Why did God need to "rest"after the creation?

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God does not “get tired”,as I understand him.He is pure spirit.
A human needs to rest to recuperate after work.God shouldn’t.
So why the bible says God rested?
 
The Bible doesn’t say “God was tired and needed to rest” it says “he rested”.

God can do whatever He wants. Have you never rested for no reason than you wanted to? 🙂
 
There are various answers to this:
  1. Everything was in place for humans to live successfully on earth–there was nothing more he wanted to do to our environment.
  2. He wanted to set an example for us–to set aside a day to rest and honor him.
  3. God’s plans were all in place for our redemption, for God, being all knowing, knew human beings were going to fall.
  4. It was a time of waiting to see how man would react to God’s command before the next phase of re-creation would take place.
Others will no doubt have more insights of their own or of theologians and saints.

It doesn’t mean God was tired, though. As you pointed out he doesn’t get tired. 🙂
 
God did no work on the seventh day to sanctify it, to dedicate it, to make it holy. It’s what we are supposed to do, to dedicate the seventh day to God, to keep the sabbath holy just as God did, to return thanks to God. .

For the pagans, Sunday was just an ordinary day. For Christians, the seventh day is dedicated to God in thanksgiving and worship.

The seventh day is a sacramental sign of entering into God’s rest.

-Tim-
 
God wasn’t tired. In “resting,” He set the model of the Sabbath. The Jewish Sabbath was explicitly based off of this (Exodus 20:11).

The Sabbath, in turn, prefigured Christ’s Death and burial. Luke 23:54-56 depicts the burial of Jesus as part of the impending Sabbath, and Matthew 28:1 and Mark 16:1-3 both describe the Resurrection as “After the Sabbath.” Now that’s literally true (Christ is buried immediately before the Sabbath, and rises when it’s over), but it’s also true in a broader sense. God “rested,” in the sense that His Body remained dead in the Tomb while He ministered to those in Hades (1 Peter 3).
 
God did no work on the seventh day to sanctify it, to dedicate it, to make it holy. It’s what we are supposed to do, to dedicate the seventh day to God, to keep the sabbath holy just as God did, to return thanks to God. .

For the pagans, Sunday was just an ordinary day. For Christians, the seventh day is dedicated to God in thanksgiving and worship.

The seventh day is a sacramental sign of entering into God’s rest.

-Tim-
👍

~Liza
 
The seventh day rest can also mean that the previous activity (creation of angels, Big Bang, star formation, galaxy & planet formation and placement, Earth, atmosphere, water, plant and animal formation, humans with souls) came to a rest.

The pearl of great price.

God created all that, to produce a self sustainable Earth for human beings - who through their free will, held His grace within their souls.
 
The Hebrew simply says he stopped creating. It does not have the meaning of rest like us humans do. It would be like a ship running ashore, at some point it stops going forward, and it is called 'rested on the beach" for example, that ship is not sleeping or resting like us humans do.
 
In music, a “rest” is a stop or break- a pause. Maybe He wasn’t tired but just decided to pause!
 
God did no work on the seventh day to sanctify it, to dedicate it, to make it holy. It’s what we are supposed to do, to dedicate the seventh day to God, to keep the sabbath holy just as God did, to return thanks to God. .

For the pagans, Sunday was just an ordinary day. For Christians, the seventh day is dedicated to God in thanksgiving and worship.

The seventh day is a sacramental sign of entering into God’s rest.

-Tim-
Hi Tim, I agree with most everything you said here except that Sunday is the FIRST day of the week, and is the Lord’s Day. Saturday is the Seventh Day of the week and is still the Sabbath Day. Our Celebration of Sunday is a celebration of a new beginning ushered in by our Lord Christ Jesus…

I like to think of it as a day to remember “The coffee break is over, time to get back to work!”

God bless
 
P.S. To add a bit more twist to Genesis; Jesus Resurrection, on the eighth day, was the New Creation. Traditionally, baptismal fonts had eighth sides.

From the Catechism:

"The day of the Resurrection: the new creation

2174 Jesus rose from the dead "on the first day of the week."104 Because it is the “first day,” the day of Christ’s Resurrection recalls the first creation.

