Did the Creator Perform a part of his Labor on the Seventh day?
By John Nevins Andrews
MANY suppose that he did. This idea is inferred from Gen. ii, 2. "And on the seventh day God ended his work which he had made; and he rested on the seventh day from all his work which he had made." But we think this an entire mistake. The following reasons show that such a view is false. 1. The narrative in Genesis shows that every thing was completed in the work of creation, or to use the expression of the Scriptures, "finished," in six days, and that at the close of that period the Creator pronounced it all "very good." Consequently there was nothing unfinished or incomplete about it. This will be seen from the last verse of Chap. i, and the first verse of Chap. ii. "And God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold it was very good. And the evening and the morning were the sixth day. Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them." This testimony is conclusive. "Thus" says the sacred writer, that is, in the manner and time which he had just stated, "the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them. This is an explicit statement that the Creator's work was finished in six days. The other fact in these verses which marks the close of the sixth day as the point of time at which the work of creation was complete, is this: "God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good." Each day, with the exception of the second, it is stated that God saw what he had performed, "that it was good." But at the close of the sixth day it is stated that "God saw every thing that he had made, and behold it was very good. God had pronounced on each part of his work separately that it was good, even saying this on the sixth day after creating the beasts of the earth; but after creating man and arranging the government of the creatures which he had formed, he "saw every thing" and "behold it was very good." Each was perfect in itself, or good; but when all the parts were complete, God saw that the work was very good. It is thus that the close of the sixth day is distinguished from that of each of the other five. 2. Not only is there nothing in the various other records of the creation week, to give the least idea that any part of the work of creation was performed upon the seventh day; but they directly teach the reverse of such an idea. "For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day: wherefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day, and hallowed it." Ex. xx, 11. "It is a sign between me and the children of Israel for ever: for in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, and on the seventh day he rested, and was refreshed." Chap. xxxi, 17. "For he spake in a certain place of the seventh day on this wise, And God did rest the seventh day from all his works." Heb. iv, 4. These texts we think fully meet the point. The first shows the reason why God requires men to labor six days and to rest on the seventh. It is because he performed all his work in six days and rested on the seventh. If he labored on the seventh day his example and his law contradict each other: for the very law which requires men to rest during the entire seventh day requires them to follow in this the example of the Creator. The second text is placed immediately after a solemn prohibition of any labor on the seventh day. Ex. xxxi, 15, 16. And it declares that this Sabbath of rest after the six days of labor is a sign between God and Israel his people, for in six days the Lord accomplished his work and on the seventh he rested and was refreshed. If God wrought the six days and a part of the seventh and then solemnly forbade his people to labor on the seventh day that their observance of that day in this manner, after six days of labor might be a sign of his own labor and rest at creation, there is a manifest inconsistency, such as nowhere appears in God's dealings with men. The third text simply presents the seventh as the rest day of the Lord—a fact which is emphatically set forth in those scriptures in which it is called the Sabbath of the Lord—a term which literally signifies his rest day. 3. The word translated "ended" in verse 2d is by some eminent critics rendered "had finished." This would show that when the seventh day commenced the work of creation was complete; thus agreeing with every other part of the divine record. It is not improbable that this is the true idea. It is thus rendered in the "London Quarterly Journal of Prophecy," see also the "Cottage Bible." 4. But the following note from Dr. Adam Clark's Commentary is worthy of particular notice: "On the seventh day God ended, &c. It is the general voice of Scripture, that God finished the whole of the creation in six days, and rested the seventh; giving us an example that we might labor six days, and rest the seventh from all manual exercises. It is worthy of notice, that the Septuagint, the Syriac and the Samaritan, read the sixth day instead of the seventh; and this should be considered the genuine reading, which appears from those versions, to have been originally that of the Hebrew text.—How the word sixth became changed into the seventh, may be easily conceived from this circumstance. It is very likely that, in ancient times, all numerals were signified by letters, and not words at full length. This is the case in the most ancient Greek and Latin MSS. and in almost all of the rabbinical writings. When these numeral letters became changed for words at full length, two letters nearly similar might be mistaken for each other: vau (ו) stands for six, zain (ז) for seven; how easy to mistake these letters for each other, when writing the words at full length, and so give birth to the reading in question!" This statement of Dr. Clarke respecting the Septuagint, the Syriac and the Samaritan, is worthy of attention. The Septuagint was translated from the Hebrew about 300 years before the Christian era. The Samaritan Pentateuch is much more ancient than this; some even preferring it as an original, preserved in the same condition in which Moses left it. The Syriac version is by some supposed to have been made from the Hebrew as early as the apostles' days, while others think it as late as the second century. See Buck's Theological Dictionary; Clarke's Commentary; Murdock's Syriac Testament, page 511.