. Each of the key words in Genesis 1-1 are repeated in multiples of seven throughout the rest of the story. So God appears seven times five, number of times. Okay. Which is what, thirty five?

Thirty five. Yep. Land appears seven times three, twenty one times. Okay. Skies with heavens appears seven times three. So skies and land each appear twenty one times. Wow. The phrase light and day appear seven times within day one.

The word light appears seven times within day four. The word living creature appears seven times within days five and six. The phrase, and God saw that it was good, appears seven times. This is interesting. God speaks 10 times. Oh, they blew that one. Or did they? Or maybe they're introducing an important new number. Oh, 10. 10, 10, 10, 10.

Can I think of God speaking in the other times, 10 times that are gonna be important? Ah, and in the book of Deuronomy, did you know this? This actually, the phrase 10 commandments is never used in the Hebrew Bible. Sure. The phrase is the 10 words. The 10 words, yeah. And God spoke.

Yeah. And God speaks 10 times. God speaks 10 times. In other words, the phrase and God said, appears 10 times. But seven of those times are commands, let there be. Three of those times are one, let us make a DOM. Second, be fruitful and multiply. Third, behold, I've given to you.

So in other words, seven of the 10 begin with the same phrase, let there be. The other three are different, they say. So even within the 10, you get a pen. There's seven. Yeah, totally. Okay, so Katsuto concludes this. He just says, to suppose that all of these appearances of the number seven, our miracle incidence is not possible.

Right. Hawkems razor. Tolling. It's just the numerical symmetry is the golden thread that binds together all the parts of this section. Okay, so let's just pause and register that. Whoever organized this narrative wants to grind into a burden into our psyche, or the symbolic importance of seven

as a sign of completeness and wholeness. But also of seven as the culmination of a journey of one through six building up to seven. Hmm. Because think about day one, day two, it's all building towards something. Yeah. The light and the watershine, the waters and the land. Are we done?

No, we're not done. We need to fill it with creatures so we get the lights and we get the sky and the sea creatures. Are we done yet? No, we need land and then humans who rule over all of it. But even the six days, not the culmination, is that seventh day, which then sticks out. It's a different type of day. It's a different type of day.

No creating happening. Yep, that's right. So seven gains two meanings here. Completeness and wholeness, but then also a journey towards wholeness building up to it. Oh, that's helpful. I've never said it that way before, but I think that's right. So, in Genesis 1, seven develops two key symbolic associations. Yeah. One of them is that the seventh one through seven altogether is a

symbol of completeness. Think about how days one through seven work together as a whole. Yeah, to create the entire cosmic order. Yeah, it's like the beautiful whole cosmos is a seven. Yeah. But then also the journey to get to that completeness requires you to go through one, seven minutes, three, four, five, six. So then it's about a linear journey towards completeness. Seven is the complete whole. Uh-huh.

But it's a journey. Counting up to seven is a journey to reach the complete whole. Yeah. And in a way, we're back to creation, the wholeness of creation, and the liberation from chaos and death and slavery. That's what we talked about last week, that completion. There's two core ideas here. Two core ideas with the Sabbath. One is that there's a complete, there's a sense of order and completion. God and God is in charge of all of the time. He brings about harmonious wholeness and completeness. Yeah.

And because of that, we should remember that we're not masters of our own time. Yeah. But then the other idea is that the purpose of time is to rest, is to culminate in rest. Yeah. The destiny. The destiny. Yeah. There's a journey required to reach that wholeness or completeness. The antagonist is to that is us, death and pain. Or in Genesis 1, darkness, and disorder. And disorder. And when we're controlling our time, we're fighting, we're

using our own energy to fight against darkness and disorder. Yes. And there's also the sense of Sabbath, which is God will do that for you. Yeah, that's right. The seventh day is about the complete harmonious order of God's world. The journey to the seventh day, starting from darkness and disorder, journeying one, two, three, four, five, six, is about the journey from darkness and disorder into that completeness and harmonious whole. And so the seventh day

contains both of those nuances. It'd be good to develop shorthand for that. Maybe one is completeness, and the other one is... Liberation. I mean, liberation, which is importing the Exodus, into it, but that's worth all going. And in retrospect, gentleness, it's one, is about a kind of Exodus of creation

out of the darkness and disorder into... It's a type of liberation. Yeah. Yeah. The journey towards seven is about being liberated from one. Liberating into completeness. Liberating into completeness. Liberated into completeness.

