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Genesis

About this book

The Seventh Day

Chapter 2

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.⁠

The Garden and the First Humans

4 This is the account of the heavens and the earth when they were created—when the Lord God made the earth and heavens.⁠ 5 Now no shrub of the field had yet grown on the earth, and no plant of the field had yet sprouted, for the Lord God had not caused it to rain on the earth, and there was no man to cultivate the ground. 6 Springs would well up from the earth and water the whole surface of the ground.⁠ 7 The Lord God formed the man⁠ from the soil of the ground⁠ and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life,⁠ and the man became a living being.⁠ 8 The Lord God planted an orchard in the east, in Eden;⁠ and there he placed the man he had formed.⁠ 9 The Lord God made all kinds of trees grow from the soil, every tree that was pleasing to look at and good for food.⁠ (Now the tree of life⁠ and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil⁠ were in the middle of the orchard.)⁠ 10 Now a river flows from Eden⁠ to water the orchard, and from there it divides into four headstreams. 11 The name of the first is Pishon;⁠ it runs through the entire land of Havilah, where there is gold. 12 (The gold of that land is pure; pearls and lapis lazuli are also there.) 13 The name of the second river is Gihon;⁠ it runs through the entire land of Cush. 14 The name of the third river is Tigris; it runs along the east side of Assyria. The fourth river is the Euphrates. 15 The Lord God took the man and placed him in the orchard in Eden to care for it and to maintain it.⁠ 16 Then the Lord God commanded the man, “You may freely eat fruit from every tree of the orchard, 17 but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat from it you will surely die.”⁠ 18 The Lord God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone.⁠ I will make a companion for him who corresponds to him.”⁠ 19 The Lord God formed out of the ground every living animal of the field and every bird of the air.⁠ He brought them to the man to see what he would name them, and whatever the man called each living creature, that was its name. 20 So the man named all the animals, the birds of the air, and the living creatures of the field,⁠ but for Adam no companion who corresponded to him was found.⁠ 21 So the Lord God caused the man to fall into a deep sleep, and while he was asleep, he took part of the man’s side and closed up the place with flesh. 22 Then the Lord God made a woman from the part he had taken out of the man,⁠ and he brought her to the man. 23 Then the man said, “This one at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh;⁠ this one will be called ‘woman,’ for she was taken out of man.”⁠ 24 That is why a man leaves his father and mother and unites with his wife,⁠ and they become one family.⁠ 25 The man and his wife were both naked, but they were not ashamed.⁠

Texts in conversation

Compare Genesis 2:3 and Exodus 16:30

Hebrew Bible

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Summary

Genesis shows creation shaped by six days of work and a seventh day when it ends. Exodus repeats this pattern in the manna story where food comes for six days but not the seventh. Both use this rhythm to depict how rest is built into creation.

Passages

Genesis 2:3

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. 4 This is the account of the heavens and the earth when they were created—when the Lord God made the earth and heavens. 5 Now no shrub of the field had yet grown on the earth, and no plant of the field had yet sprouted, for the Lord God had not caused it to rain on the earth, and there was no man to cultivate the ground.
750–400 BCE (scholarly estimate) Read in Genesis

Exodus 16:30

Hebrew Bible
28 So the Lord said to Moses, “How long do you refuse to obey my commandments and my instructions? 29 See, because the Lord has given you the Sabbath, that is why he is giving you food for two days on the sixth day. Each of you stay where you are; let no one go out of his place on the seventh day.” 30 So the people rested on the seventh day. 31 The house of Israel called its name “manna.” It was like coriander seed and was white, and it tasted like wafers with honey. 32 Moses said, “This is what the Lord has commanded: ‘Fill an omer with it to be kept for generations to come, so that they may see the food I fed you in the wilderness when I brought you out from the land of Egypt.’”
750–400 BCE (scholarly estimate) Read in Exodus

References

"... We have already noted the two important texts from the book of Exodus, which indicate “the seventh day” as a feast for YHWH and use the verb שׁבת (š-b-t, Exodus 23:12 and 34:21). The same technique – both employing the contrasting structure of “six days” working as opposed to “the seventh day” of rest, and using only the finite form of the verb שׁבת (š-b-t) and not the noun שַׁבָּת (šabbat) – can be found in the Priestly creation account in the first chapter of Genesis. Of course, this text is not a legal prescription but a narrative, but the literary procedure is designed according to the same principle. Without using the term “Sabbath” the Priestly storyteller presents the creation of the whole world as a process following the weekly liturgical schedule (sabbatical rhythm) and reaching its target on the “seventh day,” when God himself “rested from all his work” (Genesis 2:3) ... The same logic is also used in the narrative which describes the feeding of the Israelites during their desert wandering with “the bread from heaven,” known as “manna,” in Exodus 16:23–30. This story tells how the people of Israel, having been rescued from Egypt, were provided during their sojourn in the desert with miraculous food given them by God himself, the wonderful “manna.” In this story, too, according to the principle of the six days of “harvesting” and a “break” on the seventh day, there is no manna on the seventh day. On the sixth day, there is enough for everyone to collect and to gather twice as much “manna,” so that both the people of Israel, and YHWH, their God, can rest on the seventh day, enjoying “Sabbath” ... This is also documented in the creative transmission of this idea in the Septuagint, where in several places a verbal neologism is used to express what the people should do on “Sabbath”: “to sabbath!” See e.g. Exodus 16:30 ..."
Martin Prudký, “'Keeping Sabbath': Variability and Stability of a Prominent Identity-Marking Norm,” in The Process of Authority: The Dynamics in Transmission and Reception of Canonical Texts, ed. Jan Dušek and Jan Roskovec (Berlin: de Gruyter, 2016), 41–60.

References are not endorsements of their contents. Read each reference in full to understand its author's intentions in using these texts.

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Genesis 2:3 and Exodus 16:30

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