Eschatology in Genesis 1
Notes
Transcript
Handout
God Rest on the Seventh Day
God Rest on the Seventh Day
Is seven a meaningful design feature of page 1 of the Bible?
The seven days just leap off the page to almost any reader. You don't have to know anything to know that there's seven days and that seems to very be very meaningful.
Something that won't strike most readers who are reading a translation is that the first sentence of Genesis consists of a principle of seven, namely seven words in Hebrew. Let’s go back to this first chapter in Genesis 1:1 and remind our selves of this
Often when you have mirror or symmetrical design structures, things on the outside are often given a position of prominence. There's usually matching features. Or the thing in the center is highlighted.
And lo and behold, the word in the center is actually not represented in any translation. It's not a word that needs to be translated in most languages. It's the Hebrew word "et" that marks the direct objects of verbs. But in Hebrew, there is a two-letter word that marks the object of a verb. It's the word "et." And that's the central word. Jewish commentators have just remarked about this for a long time. It is interesting that that word consists of two letters: the first and the last letter of the Hebrew alphabet.
So the first sentence teaches you there's a thing with sevens going on here. With that word "from beginning to end," the first and last letters is potentially a hint towards that this seven is an image of completeness.
Here is another interesting design feature of Genesis 1 that we didn't talk about. This is from Hebrew Bible scholar Michael Morales. "In the structure of the seven days, it's interesting that the first, the last, and the middle day are all focused on the order of time."
But different elements of time.
So day one is very concerned with the sequence of day and night. So we're talking about day—the daily rhythm.
Day number four is concerned with the patterns of sun, moon, and stars by which we mark monthly and annual calendars.
Day number seven draws importance to a seven-day cycle that is the most basic building block of Israel’s calendar.
Their liturgical calendar for worship, which we'll look at in just a moment. But even just taking those in sequence, you have a daily rhythm, you have, on day seven, a weekly rhythm. Then you have in the center, days, monthly, and annual rhythms all baked into the presentation of time of Genesis 1.
And this is the introductory chapter to what book?
The Torah.
And what is going to be of huge significance for many, many, many seconds of the Torah? This calendar, this worship calendar, whose organizational principle is all of these sevens right here. So later on in the Torah, you'll read about the morning and evening lights. The candles of the menorah that the priest with his shining garments... The priests have all these jewels. He even has two jewels. They're called Urim and Thummim. The Urim means lights (Or). It's the plural of the word "or" which is "let there be or"—let there be light. So an idealized human wearing all white, glittering with jewels wearing two special jewels called lights (Urim) and Thummim (completion) goes in to the holy place every evening and morning to attend to those lights to make sure they're still lit.
So that's happening on a daily rhythm. It's as if this priest becomes this image of God tending the daily lights, so to speak. Not in the Torah but it became an early practice that you say the Shema prayer every evening and morning. So the priest is in there doing this evening and morning rhythm. But what's everybody else supposed to do? It's as if their way of participating in the evening and morning rhythm is saying this daily prayer: Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one.
Every evening and morning.
Day four marks these monthly and annual rhythms.
We're going to look at this. There's a whole calendar attached to these rhythms.
Every seven day is a Sabbath rest. We'll talk a little bit more about that.
But then there is a principle of seven working on an annual basis too. Every seven years is a special year, every seven times seven years. And then you're just like, "We're eleven sevens here." This is like a secret code to the cosmos or some something like that, right?
I'm going to show you some things from an Italian Jewish scholar named Umberto Cassuto. He wrote an epic commentary on Genesis 1-11 He drew attention to it's design principles of seven.
First sentence has seven words.
Genesis 1:2 has two time seven words.
The epilogue has three time seven words.
There's seven paragraphs in Genesis 1. Each of the key words in Genesis 1:1 are repeated by multiples of seven in the chapter.