Oh, there you go. Yeah. Yeah. Yes. Liberation leading to completeness. But liberation and completeness are. Or completeness found in liberation. Yeah.

So that's one main thing about Genesis 1. It's think it's where we start. Yeah. And that sets the table for clarifying, what does it mean for God to shabbat, to cease and rest? What does it mean for God to shabbat? All right, let's talk about that now. So we're going to have a God resting.

What does that mean? Before we get into that, why seven? Why the number seven as the number for completeness? Why not? Number nine. Why couldn't it be nine? Or 15? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Or three. Yeah. Yep. Those all would create a nice symmetry as well. Yeah, three is a nice symmetry. Yeah. In fact, it's the simplest, simpler than seven, isn't it? Yeah, so a seven, it's actually, I had a hard time finding resources in terms of ancient

historians for any kind of consensus on the matter. However, the most repeated connection and the whole thing is actually the phases of the moon. So a lunar cycle is, and here I'm quoting from an older work by a guy who has last name Farbridge, wrote a classic work called Numbers Symbolism in Biblical and Semitic Cultures. Okay. So the lunar cycle is 29.5 days. Yeah, 29.53 days.

Oh, that's big. Exactly. That would be exact. The biblical Hebrew word for month is Chodesh and that's's a way of, it's a way of talking about the moon cycle. The month. So you break that number down and what you get is a lunar month is four, what, seven, point three-ish day cycles. So a lunar month is essentially seven. Because four times seven is 28. Correct. So you still got one and a half days to make up for. And so what you often find is ancient calendars,

Semitic and ancient Babylonian calendars that do a number of cycles of seven and then they have different ways to make up for they call intercollations, where they insert extra days to make up for that. To catch back up with cumulating, that's right. We do the same thing with leapier. Exactly, totally, exactly, yeah, that's right.

So what you can also do then is, instead of using the moon, do lunar cycles, which is what our modern Western calendars are based off of lunar cycles. That is the moon. I'm sorry. Solar cycles. Solar cycles, Solar cycles.

That's what it meant to say. Yeah. Solar cycle, you know, takes the 365 point something. Yeah, point two something. Yeah, yeah. And that's why it's like point two four something. That actually gets you a little cleaner, right? Because essentially you can do a solar year

and then every four years you just have to add one extra day. Although, because it's not exactly one. True, every hundred years you skip a leap year. Oh, fascinating. Yeah. Okay. And then every like thousand years, you don't skip that leap year. Yeah.

And then because of that, we can stay on track for more than that. Mm-hmm. Well, there you go. So here's something fascinating. That's true. And so people, ancient historians in biblical scholarship have been trying to trace back this origins of the Sabbath practice in ancient Israel.

And so it's true, they can spot certain cycles of time, like an ancient Sumerian or Babylonian culture, that use a seven structure somewhere, but never as consistently as in the Jewish calendar. In the Jewish calendar, it's all about sevens. And actually, the Sabbath cycle is independent of the moon cycle. The Sabbath doesn't follow the moon, follow the moon. And so then some people debate, well, what did it originally follow the moon cycle and that eventually it diverged from it. But by the time you get to the shape of the Hebrew Bible,

the final shape of the second temple period, again, and always it's like a quilt. It's organized way older materials, but the final shaping of the collection is second temple. Then even by that time, the seven-day cycle independent of the moon cycle is ancient, even by the Jewish people who are putting together the Tenocht. So, I think that's significant in that. In other words, the Sabbath cycle as a cycle of seven doesn't coincide with any natural phenomenon. Well, except for that naturally elunar cycle is about just about four sets of seven. About, but not exactly. But not exactly.

