“For in six days YHWH made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but he rested on the seventh day. Therefore, YHWH blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy”.
Exodus 20:11
Introduction
The Sabbath day was practised and still is practised, by many worshippers of YHWH, ever since God gave Moses the Law on Mt Sinai.
The Sabbath demanded rest from work each seventh day of the week, for the reason that the Sabbath was to be remembered as the sacred day that God had “rested” or ceased from his creative works in the Universe.
There are, however, deeper aspects I have found of the Sabbath, that not too many people pay attention to or are aware of. And it’s these aspects I’ll be writing about today, specifically of the concept regarding a “Universal Sabbath”, a Sabbath of all things.
The Universal Sabbaths
In the Torah, God commanded several kinds of Sabbaths, specifically we see distinctions between Sabbaths for both humans, animals and the land:
- “Six days you shall labour, and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God. On it, you shall not do any work, you, or your son, or your daughter, your male servant, or your female servant, or your livestock, or the sojourner who is within your gates”. – Exodus 20:9-10
- “Speak to the people of Israel, saying, In the seventh month, on the first day of the month, you shall observe a day of solemn rest, a memorial proclaimed with blast of trumpets, a holy convocation“. – Leviticus 23:24
- “For six years you shall sow your land and gather in its yield, but the seventh year you shall leave it alone and let it rest, that the poor of your people may eat; and what they leave the beasts of the field may eat. You shall do likewise with your vineyard, and with your olive orchard”. – Exodus 23:10-11
What I find of note, is that whilst humans were told to have a Sabbath every seven days, we have far longer periods, such as seven month Sabbaths, and even seven year Sabbaths. All of these Sabbaths we’re told are representative of God’s rest day, yet, we see that not all Sabbaths are equal.
There is a perspective hierarchy at play here, that of one concerning of just how long a “day” is.
Considering that humans and animals, that live in the same timeframe and reference to one another, rested every seven days, this then would preclude the notion that the land’s timeframe must be that of a year for a day, given that the land had to have rest from farming every seven years, for one year of length.
This detail, I believe, reveals something quite interesting if we understand the Earth’s years to be its days. And when we examine this concept, we in fact see it in action in many respects when comparing ourselves and our daily routines as individuals, to that of the natural cycles and seasons of the year for the Earth.
Consider for example, a typical daily routine for a human.
We usually wake in the morning, when it is cool and is starting to get a little warmer. By midday, it’s the hottest time of the day with the sun in the center of the sky, and most are busy with their duties, jobs or other responsibilities and continue working throughout that time period. As afternoon comes, things start to get a bit cooler, and some people might begin to slow down somewhat from their work as they get more tired, some cultures even engage in short naps during this part of the day. Finally, through the evening and into the night, people cease work, and eventually go to sleep during the coldest part of the 24 hours.
When it comes to the Earth itself, and it’s “day”, that being, a year, we see the same thing with its seasons, plants, and wildlife.
The springtime, isn’t the hottest, but it isn’t the coldest either, and slowly parts of nature begin to wake up, plants begin to arise, the green on the leaves come about, and some insects may be seen occasionally. By summer time, the middle of the year, it is the hottest, animals are busy in mating, work and play, many insects such as ants and bees are foraging or pollinating, trees and flowers are flourishing. By autumn, the Earth begins to cool off again, and many plants begin to go to sleep, leaves go brown, plants and insects begin to quiet down, until eventually winter arrives, the trees are bare, most wildlife goes into sleep or hibernation, and the temperature drops to the coldest part of the year.
Meanwhile however, some humans work at night and sleep in the day. Likewise, the Earth is not totally dead in its winters, but is active in other ways, and some of its wildlife nocturnal, or active in colder months. Our bodies are the same. When we sleep, other functions and brain activity happens, which doesn’t whilst we’re awake.
The parallels between the day of a being that lives in the 24 hour cycle, and the “day” (year) of the planet’s orbit, are undeniable. Both humans and the Earth, wake in the cool morning, work hard in the heat of middday, slow down in the afternoon, and sleep at night. And this wisdom is revealed in scripture, a secret detail of the Sabbath. And we see similar notions of spiritual perceptions of time in prophesies which use “day for a year” calculations (Numbers 14:34, Ezekiel 4:6).