Each of the key words in Gen 1:1 are repeated by multiples of SEVEN in in the opening movement of Genesis
“God” = 35x (7x5) in Gen. 1:1-2:3
“land” = 21x (7x3) in Gen. 1:1-2:3
“skies” and “dome” = 21x (7x3) in Gen. 1:2-2:4
Key words repeated SEVEN TIMES
• “light” and “day” together Day 1
God speaks 10 times in Gen 1:1-2:3
7 times are divines creative commands to the creation itself: “let there be…”
3 times are divine initiatives toward humanity:“let us make ‘adam…,” “be fruitful and multiply,” “behold I have given to you…”
“To suppose that all these appearances of the number seven are mere coincidence is not possible. This numerical symmetry is, as it were, the golden thread that binds together all the part of the section.” — UMBERTO CASSUTO, FROM ADAM TO NOAH, 15.
This raises the question, why this number seven?
I brought this up in an earlier session, but just to reiterate it, it's homonym(each of two or more words having the same spelling or pronunciation but different meanings and origins.). The letters that spell "seven" (sheba) are the same letters that spell the word "complete" or "to be full" (saba).
Seven was a symbolic number in Israelite culture and literature. It communicated a sense of “fullness” or “completeness” (עבש “seven” is spelled with the same consonants as the word עבש “complete/full”). This makes sense of the pervasive appearance of “Seven” patterns in the Bible.
The word “seven” in Hebrew is a homonym with the Hebrew words for “complete/full”
“Seven” - Hebrew sheba’ (עבש)
“complete, full” - Hebrew shaba’ (עבש)
“oath, promise” - Hebrew shabua’ (עבש)
The origins of the symbol, “7 = completeness” possibly originates in the lunar calendar of moon cycles. The biblical Hebrew word for “month” is the same as “new moon” (שדח), a period of time made up of 29.5 days/month, consisting of four 7.3-day cycles, making a “complete” cycle of time (see Farbridge, Number Symbolism in Biblical and Semitic Cultures, 134-37).
However, the Israelite Sabbath cycle is independent of the Moon cycle, and Sabbaths do not coincide with the new moon. Rather, the seven day cycle in Genesis 1 is portrayed as the ideal “complete” time sequence of creation. It stands outside of any ‘natural’ cycle of time (sun, moon, stars).
Why Does God “Rest” on the Seventh Day?
Why Does God “Rest” on the Seventh Day?
It is all around the seventh day. Seventh day. All of these structures of seven are leading you up to the seventh day. It's clearly the climax of the narrative.
So what's the deal with God resting on the seventh day? Is He tired? It doesn't seem to be the issue. What is this about?
We could do a whole class on this. But I’m not
1 So the heavens and the earth and everything in them were completed. 2 On the seventh day God had completed his work that he had done, and he rested on the seventh day from all his work that he had done.
The conclusion given in Genesis 2:1 and 2 is that three lines of seven words.
"On the seventh day, God completed His work which He had done, and He rested on the seventh day from the work that He had done. And God blessed the seventh day and set it apart as holy."
This word "rest" is the word "shabbat."
It's where we get the word "Sabbath" from. It means literally "to stop." When Joshua leads the people into the promised land, the manna Shabbats. It doesn't appear anymore. So it's not like the manna takes a vacation or a nap. So to stop.
Now, if you're going to rest, you need to stop. But Shabbat isn't quite the same thing as like relaxing. But you need to.
here's what's interesting is that Shabbat is the word that appears in Genesis 1.
But as you go through the Hebrew Bible, there are hyperlinks back to Genesis 1 that start to use an additional word, like a synonym, that is also translated "rest" in our translations. So you don't always notice it in the translation.
So in the Ten Commandments, we're told, "In six days Yahweh made the skies, and the land, and the sea and He nuached on the seventh day. Therefore he blessed the Shabbat."
So now in the Ten Commandments, we have our two words here. So to rest, now we're talking about settling in. You're touching down and you are settled in a place.
Some other examples.
Deuteronomy 12:10 Here's one from Deuteronomy.
10 When you cross the Jordan and live in the land the Lord your God is giving you to inherit, and he gives you rest from all the enemies around you and you live in security,
"Moses says to the people, 'When you cross the Jordan, and you go into the land that God's giving you to inherit, and He gives you nuach in the land. It's going to be a lot of effort, a lot of conflict to get in, but when you have nuach, then you'll live in security.
so you can kind of see how these two words work together. So that raises the question, what actually is happening?
These two words are in the mix: Shabbat and nuach.
Big chart taken from the Bible Project we won’t be going through the whole thing.