Nope. Which means that sometimes like there are some of Israel's feast days that connect with the first of the month, the first day of the month, and that stays independent. Like, uh, Rosh Hashana is, um, the first day of the seventh month of the litur- of the religious calendar. And sometimes that's a- Sabbath, sometimes not. It's interesting to think about how some- at some point in human history, it just became a normal- you have to think about how we can organize- Correct.

Our concept of time. And we have the sun and the moon and the stars. But even so, the sun creates the days and that's really obvious. That's obvious. But then you watch a lunar cycle, why break that up into four weeks? Someone had to just decide, it makes the most sense for us to repeat our lives in a pattern of seven.

Yeah. Ish. Yeah. Like at some point that became like the thing. Well, the strict seven-day cycle is the ancient Israelite Jewish thing that passed into Western culture through Jewish Christian tradition. Okay. Babylonians used it.

Used sevens partially, but not consistently, not universally. Their calendar was not like the Jewish calendar. Oh, okay. And I haven't done the homework here in terms of ancient Greek and Roman calendars. So here's something, you and I have grown up in a culture where the seven-day week is,

taken for granted. Yeah, it's woven into the fabric. So we don't even understand this religious tradition, the Jewish Christian tradition, was a minority ethnic religious group for most of its earliest history. So the way they operated in their calendar was at odds with the world around them and their ways of accounting for calendar. And as we can't even imagine that. Yeah, it's kind of like, if you lived around Jewish people, they'd be walking around and they'd be like, hey, it's Sabbath. And you'd be like, what?

What? Exactly. So Sabbath, think of why. What were most visible to the Canaanites or Greeks and Romans that would make Israelites and Jews stick out? Yeah. Kosher food loss. Yeah. Circumcision, especially in the Greek and Roman era, where everybody hangs out at the public

baths, all the men, whether you circumcise or not, to public knowledge. Yeah. And then the calendar, they don't work. And so, especially in the Greek and Roman era, the Sabbath practice earned, you know, in like propaganda or anti-Semitic propaganda ideas that the Jews are lazy. This is where that comes from. Does they stop working? Because they stop working one day a week. Yeah, and I think they are.

Totally. And eventually in the Roman Empire, Jews gained special exemptions for taxes and The Roman Empire Jews gained special exemptions for taxes and legal status as a legitimate religious group. And so it was legal and acceptable that they didn't work and could pay certain taxes to Jerusalem. But it still was like in the eyes of their neighbors, they just start cooks. Making up the meaning of your calendar is It's kind of like a, November. You know, we're like everyone just grows up mustache. Yeah, yeah. It's like, why are you doing that? It's November.

Who said it's November? That this is a made up thing. Oh, got it. Oh, okay, yeah, sure. Like, yeah, got it. That's sure. And anytime new, like in America, anytime a new federal holiday is introduced

and it's usually controversial. So yeah, time, the structure of time is not woven into the nature of reality. Yeah. It's about seven-day-week. For an ant, it's just light, dark, light, dark. Humans bring meaningful structures to time and different cultures to it differently. And the biblical heritage has a structure of time that in its current shape in the Hebrew scriptures, the seven-day cycle is not dependent on the moon

or the sun or the seasons. It's not. I mean, you can see you can see where it would have been inspired by the lunar cycle. Yeah. But then to get strict and say, well, despite what the, we're not even trying to catch back up to the lunar cycle, we're sticking with seven. Totally. Something about seven. Yep. And that's going to become important. And within the narrative of the Hebrew Bible, it's God's act of creation. God's ability to create organization out of nothingness. The seven day pattern doesn't arise out of nature. It arises out of super nature, namely God's power, to generate time and order. This is why in the classic Jewish calendar, you can take the chronology of the Hebrew Bible all the way back to the

first day of creation. You can say it again. The seventh day of creation is the first Sabbath. You can work the chronology of the Hebrew Bible out, and I forget we're in year 5700 or something. From day one. From creation or 600. Is that where the young earth age comes in? Well, this is only in Jewish tradition. There's a Christian version of this too. But in Orthodox Jewish circles, you

mark the date by how many days and years it is from Genesis 1-1. And you're just counting generations? Because you can reconstruct the chronology of the Hebrew Bible in a certain way to get you all the way back to how many Sabbath cycles does it take through the story of the Hebrew Bible to get you back to Genesis 1-1? You can do it. Crazy. And you can really do that.

