Genesis 2:2

Hebrew Bible

1 The heavens and the earth were completed with everything that was in them. 2 By the seventh day God finished the work that he had been doing, and he ceased on the seventh day all the work that he had been doing. 3 God blessed the seventh day and made it holy because on it he ceased all the work that he had been doing in creation.

Exodus 40:33

Hebrew Bible

32 Whenever they entered the tent of meeting, and whenever they approached the altar, they would wash, just as the Lord had commanded Moses. 33 And he set up the courtyard around the tabernacle and the altar, and put the curtain at the gate of the courtyard. So Moses finished the work. 34 Then the cloud covered the tent of meeting, and the glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle.

 Notes and References

"... Particularly instructive in this connection is the Ugaritic text that tells of the building of Baal’s temple and describes the burning of the fire during six days (compare Exodus 35:3) with its extinguishing on the seventh day. In this manner, the work is brought to conclusion, and Baal begins with the preparations for the dedicatory festivities (ANET 2: 134 [Ginsberg]). Similarly, there is undoubtedly significance in Buber and Rosenzweig’s previously mentioned claims, that the completion of work on the Tabernacle is described in language that generally resembles the conclusion of P’s Creation narrative. The following comparison demonstrates this similarity (Genesis 1:31, Exodus 39:43; Genesis 2:1, Exodus 39:32; Genesis 2:2, Exodus 40:33; Genesis 2:3, Exodus 39:43) ... Practically speaking, the Sabbath commandment becomes operative with the building of the Tabernacle, which according to P represents the classic Revelation of God to his people. It appears that the priesthood dramatized the conclusion of Creation by the Sabbath in the same way that the people of the Ancient Near East dramatized the Creation in their cultic dramas. The Sabbath, in fact, represented the conclusion of a cultic cycle, for on the Sabbath they changed the showbread (Leviticus 24:5–9), and the temple guards (2 Kings 11:5, 9) ..."

Weinfeld, Moshe The Place of the Law in the Religion of Ancient Israel (pp. 100-101) Brill, 2004

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