But you know how we've been tracing through these creation, tabernacle, temple themes?
These are all connected as distinct images of the same reality.
Seven is a thing with the days in Genesis 1.
Do you remember when Moses was up on the mountain, and he went up through the Sapphire pavement, and he saw the blueprints, and God starts speaking? I mentioned that God speaks to Moses in seven speeches. He reveals the tabernacle plans in seven speeches. The seventh speech is not about the tabernacle, it's about, "Hey, remember to keep the Sabbath."
When in chapter 40 of Exodus, Moses actually sets up the tabernacle, the narrative is punctuated at seven moments with the phrase "and Moses set up the table of showbread just as Yahweh commanded. He set up the altar, just as Yahweh commanded." Seven times. It's one of these chapters that strikes a reader as really redundant until you realize the symbolism.
After the seventh act of setting up the final part of the tent, what happens? The cloud of divine glory comes and rests over the tabernacle.
When Solomon builds the temple in Jerusalem, in 1 Kings 8, he gets up, and he blesses the people, and he gives this long… It's like one of the longest speeches in the Bible. It's a prayer.
He makes seven petitions to the God of Israel, that He looked with mercy and generosity on the people because of the sacrifices and gifts they offer in this temple. Do you know what they do after he finishes this seventh petition?
They have a feast for seven days.
Then when that's over, they have another feast for seven days. What happens on the seventh of all of these places? After the two seven day feasts, the cloud of Yahweh fills the temple. After the tabernacle is set up on the seventh act of obedience, the cloud of glory fills and rests over the tabernacle.
What am I supposed to imagine is happening on the seventh day of God's rest and nuach?
This is the way design patterns work. This is a perfect example of its later passages in the Bible that are designed to send you back and be like, "Ooooh, I get it. I get it." God is taking up residence in the cosmic temple. But who is also there? ho has not been forgotten? All the creatures and the humans. The human rulers. So the divine image and the divine reality rest together in the cosmic temple on the seventh day.
So you find all these later biblical passages that reflect back and put this portrait together.
“Humanity’s elevation, made in the image of God, is designed for the exaltation of the Sabbath day. The Sabbath thus becomes the day for humanity to enjoy its privileged status of being created as God’s image. The Sabbath is the symbolic time for humanity’s climactic union with and representation of its Creator… Just as the divine work began with a workman’s week as an archetype of the human week, now humanity can live in the image of God. The Sabbath and the image of God are linked together and interdependent themes.” — ADAPTED FROM MICHAEL MORALES, WHO CAN ASCEND THE MOUNTAIN OF THE LORD, P. 48, QUOTING HENRI BLOCHER.
Why does God “Bless” the Seventh Day?
Why does God “Bless” the Seventh Day?
God’s blessing upon the creatures and on humans on days 5 and 6, was directly connected to “being fruitful and multiplying and filling the land.”
By analogy, the “blessing” on the Sabbath would also involve a kind of “fruitfulness, multiplying and filling” that is appropriate to a period of time. The idea is that the Sabbath would become many as its observed and experienced by others.”
“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.
Do you remember how in those days of Genesis, days one, four, and seven gave us the whole calendar that we're going to meet later in the Torah?
Do you remember how in those days of Genesis, days one, four, and seven gave us the whole calendar that we're going to meet later in the Torah?
I just want to ponder that calendar for a moment. Leviticus 23 is the most comprehensive listing of the calendar. While almost certainly ancient Israel organized its own life by this calendar, this chapter in the Torah has been placed and shaped so that it's also working out the literary theological themes of the storyline.
Israel’s Sacred Calendar in Leviticus ch. 23 — The Sabbath ideal multiplied by 7! Lev. ch. 23 lists seven ‘meeting/convocation’ days for Israel’s holy worship. Every one (except 1st fruits) is a multiple of 7 (in days or the month) or a duration of 7 and is a moment of ‘new creation
"Listen, here's seven moadim, seven appointed times." It gets translated "seasons" in Genesis 1. Here's seven of them.
"The first one is the weekly Sabbath. On every seventh day, for one day you do no work. There are six more listed in the chapter. Lo and behold, there's two triads.
Two groups of three.
It's the first six months, the second six months.