Yeah. There's a common ancient Near East and background to the meaning of seven as beginning something new. In other cultures, it's tied to the lunar cycle of the seven, seven day structure, but with a little, with a few days. With a remaining half. The biblical seven day Sabbath structure

as a symbol of completeness is also connected to another factor that's unique to Hebrew, namely, that the word fullness, for it's something to be full or complete, the word fullness or completeness is spelled with the same three letters as the number seven. So, cheva is the Hebrew word for seven and then

sava is the Hebrew verb for to be full. And that word play is capitalized on by the biblical authors many times. There's also the word shavuah or to swear in oath shava is also a word play made in connection with Sabbath. Namely the feast day called shavuahot or pentacost is about you wait seven times seven days after Passover until pentacost and then that's called Shavu out, which can be seven, mean sevens or weeks, but it's also the same spelling as a Hebrew word for oath. They're develops a wordplay that goes on about the Sabbath structure of time is about God's covenantal oath to structure all of time and creation. All that

to say is the word play, the three letters. Oh, I can commit a bit of sorts. Yeah, it's God's oath or covenant about the structuring of time. So, all that to say, seven as a symbol of completeness is the... It's pretty rich, deep. It's simple.

It's deep, and this is why you find sevens all over the Hebrew Bible because it's such a common symbol of completeness. So what does it mean for God to rest? So we talked about this earlier in Genesis 2, verse 1 and 2, at the completion on the seventh day. The sky is in the land of complete. What God does, the verb, the Hebrew verb, for God resting is the verb, Shabbat, where the word Sabbath comes from.

So if you do a word study on Shabbat, the verb occurs a lot, and it technically means to stop, to cease from. So here's a good example from Joshua chapter five. Yeah, after the Israelites cross into the land, after crossing the Jordan River, and Joshua chapter five, the manna, the manna bread that they've been getting

in the wilderness, it's shabbats. It's over. Yeah, so it's not like, oh, the manna relaxes. Or it stops, it's ceased. It ceased, yeah. But here's what's interesting. So the verb used in Genesis two is shabbat. Do you remember we looked at in the 10 commandments? But here's what's interesting. So the verb used in Genesis 2 is Shabbat. Uh-huh.

Do you remember we looked at in the Ten Commandments? Yeah. The other words are within an incident. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, no, yeah. So Exodus 20 says, in six days, Yahweh made this guy in the land and the sea and all that's in them, and he knewachd. He rested on the seventh day.

Therefore Yahweh blessed the Shabbat. So in the Ten Commandments, you get both words, Shabbat and another verb, Newach. And Newach is interesting, and it is much more close to our English word rest. But actually, and neither another nuance that we don't quite have in English. Maybe we do. Here, look at some examples. In Exodus 10, these are uses of the word Newach. Okay. In Exodus 10, one of the 10 plagues about the locust,

Exodus 10, verse 14, it says, the locust came up over the land of Egypt and Newach in all the land. Did they like descended? Yeah. They come up over the land. Yeah, they Newach means they enter into and fill up the new house. So it's the idea of settling in.

