The Strand Study Bible

GENESIS GENESIS 2500 years before it became a legal observance for Israel ( Gen 2:3a ). A common error in the Sabbath-keeping debate is the concept that the Sabbath was the day of worship. It was not. The Sabbath was a day of rest , not worship. The Seventh Day Adventists hold that God requires church services to be held on Saturday, because the Sabbath was the day of worship. The Sabbath command had nothing to do with worship ( Jn 4:24b ). According to God, every day was to be the day of worship (Jn 4:21-24 and Acts 2:46-47). The reason God set aside one day a week for men to rest was so men would look forward to the future and rest in the fact that the accomplishments of God were to be permanent. There are three accomplishments that God achieved that are connected with the Sabbath ( Deut 4:32 ): 1. His Creation (Gen 2:1-3 and Exo 20:8-11) – After standing back to take in the panoramic view and all that He had created, God rested (He sabbathed ), not to catch His breath, but to savor the moment in the satisfactory completion of a job well done. He wanted man to do the same; therefore, God set aside one day a week wherein men might take the time to rest in the omnipotence of God (all that He created). Unger’s Bible Dictionary notes: 53 2. His nation (Deut 5:12-15) – After standing back to take in the moment when He birthed Israel into a nation, God rested (He sabbathed ), not to catch His breath, but to savor the moment in the satisfactory completion of a job well done. He wanted man to do the same; therefore, God set aside one day a week wherein men might take the time to rest in the omnipotence of God (in the nation which brought us the Scriptures as well as the SON OF GOD and His salvation). The “ seventh day ,” therefore, became the “ Sabbath ,” the name of the day, which later was given to Israel (Exo 16:21-30 & 20:8-11 & 31:12-17 & 35:2-3, Lev 19:3,30 & 26:2 and Num 15:32-36) in order to commemorate the satisfactory completion of a job well done by God when He delivered Israel from Egypt. 3. His salvation ( Colo 2: 14- 16,17 and Heb 4: 1- 3 - 9,10 ) – After standing back to take in the moment when CHRIST accomplished salvation for mankind, God rested (He sabbathed ), not to catch His breath, but to savor the moment in the satisfactory completion of a job well done. He wanted man to do the same; therefore, God set aside one day a week (Rev 1:10) wherein men might take the time to rest in the omnipotence of God (the MESSIAH and His salvation). Later on, after Jesus accomplished salvation for mankind (Colo 2:14-17), and because He is LORD of the Sabbath (Mt 12:1-8), Jesus changed the day in which men would rest in Him from the last day of the week (Saturday) to the first day of the week (Sunday, called the Lord’s day - Rev 1:10). NOTE – The Sabbath command (the command to set one day a week aside for God) had nothing to do with worship, and everything to do with applauding God for His creation, His nation, and His salvation. 2:3a Some believe that nowhere in Scripture is there any hint that Sabbath-keeping was practiced fromAdam toMoses. However, verse three states that “from the beginning” (Exo 20:8-11), God blessed the seventh day (the Sabbath) and sanctified it , that is, He “set it apart” in order that men might take the time to rest in the accomplishments of God. 2:3b Some things God instantly created ( bah-rah - Gen 1:1c & 1:21 ) while other things God made ( gah-sah - reassembled) from things that were once instantly created. 2:4a Viewed in its several stages, and with reference to the weekly rest, there were six days of creation, which are here described as one day ( in the day ), because they were but divisions in one continuous act. 2:4b This word ( LORD ) is the Hebrew word Jehovah . It is the most sacred yet common name for absolute deity in the Hebrew text and occurs 6,823 times in the Old Testament. Although some scholars say it should be “ Yah ” or “ Yawah ,” because of the dramatic disappearance of that word from written records, the exact form is lost to our modern age. This is the very first time Jehovah (“ Yah ” or “ Yawah ”) is used in the Scriptures. The name means “ The Eternal One ( The Self-Existent One ) and is used in reference to the: FATHER - Gen 6:3 & 12:1 (Gen 24:7) & 15:2, Psa 2:2 (Acts 4:25-26) & 2:7 (Acts 13:33 and Heb 1:5 & 5:5) & Psa 110:1 (Mt 22:44) & Psa 110:4 (Heb 5:6 and 7:17,21), Isa 48:16, Ezk 2:4, Mic 5:4 and Mal 3:1 SON - Gen 17:1 & 18:1,17 & 28:13 & 31:3, Exo 3:4,14 (Jn 8:24,58) & Exo 13:21 & Psa 8:1-2 (Mt 21:16) & Psa 9:7 & 68:17-19 (Eph 4:8) & Isa 6:1 (Jn 12:36-41) & 25:9 & Isa 40:3 (Mt 3:3 and Jn 1:23) & Isa 60:1 (Eph 5:14) & 66:15-16, Jere 23:5-6 (Rev 19:11- 16) & 25:30 & 33:16, Joel 2:32 (Acts 2:21 and Rom 10:13) & 3:16,21, Mic 4:7, Zeph 3:15,17, Zech 3:2 & 14:5 and Mal 3:1 (Mk 1:2 & Mt 11:10 & Lk 7:27) SPIRIT - Judges 3:10 & 6: 34 & 11:29 & 13:25 & 14:6,19 & 15:14 & I Sam 10:6 & 16:13-14, II Sam 23:2, I Ki 18:12 & 22:24, II Ki 2:16, II Chro 18:23 & 20:14, Isa 11:2 & 40:7,13 & 59:19 & 61:1 & 63:14, Ezk 3:22-27 & 11:5 & 37:1 and Mic 2:7 & 3:8 NOTE – According to the Bible, all three persons of the Triune Godhead had a part in man’s creation ( Gen 1:1c ): FATHER (Rev The account of the creation states that God “rested on the seventh day,” etc. (Gen 2:2). The Sabbath rest was a Babylonian as well as a Hebrew institution. Its origin went back to pre-Semitic days, and the name Sabbath was of Babylonian origin. In the cuneiform tablets the Sabattu is described as “a day of rest for the soul.” In Accadian (i.e., early Babylonian) times the Sabbath was known as dies nefastus , a day on which certain work was forbidden; and an old list of Babylonian festivals and fast days tells us that on the seventh, fourteenth, nineteenth, twenty-first, and twenty-eighth days of each month the Sabbath day had to be observed. 1

4:11) , SON (Colo 1:16-17) and HOLY SPIRIT (Job 33:4). 2:7a Claus Westermann in The Bible, A Pictorial History notes:

Man is one among other creatures. In the Old Testament this means much more than it does in our present day thinking and feeling. In the course of western history, the simple contrast between creator and creature was gradually replaced by the contrast between man and nature. As man became the measure of all things, nature became the real object of his thoughts and energies, while God was felt to be far away in the realm of the transcendent. In the Old Testament, the notion of man as a creature in a created world was not something that had to be taught or