The first six months is kicked off with Passover which commemorates the liberation. So, on the night of the fourteenth, you eat the Passover lamb.
Then that begins a seven-day feast of eating this minimalist bread to remember the haste with which we left Egypt. You don't do any work on the first and seventh day. You do a little Sabbath on the first and seventh day.
Then on whatever day you get a harvest, the first harvest, the next Sabbath after you get your first crop, you take one day and go offer some of it as a gift back to Yahweh because He gave you the first crop.
Then you count seven times seven days after Passover and Unleavened Bread and you do Pentecost. It's called the Feast of Weeks.
And you take one day and you do no work.
Those are the first three.
And notice all the sevens. We're just working off the Sabbath theme here.
Notice how on Passover, for example, how the number seven, which recalls the Sabbath, gets completely joined together with the exodus liberation of the Passover.
It's the seventh month. And lo and behold, the three moadim mentioned in the second half of the year are all in the seventh month.
You begin on the first day with blowing these trumpets to mark the seventh month.
Today this is called Rosh Hashanah, which means head of the year. It's the middle of the year but it was called the head of the year because it's like the year has these two folding halves to it. Then on the tenth day of the seventh month, it's the Day of Atonement, where all of the sins that have accumulated and defiled the holy place are dealt with through the representative priest through two goats in particular.
One, its life becomes a gift given in the place of Israel's life. It's an unblemished lamb, and it's translated up to the heavens through smoke and sacrifice, and then its blood purges the defiled holy place. But then it's doppelganger, it's double is the impure lamb that has all the sins symbolically put on it and it's exiled to the wilderness.
Then, on the fifteenth through the twenty-first, for seven days you go live in little garden tents outside to remember God bringing you through the wilderness. When you make your little tent, make sure you take the fruit of a really beautiful looking tree. The branches of a palm tree, and the branches of a leafy tree, and a poplar trees, and make sure they're trees that were right by a river to build your little hut and your tent. It's you're building a little Eden tent for seven days.
This whole calendar, every single one of these, these are seven different opportunities to enjoy, and recreate, and foretaste, and retell different aspects of the story looking forward to, "what's all this about?"
This is about the journey to the ultimate seventh-day rest.
The principle of the Sabbath (a burst of Eden rest into ‘ordinary’ time) is here multiplied by seven. These holy days all participate and develop some aspect of meaning of the original Sabbath.
Passover and Unleavened bread: Redemption from death (// new creation) and commitment to simplicity and trust in God’s power to provide food in the wilderness.
Firstfruits and Weeks: celebrating the gift of produce from the land
Trumpets: announcing the Sabbatical (7th) month
Day of atonement: God’s renewing the holiness of his Eden presence among his compromised people
Tabernacles: provision for God’s people on their way to the promised land/Eden, and they are act like they are living in God’s ‘tent’ for a Sabbath cycle: Lev 23:40: “and you will take the fruit of the beautiful tree, the branches of a palm, and branches of a tree of leaf and of poplar trees by a river, and you shall rejoice before Yahweh for seven days” = a mini-Eden tent made of the fruit of a beautiful tree for a Sabbath cycle // Genesis 1-2!
The Sabbath with No End
The Sabbath with No End
The seven days portray God working to bring order and life out of darkness and chaos. This divine work culminates in the delegation of human-images who rule the fruitful land on God’s behalf (day 6).
It is only after God delivers creation from the darkness and chaos-waters and appoints a human image to rule, that is creation “completed” (Gn 2:1) and God can “rest/cease” from his work.
“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 BALENTINE, THE TORAH’S VISION OF WORSHIP, 93.
“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 LOWRY, SABBATH AND JUBILEE, 90.
“The Sabbath is that point in time where God and man meet. On the seventh day of creation, God joined himself and his eternal presence to his temporal creation, to the world of man. On the Sabbath day, man not only recalls but participates in an act of cosmic creation...he experiences the original structuring of time within the microcosm of his own life… The observance of the Sabbath links humanity to a divinely ordained future, as well as a divinely created past. Sabbath observance has cosmic implications... a foretaste of an eschatological future...a prefiguration of the final phase of the divine/human reconciliation. In pointing back to the beginning, the Sabbath also points to what is yet to be, to the final destiny to which all creation is moving.” — BERNARD OCH, “CREATION AND REDEMPTION: TOWARDS A THEOLOGY OF CREATION,” 240.