This gives us a message that all of the Universe by design is intelligently interconnected, consistent, law-bound. Just as we are bodies, so are the planets their own bodies. Ecosystems within ecosystems. Who knows whether the entire solar system doesn’t have its own parallel cycles, the Milky Way galaxy, everything, on and on, in ways we have yet to observe simply because humans have not lived long enough to witness such cycles? As a day to the Earth is a year to humanity, is so the day of a solar system a year to the Earth’s perspective and so on the further it goes?
Furthermore, as Sabbaths are all relative, this gives us insight that the creation periods of Genesis and God’s rest on that seventh day, also do not need to be understood in a literal 24 hour perception.
I can’t help but be reminded of Peter’s words, which poetically echoes such similar sentiments in a manner we can grasp of God’s eternal nature and his relative perspective:
- “But do not overlook this one fact, beloved, that with the Lord (YHWH) one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day“. – 2 Peter 3:8
But I believe it doesn’t stop there, I believe this is a reflection of even higher things. Spiritual things.
Higher Realities
Humans specifically, are uniquely made in the “image of God”, his “likeness” (Genesis 1:27), but yet the entire creation is an expression of God’s will and artistry, it all tells us something about him, in accordance with scripture:
- “Indeed, His invisible qualities can be seen in everything that He’s made since the creation of the cosmos. And when they understand these things that clearly demonstrate His eternal power and might, it leaves them without any excuse!”. – Romans 1:20
- “The heavens describe the glory of God, and the firmament speaks of things that He’s made with His hands”. – Psalm 19:1
We are told that the Sabbath rest was commanded because it was a reflection of “God’s own rest”. This Sabbath applying to humans, animals, and the land itself, tells us God can be seen in ‘everything’, as all of it was to reflect God’s own rest. If then humans are made in the image of God, and the Sabbath tells us that Earth is in a sense like the body of a human, and all things in the Universe indeed reflect some deeper or higher truth of God himself, what is there to learn from it all?
Beyond just the power of God, I believe the “imagery”, the “likeness”, reveals things, that easily pass us by. Things in relation even to God’s very holiness, the nature of sin, and God’s fundamental nature in that he cannot abide it.
If the Earth and in turn the Universe, is to be understood to be likened to a human or animal body, then it would expected to behave like one in all kinds of similar ways.
Our bodies all have immune systems that fight off illness, kidneys that detoxify most of the food and drink we ingest, and so on, things that threaten or contaminate us are typically destroyed or ejected out of the body. This doesn’t just speak of the “original perfect design” of God in wanting us to be well and healthy before mankind became corrupted by sin, but in my mind, this also may speak of the divine nature in part of all things he has created, and the ‘fall’ we have all experienced since the ancient beginning, in relation to himself, and why sin has been destroying mankind, and indeed, nature, since the time Adam sinned.
It’s not only our bodies, but this world, that has been damaged by sin, and all the creation awaits redemption (Romans 8:23). The world, especially today, has been physically polluted by us, and it’s we who are responsible for increasing global warming which affects our weather patterns and contributes to rising sea levels, we have plastic pollution in our water which negatively impacts sea life as well as ourselves, air pollution with our carbon emissions and gasses, forest fires, and we even cause seismic activity with our mining which causes more frequent earthquakes.
In a sense, the human race has become a disease, a cancer upon the Earth, and the Earth, like a living organism, is reacting, it’s for lack of better words “angered” and sick, and in my view is likened to be a body flushing us out to rid itself of an illness. The more we do to harm the Earth, the more the Earth’s ecosystem reacts in kind as we damage it, and in a sense a poetic justice comes upon selfish humans who couldn’t care less about the damage they cause.
We even see for example, one of the results of the Edenic fall was the curse upon the land, and from the post-flood era was the inevitable fear and agression of the animal kingdom toward humanity, but we also read how God’s prophets foretell that such a thing will not be permanent once his Kingdom and righteousness takes back full control of the Universe (Genesis 3:17-18, 4:11-12, 9:2, Isaiah 11:8, Isaiah 65:25).
