Sanctified Sabbath

Morales (The Tabernacle Pre-Figured) argues that the trajectory of the creation account in Genesis 1 has not been fully appreciated because the import of the opening verses have not been fully appreciated:

“that emphasis is stark enough to serve as the foil for the six days of creation (vv 3-31), counterbalanced by the three-fold description of God’s rest upon completing the heavens and earth (2.1-3). . . . That the deluged earth of v 2 could not sustain life links deliverance to creation, with fruition of life as the point of resolution – a resolution tied thematically to the waters. In the sense that the earth was ‘delivered’ from the primeval waters, we may describe that deliverance in terms of a water ordeal” (54).

The Sabbath is the counterpoint to the formless, empty darkness that opens the creation story. By the time we get to Sabbath, we have gotten to a world that is completely filled and formed and bright. The holy day is the day when the world is brought to its completion. Given the links between the Sabbath and Yahweh’s enthronement, it is also the case that Sabbath answers the original emptiness by announcing that the Lord Himself now fills all things.

This provides an insight into the character of holiness, since this is the first use of the term in Scripture. Holiness is associated with life, with order, with light; the holy day is the day when the formless, void, and dark world is finally brought to its end. The holy day brings the days of creation to their climax, the creation itself to its maturity.

Morales offers further insight into this point when he observes the way the theme of light works in the creation. Initially, the world is dark; God calls light into being and it shines in the darkness; in the middle of the week, God sets sun, moon, and stars in the sky to mark out festival seasons; at the end of the week comes the Sabbath, a festival of light. The movement of the account is not merely from darkness to light, from evening to morning; it is a movement toward festivity, toward a festival of light (85-6). And that also throws light on the nature of holiness: the world moves toward holiness, which is to say, it moves toward rest and festivity; it moves toward joy.