Settling. Yep, yeah. Yeah. So, and this is true when this verb is used of God, here, God knewach, on the seventh day, in Exodus it's of creatures, people can knewach, and it always involves settling in to a place. People can nuach, and it always involves settling in to a place. And then often forgotten people, it's settling in somewhere because it's safe and stable and secure now. So in the second Samuel, seven, verse one,

it says, now when King David dwelt in his house, he's already had all his great battles. It says Yahweh had given him nuach from his enemies. And so he has rest. And then this is the chapter where he's going to propose to build a temple. The time of war is over. We're at rest in the land. He got to give us rest. Now we can attend what do you call that? Domestic matters. Yeah. Something like that. Yeah. That's the picture. There's, we have the term nesting. Oh, yeah. I mean, like, you kind of like get your home all in order. Yeah, dialed in. There's that we have the term nesting. Oh, yeah. Like you kind of like get

your home all in order. Yeah, dialed in. Yeah, that's right. Comfortable. Just so you can kind of just like feel at home. Is that I first came across that term when we were getting ready for our first child to arrive in Jessica was pregnant? Oh, that's where I first came. She was nesting. Parents getting ready for the kids. Yeah. Nests make sense for kids. Yeah. But is it used in other ways too? Well, nice. It makes sense for kids, yeah. But is it used in other ways too? Well, maybe not. Maybe I'm just confusing it.

I think you could just use it for just, yeah, just getting your home, all comfy. Yeah. Those seem like two different ideas. You could separate those ideas. You can rest and you can settle in. You can't settle in without resting. But you can rest without settle in. You can't settle in without resting, but you can rest without settling in.

Yeah, yeah. Like if I came over to your house and I'm just waiting for you to get ready, I might kick my feet up a little bit, but I'm not gonna sit there and maybe check something on my phone. I might feel like I'm resting, but I'm not gonna settle in.

Yeah, I'm not gonna take off my shoes and put them on the sofa and turn the TV on and... Yeah, that's right, that's Newark. That's Newark. Yeah, totally. But when you're in Newarking, it means that you have Shabbatid. In other words, you've stopped doing what you're doing previously. You got off work. If you come over to my house on Friday night to Newark and do all that stuff, what you did

a few hours earlier was Shabbat from your work week. I understand there's no Shabbat in Newark. I'm just saying, is there, is rest? I'm just trying to understand, when I say rest or when Newark is translated to rest, should I always be thinking about settling in? I see. Is it always mean that? I understand.

Or can it just mean what we mean sometimes when we just mean? I'll just take a break for a second. Right. Well that's Shabbat. Taking a break is Shabbat. To cease from. To Newach is then to take a break so that I can settle in to my cessation. And that's resting. And that's Newach. The challenges in our English translations, we don't see a difference between shabbat and nuach, it all gets the English word rest. And they're coordinated. I mean, the fact that shabbat is used in Genesis 1, but now we're in the 10 commandments, and both words are used. Shabbat and nuach are used. And I think there's a reason.

You nuach into a place that is safe and stable and secure. In Genesis 1, we have just have the dry land and the humans appointed to rule. And the whole question is, are humans going to knewach in this place God's provided? Well, let's see how the story goes. Has God settled in? Has God settled in to rest? So this is interesting. Yeah.

Because God didn't, he should buy. He didn't knew off. He should buy, but it's not new off. So in other words, in Genesis 1, you're building up. I actually haven't worked this out even with great clarity in my own mind. It's kind of cloudy.

So the seventh day is a culmination. You go from darkness and disorder. In Genesis 1 to the seventh day. So in one sense, it's like, ah, yes. But in another sense, it's just setting the stage for the eighth day when humans and God and the guard together, new in the garden together. And you get that. Wait, is that word used in Genesis 2? No, but the idea is it is. It is. It is. We'll talk about that in a second. Alright, maybe in next episode or two. So the seventh day on a cosmic scale of Genesis 1,

the seventh day is a completion. Yeah. In terms of the unfolding narrative of the Hebrew Bible, the seventh day of Genesis 1 is, okay, now our God and humans going to nu us together in this place that God's provided? Let the drama begin. And of course, that's not what happens. Now, I've heard you say God's resting, his Sabbath

and to creation is resting and raining. You've used that phrase before. To rest and rain. Yeah, that's right. And I haven't really asked you much about where do you get the reigning thing? Is that part of settling in? Well, actually, I knew you got it from that

if this is connected to the temple and the way that creation is a temple, on the last day, on the seventh day, the king will come and he'll settle into his palace. Yeah. And then, yeah, right. Like David, we just read, 2nd Samuel 7, King David dwelt in his house.