“With regard to the lack of the final formula, “there was evening and there was morning,” commentators have argued that the seventh day is not meant to be understood as a literal day. This argumentation then has led to an eschatological interpretation of the seventh day. However, as part of the first creation account, the seventh day is the last of the seven sections, and the formula “there was evening and there was morning” in the account of the weekdays may be taken not only as a closing formula but also as a literary feature to anticipate what comes next within the series of sections in the creation account, that is the next day of the creation week. Functioning as a transition from one day to another the closing formula is a feature that moves the text forward throughout the six weekdays with the intention to arrive at the seventh day. Once it arrives at the last section, the text highlights the identification of the seventh day by stating it three times and then has no more need for the formula because there is no eighth section following for an eight day. Creation has come to an end, for the seventh day has arrived.” — MATHILDE FREY, THE SABBATH IN THE PENTATEUCH, 38.
Do you remember we talked about how the sun, moon, and stars they mark not only the monthly calendar and the single annual calendar, but if it's annual, they're marking things that go for more than one year?
The Lord spoke to Moses on Mount Sinai: “Speak to the Israelites and tell them: When you enter the land I am giving you, the land will observe a Sabbath to the Lord. You may sow your field for six years, and you may prune your vineyard and gather its produce for six years. But there will be a Sabbath of complete rest for the land in the seventh year, a Sabbath to the Lord: you are not to sow your field or prune your vineyard. You are not to reap what grows by itself from your crop, or harvest the grapes of your untended vines. It is to be a year of complete rest for the land. Whatever the land produces during the Sabbath year can be food for you—for yourself, your male or female slave, and the hired worker or alien who resides with you. All of its growth may serve as food for your livestock and the wild animals in your land.
“You are to count seven sabbatical years, seven times seven years, so that the time period of the seven sabbatical years amounts to forty-nine. Then you are to sound a trumpet loudly in the seventh month, on the tenth day of the month; you will sound it throughout your land on the Day of Atonement. You are to consecrate the fiftieth year and proclaim freedom in the land for all its inhabitants. It will be your Jubilee, when each of you is to return to his property and each of you to his clan. The fiftieth year will be your Jubilee; you are not to sow, reap what grows by itself, or harvest its untended vines. It is to be holy to you because it is the Jubilee; you may only eat its produce directly from the field.
In Leviticus 25, we learn about these two additional elements.
"Yahweh spoke to Moses at Mount Sinai saying, 'Speak to the sons of Israel and say to them,'when you come into the land I will give you, the land will get its own Sabbath.''"
So you're going to be farming, going to be working the land. But you know what? The land doesn't belong to you. You rest every seven days to remind yourself that these animals and people don't actually belong to you. You're going to work the land for year after year, but every seventh year, you just leave the land alone.
"Six years sow your field, six years prune your vineyard, gather a crop, but in the seventh year, the land gets its own Shabbat."
The land does.
"It's a Shabbat that belongs to Yahweh. Not you, it's Yahweh's. He goes on to give some specifications. But the basic idea is that you live off of whatever the land produces by itself. So whatever the land produces, what God provides through the land producing through no human labor is what you'll live off of.
That's every seven years the land does that.
"You are also to count off every seven Sabbaths of years."
So if every seventh year is a Sabbath year, every seven times seven years.
"Count them off so that you have seven Sabbath of years, namely 49. Then sound a ram's horn abroad on the tenth day of the seventh month."
Well, what's the tenth day of the seventh month? That's the Day of Atonement when the land and the holy place is purified of all evil and sin.
So every seven times seven years, on the day when sin is covered and dealt with, you have an ultimate double Sabbath year.
"Sound a horn through the land. Consecrate the fiftieth year. It's a year of release. It's a year of Jubilee. You've maybe heard of this before. Here's what happens in the year of Jubilee. It's an additional year of not farming the land. So every 50 years you do two years of not farming the land.
"If you owe anybody any money, you don't owe them any money anymore. All debts are canceled. If anyone is your slave or has become your debt slave… That was the most common form of slavery. You have to sell yourself because you don't have any money so you become someone else's property.
