God Rested: Genesis 2:1-3

Thus the heavens and the earth were completed in all their vast array.

Completed. The word carries finality, satisfaction, the last brushstroke on a canvas that needed nothing more. Everything that would exist had been called into being. The inventory of creation was full.

By the seventh day God had finished the work he had been doing; so on the seventh day he rested from all his work.

Rested. Not because he was tired—the Creator of the universe does not grow weary. He rested because the work was done. He stopped because stopping was part of the design. The rhythm of work and rest was woven into the fabric of creation before the first human worked a single day.

Then God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it he rested from all the work of creating that he had done.

Blessed and holy. The seventh day received what the creatures had received—blessing—but also something more: holiness. Set apart. Sacred. Different from the other six. A day sanctified by divine rest, marked off as belonging to God in a special way.

The Sabbath was born before the law was given, before Israel existed, before sin entered the world. It was not a burden imposed but a gift embedded in creation itself.

God rested, and in resting, he invited his image-bearers to do the same. Work six days. Rest one. Remember that you are not a machine. Remember that the world does not depend on your constant effort. Remember that your Creator stopped—and called it holy.

The seventh day had no evening and morning recorded. Some say it continues still, an eternal rest that God's people are invited to enter.