Yahweh gave him rest. Now I build the temple. And it's actually his son, who builds the temple. So, yes, in other words, the language of God's resting place, God's Newach, the noun is Menochha. Where does that language come from? That is the language, that's temple language.

So here, this is the next example to understand the verb Newach, is Psalm 132. The whole Psalm is about how God appointed David as the messianic like line made a covenant from your seed will come. But then also closely aligned with the promise of a new David is a temple, a resting place. And so in Psalm 132 we read,

for Yahweh has chosen Zion. He has desired it for his dwelling. This is my resting place. My new lock place? It's a noun connected to new lock. Okay. Menucha. Forever and ever, here I sit and throne.

That's royal, king language of God. Yeah. For I've desired it. So in one sense, Genesis 1 gives us a picture of the whole cosmos as a temple. The seventh day is God taking up His reign and rule and rest within His temple. He stops from the work of creating the temple. That's right.

And then His presence comes to fill it. In a way, that's like when the real work begins of a king, right? Totally, yeah. In terms of operating, but the point is, I've done all the hard work to get it ready. Yeah. Now, here it is. It's ready. I'm going to fill it and work to get it ready. Yeah. Now, here it is. It's ready.

I'm going to fill it and now oversee its operations and. Right. That's right. Which is a type of rest. Which is called rest to settle in. To settle in. Yeah. That's right.

But you could also call that work. Well, it's a new kind of work. It's not the work that it took to get it already. It's now the work of enjoying the fruits of your labor. Yeah. This is all going to provide the template. Unless your kingdom stinks. We'll tell them like people are hard to rule

and the nations are coming against you. Well, big, okay. Yeah, there's so many layers here. This is all providing a template for Israel's entry into the Promised Land. Okay. The Promised Land in the book of Deuteronomy is called Israel's Nuach, their Manucha, the place of rest.

And this whole thing is going to be, you're going to inherit a land that you didn't work for. Vineyards you didn't plant, houses you didn't build. It's all been provided for you, just like in Genesis 1, humanity gets this place of rest given to them that they didn't make. It was already prepared for them. So the idea of inheriting the place of rest as Israel inheriting the promised land as a place of rest doesn't mean they have no farming to do. But it does mean that they've inherited this great gift that they get to enjoy. And then, of course, they lose it. So there's something similar.

That's all set on analogy to Genesis 1. God's the one providing and working to provide stability. On the seventh day, he rests, fills it, rules it, and wants to share it with others so that they can join his rest. That's the model. That's both ideas, the creation and completion, and the journey towards the state of rest out of disorder and darkness.

That's the liberation idea. So Genesis 1, the 7th day, is both gives you kind of the whole storyline of like, man, that sounds awesome. Humanity with God, Shabbatting, and Nuaqing in this wonderful organized creation. That sounds awesome. What are other ways? What's other vocabulary to think about that God and human in the place of abundance and safety? Well, another thing that God does on the seventh day is bless it.

He blessed the seventh day. Okay. It's the day of blessing. It's the day of completion, the day of rest, and the day of blessing. And that word loses its meaning for me so fast. Yeah, it's all, you blessed it. Yeah, yeah.

Well, in Genesis 1, have I come across that word? Before. Yeah, I mean, at the end of every day, he blesses the day, right? He blesses the creatures on the fifth day. Oh, he's the sky flyers and the water swimmers. He blesses them. God bless them. This is Genesis 122 saying, be fruitful and multiply, fill the waters, and let birds multiply over the land. The blessing is the abundance, the digitisferies. Abundance. Blessing is abundance.

