The 7th day or rest was really created at the very end of creation week by God himself: while God created the modern Earth with all the life on it in six days; While the sixth day officially ended the days of God constantly creating and forming the Earth and its natural life, God did one more thing of importance before creation week officially ended: On the Seventh day God had officially finished creating and forming the Earth:
Genesis 2:2
“By the seventh day God finished all the work he had been doing…”
So, on this seventh day he did something strange after all that creating:
Genesis 2:2
“...so on the seventh day he rested from all his work.”
He rested and did absolutely nothing!
He purposefully rested on the seventh day from constantly creating being officially finished with his creation and acknowledged all he had created the past six days of constant creation.
So, God rested after creating on the last day or creation week; but that’s not all he did to make this day significant! he also blessed this particular day and made this day a holy day because he himself rested from officially creating:
Genesis 2:3
“And God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it he rested from all the work of creating that he had done.”
This is something very significant!
He not only rested on this day and finished his creating and thus ended creation week on this day, but forever separated that day as special and even holy: So, what does this mean?
It meant this particular day was forever separated by God himself from all other days: but why? what would it matter on the eighth day or ninth day after that?
As the days continued to go on from the end of the holy and blessed seventh day, it becomes unclear why God mysteriously blessed this seventh day at the end of creation week. Because God never really specifies why he blessed this particular day and even made it holy, nor does the rest of Genesis ever mention this holy seventh day ever again (especially it is not mentioned to Adam and Eve: the first known humans God had direct contact with and told them his commands).
While all this is true, God also did not do this for no reason: He obviously had a reason for blessing and setting apart the seventh day after his creation of Earth, even if the direct reason is never told in Genesis.
So, what was the reason he blessed and made the seventh day sacred after he rested?
Why it might be argued that God might had just blessed this specific day for one time only as the official day he finish creating the Earth and all life in it as a memorial for humans to acknowledge, the evidence is while this might be partially true, God most likely meant for this holy seventh day to be much more relevant to humans than just a memorial to remember that happened in the past:
There is a very good reason why God created the Earth in the way that he did: and the key is in the word “creation week”: God took a whole week to create the Earth because he wanted to create the time period of a week itself:
He wanted humans to lump days into groups of sevens and at the end of each week (on the seventh day in a row) the days would “reset” (to Day 1 or the first day again) and then repeat (and count all the way up back to the seventh day).
With this in mind, the days of creation week become more relevant to humans: because each day in a week correlates to a specific day (or the memorial of a day) in the original creation week (The first day of the week correlates/is the weekly memorial of the 1st day of creation week when God separated day from night [light from darkness] on Earth). So, if each day of the week correlates to a specific day in the original creation week, this means the final seventh day at the end of a week correlates to the holy original seventh day of creation week when God rested and officially finished creating!
Therefore, if creation week is a model for actual weeks in human timekeeping, then this would mean the seventh day at the end of every week is a blessed and holy day set apart by God himself!
But if the seventh day ending every week was holy and blessed, what did God want his human creations to do on the seventh day (if anything) to honor such a holy and sacred day?
Once again, God in the rest of Genesis does not directly say, but just because there is nothing in Genesis that records God commanding humans to do something on the seventh day, does not mean that he never talked about the holy seventh day with his human creations/Adam and Eve whatsoever. (in the same way there is also no recording of God talking about sacrificing animals and food offerings to him ,yet Adam and Eve’s children Cain and Able are recorded sacrificing their produce and livestock on a fiery alter to God seemingly out of nowhere: strongly hinting God had to eventually talk about these things to Adam and Eve/ even Cain and Able so they would know how to please him by obeying his commands even though such a statement by God is not recorded in Genesis). There is strong indirect evidence that God did eventually talk about this holy seventh day to Adam and Eve/their descendants and even seemed to command them to also do something to acknowledge this blessed holy day:
He most likely commanded them to rest from their daily schedule just like he rested from his daily schedule of creating on this day!