So all slaves are released.
If you had to sell your ancestral land… Remember the tribes all get their own land.
So every seven times seventh here, all of the land goes back to the original Eden setup that the tribes had when they went into the land.
This is called the Year of Release.
The word "Jubilee" is the Hebrew word for "ram's horn," which is why that siren goes off on the Day of Atonement, even still today.
So if this sounds like economic suicide, surely it would be for our modern economic structures. But in tight-knit tribal farming communities, this would be a lifeline for the community. It keeps all 12 tribes on equal footing. No one tribe can ever gather too much land because of the difficult circumstances of another tribe.
But then also this honoring of the land that doesn't belong to you. So it's not your slave so you let it go.
So this is part of the calendar. But if you think of what the seventh day represents in Genesis 1, if it's a preview of where the story is going, then all this is is giving a portrait of the ultimate goal.
Every 7th year is a Sabbath (// “release” from Exodus 21/Deut 15) in which the land rests and reverts to Eden conditions
Every 49th-50th yr is a Super-Sabbath (release/Jubilee) where (1) the land rests on its proper Sabbath, (2) land ‘goes out’ from slavery to return to it’s original owners, and (3) slaves ‘go out’ from slavery to return to freedom.
The counting scheme works so that the 50th year = Year 1 of the next cycle [chart from John Bergsma, The Jubilee from Leviticus to Qumran, 89] I took from Bible Project Book is already on my wishlist
God will recreate “Eden” conditions if Israel obeys the Jubilee
Then Jesus returned to Galilee in the power of the Spirit, and news about him spread throughout the entire vicinity. He was teaching in their synagogues, being praised by everyone.
He came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up. As usual, he entered the synagogue on the Sabbath day and stood up to read. The scroll of the prophet Isaiah was given to him, and unrolling the scroll, he found the place where it was written:
The Spirit of the Lord is on me,
because he has anointed me
to preach good news to the poor.
He has sent me
to proclaim release to the captives
and recovery of sight to the blind,
to set free the oppressed,
to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.
He then rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant, and sat down. And the eyes of everyone in the synagogue were fixed on him. He began by saying to them, “Today as you listen, this Scripture has been fulfilled.”
In the Gospel of Luke chapter 4, Jesus has just been baptized. The Spirit comes over the waters, "You are my Son whom I love," goes into the wilderness 40 days and 40 nights. Then right after that, fresh out of the wilderness, Luke tells us this story. "Jesus returned to Galilee in the power of the Spirit. News about Him spread throughout the surrounding district. He began teaching in synagogues, praised by all.
He came to Nazareth." It's like the hometown. It's the family
Five hundred people and Nazareth at the time; it's like everybody knows Him. "And as His custom, He went to synagogue on Shabbat."
"And He was the one selected to read from the Scriptures that day. So He stands up and it's scroll of the prophet Isaiah. He opens the scroll and He found the place where it was written, 'The Spirit of Yahweh is upon me. He's anointed me to announce good news to the poor. He's sent me to proclaim release to the captives, recovery of sight to the blind, to set free, to liberate those who are oppressed and to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor.'"
In other words, the Year of Jubilee. It's the Year of Jubilee.
“freedom” (Grk. aphesis “release” = Heb. deror “Jubilee liberation;” see Isaiah 61:1 and Leviticus 25:10): This is the common word for “forgiveness” in Luke (1:77 or 3:3), but the word’s meaning is broader: release from burden or bondage. The word in Isaiah 61 is rooted in the Year of Jubilee (Leviticus 25), and is about release from the social consequences of a society’s collective sin: freedom from debt, slavery, poverty, and oppression.
“the poor” (Grk. ptokhos = Heb. aniy): refers to more than economic status, but a person’s wider social location in terms of family heritage, land ownership, vocation, gender, ethnicity, education, and religious purity: in Jewish literature it refers to anyone of low status, or who lives outside the socially accepted boundary lines.
If you go through Luke chapters 5 through 13 and watch every person that Jesus heals or ministers to. It will be either on a Sabbath, it will be someone for whom He offers forgiveness.