Blessing, I'm just saying the first uses of Genesis 1 and then Genesis 1, 28, God blessed the human saying, be fruitful and multiply, fill the earth and subdue it abundance and rule So then the third use of the word blessed in Genesis 1 is and God blessed the seventh day Yeah, so if the first two occurrences teach me what blessing is let it be fruitful and multiply be abundant Yeah, yeah, may it multiply not in terms terms of like more days, but in terms of... Have baby days. Yeah, whatever the seventh day means, may it just like... Yeah, maybe full.

Exponentially, fullness. Yeah. Yeah, that is what the word fullness is spelled with the same letters as the word seven. Oh yeah, completeness. Yeah, sava. Yeah. Some thoughts here about the blessing of the seventh day. This is Matilda Frey, who did a really important work

on the Sabbath in the Torah that I learned a lot from. She says, set apart from all the other days, the blessing of the seventh day establishes the seventh part of created time as a day when God grants His presence to the created world. It's His presence, then, that provides the blessing and the sanctification. It says God bless the seventh day and He made it holy. The seventh day is blessed and established as that part of time that assures fruitfulness, future orientation, continuity,

and permanence for every aspect of life within the dimension of time. The seventh day is blessed by God's presence for the sake of the world, for all nature, and for all living beings. In other words, what she's doing, she's saying, we have two occurrences of the word bless. What's that about? It's about God saying, hey creatures, go crazy. Multiply, abundance, fill, and filling takes time. Right?

Multiplication takes time. So the seventh day in Genesis 1 is like as if God is securing this as a world and as the time when abundance can live in security. It's the place of God's newach. He's taken up residence there. God and his creatures, creatures multiply in the presence of their generous creator. There go. It's a beautiful image. Yeah.

Yeah. It sounds like Eden. Right. Seventh day of Eden. Yeah. Yeah. So what can we say about Genesis 1? We can say that the portrait of time is that the seventh day is a culminating ideal where God and His creatures live together and blessing in abundance. The seventh day also is something you have to wait for. When you're in darkness and disorder. There's disorder, yeah. You're waiting for the building up of, and the seventh day is something that only comes

after a period of waiting if you're sitting in darkness and disorder. So it's the culmination. So there are a lot of people who see the seventh day in Genesis 1, not just as, like if you look at the whole narrative time of the Hebrew scriptures, the seventh day of Genesis 1 is followed by the eighth day and just the story keeps on going.

Yeah. There's nothing, it's cool, but it's not the end of history. Right. But because of the the end of history. Right. But because of the way Genesis 1 has designed, there are some people who say that story has two functions. One is to get the narrative going. Mm-hmm. But also, get the first week out of the way. It's a way of thinking about the storyline of the whole Bible, just in one in one fell swoop. That the seventh day of Genesis is itself an image for the culmination of all of history, which it makes sense.

That the culmination of history is rest and completeness. Yeah, and fullness and abundance. That's right. And that it's the... It's a very optimistic view of history. Yeah, that it's all, it is. And not based on anything that its creatures do. The world's creatures do.

It's something that only God does. He provides the seventh day rest for creatures, fills it with his presence. Here I've got some quotes, one by Samuel Turian, really interesting book called The Tori's Vision of Worship. He says, unlike the previous days, the seventh day of Genesis 1 is simply announced. There is no mention of evening or morning, no mention of a beginning or ending. This is significant. Every day leading up to...

There's morning and there's evening. And God said, that's what begins each day and then the phrase, there is evening and morning. Yeah, there was evening and morning. Yeah, there was evening and morning. It ends with that. It ends with that. The seventh day begins with, and so we're completed, this guy is in the land.

And then you get those three lines of seven words. God blessed it, he sanctified it, he rested. And then Terria notes, he says, there's no mention of evening or morning, no mention of a beginning or ending of the seventh day. Yeah. The suggestion is that the primordial seventh day exists in perpetuity.

It's a sacred day that can't be abrogated by the limitations common to the rest of the created order. So he thinks it's intentional. That there's no evening and morning. Yeah, he thinks it's a way, literally, of saying, everything leading up to the seventh day is under the cycle of time. But once you get to the seventh day,

it explodes, it's like imprisonment to the boundaries of time. He calls it the primordial seventh day. Correct. I had to just Google search that. Oh, existing from the beginning of time. Yeah. The 7th day that existed from the beginning of time.

