A Final Rest

I’ve said before that Genesis 1 appears prophetic. It’s not merely saying what happened, but what is happening, and what will happen. There are many Revelation parallels.

Genesis 2 hints at this as well.

The heaven and the earth were finished, and all their array.
On the seventh day God finished the work that had been undertaken: [God] ceased on the seventh day from doing any of the work.
Genesis 2:1-2 (The Contemporary Torah, JPS, 2006)

We have a day of rest every week, and while we could get lost in a cycle of week-in and week-out, it’s written in a way to show us that rest is a finality. It is FINISHED. It points to a future forever-rest.

Gen 2 gives us a clue.

The words that I highlighted in the first post are the same word: “finished.” Kala.

But they have different forms in the text there in the passage. They mean different things.

The first instance of “finished” is in the pual form. This idea of completion. “It’s done.” God finished it, perhaps the way one might finish a task or an assignment.

But the second instance is in the piel form. It carries a more… ominous meaning. It’s not just being done, but having brought something to an end. To fulfill. In some instances, to destroy in its finality.

Perhaps this points to a future newness. A new heaven; a new earth.

A final Sabbath.