Because it is the “eighth day” following the sabbath,105 it symbolizes the new creation ushered in by Christ’s Resurrection. For Christians it has become the first of all days, the first of all feasts, the Lord’s Day (he kuriake hemera, dies dominica) Sunday:

We all gather on the day of the sun, for it is the first day [after the Jewish sabbath, but also the first day] when God, separating matter from darkness, made the world; and on this same day Jesus Christ our Savior rose from the dead.106

Sunday - fulfillment of the sabbath

2175 Sunday is expressly distinguished from the sabbath which it follows chronologically every week; for Christians its ceremonial observance replaces that of the sabbath. In Christ’s Passover, Sunday fulfills the spiritual truth of the Jewish sabbath and announces man’s eternal rest in God. For worship under the Law prepared for the mystery of Christ, and what was done there prefigured some aspects of Christ:107

Those who lived according to the old order of things have come to a new hope, no longer keeping the sabbath, but the Lord’s Day, in which our life is blessed by him and by his death.108

2176 The celebration of Sunday observes the moral commandment inscribed by nature in the human heart to render to God an outward, visible, public, and regular worship "as a sign of his universal beneficence to all."109 Sunday worship fulfills the moral command of the Old Covenant, taking up its rhythm and spirit in the weekly celebration of the Creator and Redeemer of his people.

The Sunday Eucharist

2177 The Sunday celebration of the Lord’s Day and his Eucharist is at the heart of the Church’s life. "Sunday is the day on which the paschal mystery is celebrated in light of the apostolic tradition and is to be observed as the foremost holy day of obligation in the universal Church."110

"Also to be observed are the day of the Nativity of Our Lord Jesus Christ, the Epiphany, the Ascension of Christ, the feast of the Body and Blood of Christi, the feast of Mary the Mother of God, her Immaculate Conception, her Assumption, the feast of Saint Joseph, the feast of the Apostles Saints Peter and Paul, and the feast of All Saints."111

2178 This practice of the Christian assembly dates from the beginnings of the apostolic age.112 The Letter to the Hebrews reminds the faithful "not to neglect to meet together, as is the habit of some, but to encourage one another."113

Tradition preserves the memory of an ever-timely exhortation: Come to Church early, approach the Lord, and confess your sins, repent in prayer. . . . Be present at the sacred and divine liturgy, conclude its prayer and do not leave before the dismissal. . . . We have often said: "This day is given to you for prayer and rest. This is the day that the Lord has made, let us rejoice and be glad in it."114

2179 "A parish is a definite community of the Christian faithful established on a stable basis within a particular church; the pastoral care of the parish is entrusted to a pastor as its own shepherd under the authority of the diocesan bishop."115 It is the place where all the faithful can be gathered together for the Sunday celebration of the Eucharist. The parish initiates the Christian people into the ordinary expression of the liturgical life: it gathers them together in this celebration; it teaches Christ’s saving doctrine; it practices the charity of the Lord in good works and brotherly love:

You cannot pray at home as at church, where there is a great multitude, where exclamations are cried out to God as from one great heart, and where there is something more: the union of minds, the accord of souls, the bond of charity, the prayers of the priests.116

The Sunday obligation…"

Continues at: scborromeo.org/ccc/p3s2c1a3.htm
 
Maybe it was what my dad used to call ‘admiration time’. After you finish doing something well (and God saw that it was good), don’t you sometimes take a break to admire it?

Okay, I’m anthromorphosizing…
 
just some extra info…

“and He did ‘shaboth’/‘rest’ on the seventh day.”

this is how the verb is used in NAS

שבת shabath (991d)
Meaning: to cease, desist, rest
Origin: a prim. root
Usage:
brought to an end(1),
cease(21), ceased(7), ceases(3),
did away(2),
disappear(1),
do away(1),
eliminate(3),
gone(1),
hear…more(1),
lacking(1),
left you without(1),
made an end(1), make an end(1),
observe(1),
observe the rest(1),
put a stop(3),
put an end(3), puts an end(1),
remove(2), removed(1),
rest(3), rested(3),
silence(1),
stop(2), stopped(1).

here’s the KJV usage

Usage: AV -
cease 47,
rest 11,
away 3,
fail 2,
celebrate 1, misc 7;
71
 
Truly impressed!!! when I put this question to you never expected such marvellous answers.Thank you all sooooooooo much:)
Tam
 
I believe the word ‘rest’ refer to satisfaction achieved once one has accomplished his purpose.
The purpose of God was to Create Man, a creature that had a personal character and therefore could understand love. So he build everything in vision and preparation and laying the ground for Man.

So God rested in a way after accomplishing our creation.
God also rested after accomplishing our salvation. Which is why celebrating the Sabbath on the day of the Lord’s resurrection. In a way, Jesus was restless until he had conquered death and saved his people.

We too are restless until our hearts rest in God. Nothing can satisfy us but God.
 
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