Correct. In other words, he sees Genesis 1 as a cosmic symbol, as a symbolic week that stands for all of history and all of time. Yeah. He thinks actually Genesis 1 through, Genesis 1, days 1 through 7, aren't just, here's some interesting things about the first seven days of our universe.

Yeah. For him, this is actually a map for all of the Bible's view of all of history. So that's why he's saying, the Primordial 7th day isn't a day, it's like the end of the story. So not only isn't an accounting of God dealing with darkness and disorder that turned into what we know as His creation, it is that, but it's more than that. It's also a way to think about God's

recreation of darkness and disorder towards an ultimate rest. It's ultimately. It both sets the story going in terms of the narrative world of the Hebrew Bible. Literarily, the sun has not yet set on God's Sabbath. I think he's onto something here. It breaks the pattern. That's noticeable to any reader. But it also opens the door to saying, oh, so there are seventh days and there are seventh days.

Hmm, there are, there's been a seventh day ever since the beginning of creation, and that's the Sabbath cycle. But that seventh day in Genesis 1, where the sun doesn't set on it, also opens it to become a symbol for new creation, where the Sun never sets. The reason why I think, Lowry, is right here, is because think of the depiction of the New Jerusalem and Revelation 22. And it's very clear to tell you that there's no Sun or Moon. It's just the perpetual divine glory that illuminates the new creation, which is another way to saying God's presence fills the new creation.

And so you don't need Son or Moon to mark time, God's own presence, and power provides the stability and whatever stability of whatever the new creation is going to be. So I think he's right. The seventh day of Genesis 1 is an image of the end of the story already on page 1. And these two scholars have joined. I mean, I could read a lot more quotes. And this is all coming from the fact that evening and morning are absent. Evening and morning are absent.

But also then, as you read through the narrative of the Hebrew Bible, the seventh day is Hebrew Bible, the seventh day is going to start the ultimate Sabbath rest. The final seventh is all going to become an image for the thing that God is going to do to solve all the problems of the current world. It'll become the ultimate Jubilee, the ultimate year of release, the ultimate Passover, because the Passover is the one day, the evening, you start Passover on an evening and then follow it by a seven-day

feast of 11 bread. So Passover itself is another one of these cycles of seven from liberated from death and darkness into freedom and release in the promised land. So, Genesis 1, it's like a template that's just going to keep replaying over and over again, the design pattern throughout the rest of the biblical story. And you're just going to reach, think of it like, Genesis 1, it's like a playbook that gives you like a core, I don't know, melody.

And then the moment you move into the next narrative, it's gonna set up the melody, but right at the point where you hope to get to this seventh day, it'll, something will go terribly wrong and you won't reach that seventh day note. So you're gonna go into the next cycle with Cain, and then you're gonna do it with the flood.

It's just gonna become all these narrative cycles and nobody ever fully reaches the seventh day ideal. And then it becomes a distant future hope for the thing that God has to do. Cool. Thanks for listening to this episode of the Bible Project. Here's a quick correction from this episode. Tim referred to two scholars that we,

he accidentally said their names wrong. It is Samuel Valentine and the other one's Richard Lowry. Both are amazing scholars. We have their names and their books and the show notes for you to check out. Today's show was produced by Dan Gummel. The theme music is by the band Tents. We're a crowd-funded nonprofit in Portland, Oregon. And all of this is made possible through the generous support of many people like you.

So thanks for being a part of this with us. Hey, this is Scott. And I'm Pissistor Jodi. We're from Nova Scotia, Canada, and we're just here visiting the Bible Projects. And we just love the resources so much, right, Joe? Yeah, totally. We believe the Bible is a unified story and it leads to Jesus. The Bible project is crowd-minded by people like us and you can find free videos,

sign-outs, and more at thebibelproject.com. Thanks. you