The word "forgiveness" is the word "release."Release from your sins. It's all of these people who would never have been given access into the temple, like Gentiles, or people with skin disease or with some kind of ritual impurity.
Jesus sees Himself bringing about the ultimate Seventh Day. He calls it the kingdom of God.
The Nazareth announcement in Luke ch. 4 sets the agenda for Jesus’ healing and teaching ministry in Luke 5-13 where he reaches out to:
A leper (5:12-16)
A paralyzed man (5:17-27: note the use of aphesis to mean “forgiveness” of sin and “release” from sickness with multiple nuances in this story)
A man with a deformed hand on the sabbath: Jesus “saves life” on the sabbath (6:6-11).
The reviving of the Roman centurion’s servant (7:1-10)
The grieving widow and mother in Nain: “God has come to visit his people” (7:11-16)
The blind, leprous, lame, deaf, and poor are healed (7:22)
A repentant prostitute (7:36-49: note the repetition of aphesis “forgiveness” and “release” in the parable)
Exorcisms for the demon-tormented (11:14-23)
The hunch-backed woman (13:10-17; note the explicit mention of slavery/release/freedom vocabulary in Jesus’ view of her illness)
It's about the completion of creation about the true human rulers set free from bondage of decay as Paul will say in Romans 8. Apparently when Jesus meditates on what the meaning of the Sabbath is, the Sabbath every seventh day is like a building block of the elaborate edifice of all these other seventh days or seventh years, or seventh months.
And they're all windows into the seventh day that has no end, which He sees Himself inaugurating. He's inaugurating the seventh day. Which is I think why the author to the Hebrews can pick up the ball from Jesus and say, "Hey, the seventh day it's arrived, it's going to be completed, so let's make sure that we don't miss out on it. Like participate in the seventh day."
A psalm of Asaph. God stands in the divine assembly; he pronounces judgment among the gods: “How long will you judge unjustly and show partiality to the wicked? Selah Provide justice for the needy and the fatherless; uphold the rights of the oppressed and the destitute. Rescue the poor and needy; save them from the power of the wicked.” They do not know or understand; they wander in darkness. All the foundations of the earth are shaken. I said, “You are gods; you are all sons of the Most High. However, you will die like humans and fall like any other ruler.” Rise up, God, judge the earth, for all the nations belong to you.
Psalm 82 and match it together and see how Jesus is doing what God tells the Elohims are not doing. Jesus isn’t just solving the earthly problem but also the heavenly Problem. But God addresses the rulers above whose rulers below that mirror them like at Babylon and so on. The gods whose allegiance has been demanded by the nations are gods who let the weak, and the fatherless, and the afflicted, and destitute go without justice. It's as if you're reading a roster list of the people that Jesus pays the most attention to in the Gospels. So this act of liberation is also a liberation from both human and cosmic powers of enslavement.
On the seventh day God had completed his work that he had done, and he rested on the seventh day from all his work that he had done. God blessed the seventh day and declared it holy, for on it he rested from all his work of creation.
Come back to this observation as I finish the Literary unit of Genesis 1 which is actually in Genesis 2.
The phrase that closes every single day of one through six is "there is evening and that there was morning." There's no marking of evening and morning for the seventh day. It's as if it's set apart literarily to have no end.
Now, that also opens you up into the sequence of the narrative as you go forward. But when you take just the literary unit and consider it on its own, it's as if it becomes the template for the whole story.
It's exactly this day.
What this day means is what Jesus sees Himself inaugurating through His life, and His death, and His resurrection, and through the gift of the Spirit. So who knew Genesis 1 had so much light to shine even on the concept of what… This was a part of Jesus meditations
announce the kingdom of God one more day, and to announce good news to the poor.
So what this means for followers of Jesus, you know, a lot of attention gets focused in on: should Christians do the Sabbath and this kind of thing? And that's an interesting question. I think Jesus is much more interested in: Should Christians participate in the meaning of the Sabbath, which is the dawn of the kingdom of God?
I have a hunch that there should be no debate on that one. Because we can all see what it means. So we could do more with the seventh day but I think that's enough with the notes to kind of go forth and discover even more.
Bibliography
Bibliography
https://bibleproject.com/classroom-alpha/education-videos/session-30-god-rests-seventh-day/