Why this command from God is nowhere found in Genesis, and not only that; unlike sacrifices of livestock and food as an offering to God can be found recorded through Genesis; there is no recorded evidence of anyone resting on the seventh day of the week (nor any acknowledgement of the holy seventh day of the week). While this is true, there is evidence outside of the Bible while nowhere recorded in Genesis, God did eventually command the seventh day of the week to be honored by a weekly rest, because (at least some of) Adam and Eve’s descendants show signs that they remembered one day of the week was holy and they were to rest on this particular day:
These descendants of Adam and Eve were specifically descendants of faithful Seth (another son of Adam and Eve) and his distant faithful descendant, Noah, who’s children repopulated the world after a massive flood wiped all other descendants of Adam and Eve out.
These descendants of faithful Noah who claim that one day a week is a special holy day of rest were the Babylonians and Assyrians (all Mesopotamian people):
Mesopotamia is also directly mentioned in the Bible as the main area of one of the first civilizations Noah’s descendants founded right after the catastrophic flood (called here ‘shinar’):
Genesis 11:2
“...As people moved eastward (from the original home of Noah and his son’s descendants near Mt Arat: East from Mt. Arat would be Eurasia or The Eastern Middle East), they found a plain in Shinar (That is an old Hebrew name for Babylonia or Sumeria: both nations located in Mesopotamia!) and settled there.”
These Mesopotamian descendants of Noah forsaked worshiping the one true God of their ancestor Noah and began worshiping all different types of false and fake gods/goddesses. And along with rejecting God they also began to warp many laws originally commanded for them to do as originally passed down to them through their faithful ancestor Noah.
Why it's true these commands might have been slightly warped from the original command given by God, there was other parts of the commands that remained intact:
One of these commands that seems to have been kept intact from the original orders of God seems to be the seven-day week of the Babylonians and Assyrians, along with the final seventh day being a separate holy day to be honored by a sacred rest from work and sacred ceremonies to appease the gods.
This special holy seventh day at the end of a week was known as 'Sabbatum' and it was a day where no work at all was to be done and instead sacred ceremonies were usually held to keep the anger of their gods away [1].
While Noah (nor God) would not have originally said the seventh day was an fearful day meant to appease the wrath of false non-existent gods (this was most likely the warping of the Mesopotamians forsaking God for other gods). The original seven days lumped into a week as a time frame was kept in tack along with what seems to also be the sacredness of the seventh day at the end of every week and the order to stop working and hold sacred meetings of some sort.
This is indirect proof (but still very legitimate) that these descendants of Noah remembered in their culture, not only the period of a week God most likely instructed humans to measure days in, but more importantly, the holy sacredness of the last seventh day of that week that God most likely told Adam and Eve/their descendants at some point as well as what seems to be the command to honor this sacred day by resting from work just as God originally rested from his work on the original seventh day.
If this is truly where the Assyrians and Babylonians (along with possibly many other ancient nations) got the idea of a holy seventh day of rest from (and it seems to be the case) this would mean (even though not directly stated or even hinted in Genesis) that Noah and his sons also knew of the not only the seven day week, but also the holy seventh day of rest as well, and seeing as Noah faithfully obeyed God’s commands
He would have certainly honored this sacred day and rested! This would also most likely mean that Adam and Eve were directly told at some point about the concept of a week and the seventh holy day God rested on and even commanded them to rest from their work. If Adam and Eve obeyed this holy law, they would surely would have taught their children this so all of Adam’s descendant would have known of the seventh holy day and the obedient children of Adam would have rested on the seventh holy day at the end of the week.
If this was the case, Abraham (and his wife) most likely knew about the concept of a holy 7th day or rest (especially coming from or near Mesopotamia), but God might have still commanded Abraham at some point to keep this 7th day of rest or even cleared up and misunderstanding about this day that might have come from it being corrupted (even though this is never recorded in Genesis anywhere, the evidence is the holy 7th day or rest might have been commanded by God for humans to observe, and since he had chosen Abraham to teach his laws and commands to his descendants he most likely would have commanded him to honor his holy 7th day). Abraham would have taught his son Isaac about the sacred 7th day and Isaac would have taught his children (mostly Israel) about the holy 7th day thus God’s people most likely knew about the holy 7th day of rest:
However, it seems when The Israelites became enslaved by Egypt, they most likely could no longer properly honor the 7th day or rest because it seems they were expected every day to do backbreaking work nonstop; thus, most likely many forgot about the 7th day rest in their horrible slavery.
Sources:
[1]
Wikipedia “Babylonian calendar”
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