I can’t help but be reminded of God’s words to Job speaking of sinners shook from the Earth, his warnings to Moses of some of the even more extreme consequences of Israel breaking his Covenant where his presence dwelt in his Holy Land, as well as of the curses that came upon lawless Assyrians there, and likewise the message given to Apostle John concerning the whole Earth:
- “[Can you] grab the edges of the earth, and shake off all the ungodly?”. – Job 38:13
- “….and cursed shall you be in the field…. Cursed shall be the fruit of your womb and the fruit of your ground…. YHWH will make the pestilence stick to you until he has consumed you off the land that you are entering to take possession of it. YHWH will strike you with wasting disease and with fever, inflammation and fiery heat, and with drought and with blight and with mildew. They shall pursue you until you perish. And the sky over your head shall be bronze, and the earth under you shall be iron. YHWH will make the rain of your land powder. From heaven (or the sky) dust shall come down on you until you are destroyed…. You shall carry much seed into the field and shall gather in little, for the locust shall consume it. You shall plant vineyards and dress them, but you shall neither drink of the wine nor gather the grapes, for the worm shall eat them. You shall have olive trees throughout all your territory, but you shall not anoint yourself with the oil, for your olives shall drop off…. The cricket shall possess all your trees and the fruit of your ground“. – Deuteronomy 28:16-18, 21-24, 38-40, 42
- “So the king of Assyria was told; ‘The nations that you have carried away and placed in the cities of Samaria do not know the law of the god of the land. Therefore he has sent lions among them, and behold, they are killing them, because they do not know the law of the god of the land‘”. – 2 Kings 17:26
- “Yes, this made the nations angry, but [the time for] Your rage has arrived when the dead will be judged, when Your slaves (the Prophets, the Holy Ones, and those who fear Your Name – the small and the great) will be rewarded, and when those who are corrupting (or destroying) the earth will be thoroughly corrupted (or destroyed)“. – Revelation 11:18
We see how God describes “shaking evil people off the Earth”, and this imagery is akin to something like an earthquake. We see those who sin are attacked by nature itself. And we also see that the evil people who are corrupting and destroying the Earth, are themselves also being corrupted and destroyed – eventually permanently at the final judgement. But in this sense, one might say God uses the Earth itself to punish the wicked, as has so often been depicted throughout scripture, his use of the elements, weather, plagues, animal infestations, and so on.
Of course, this is not to say all natural disasters like bad weather and earthquakes are directly caused by God, and what is typical is that he usually tells the people of such things if he is directly responsible for the action. And we should also not forget that in this fallen word, Satan also has much influence over it (1 John 5:19). However, the point here is, as the Universe is made by God, designed by God, and reflects God’s qualities, we can reason that it is natural that if we do evil to the Earth, then we will suffer consequences of such actions, and the Earth in a sense, by natural design, tries to defend itself against or punishes the things that causes such harm to it, we in this respect, “reap what we sow” (Galatians 6:7).
In a deeper spiritual sense, as sinners, under Adam’s lineage and inheritence, we inherit from him a state of “spiritual disease”, something that is against the natural divine order of things.
As God has made all things, then it means in ‘some sense’ everything has divine origins, and is of God’s power, containing or reflecting a divine quality. Not to imply that, all of the Universe is God, or that we all some “part of God”, as he is afterall, far above his finite creations (1 Kings 8:27). But if all things are of “divine origin”, then naturally, sin, which is against God’s will and nature, could be reasoned to be a sickness in which God’s own “immune system” so to speak, his perfect holiness, cannot abide, and thus ejects and of course, even destroys, and thus could explain in part, why sin has caused so much sickness, pain, disease and death in the natural world we live in – it being the consequences we suffer as this divinely made Universe treats us like a virus to be eliminated. But the even greater meaning, is that this in part is why we become condemned by sin and die, because God himself and his nature cannot withstand sin, and his essence treats it like a disease to be purged.
I am led to paying attention to various verses in this respect, where for example Moses was unable to look directly upon God’s face without dying, and when anyone directly touched the Ark of the Covenant in which God’s holy power and essence resided, they would be struck down (Exodus 33:20, 2 Samuel 6:6-7).
I do not believe that these were just arbitrary commands or actions, but rather, were natural consequences of what happens to sinful mortals, who look directly into or touch Absolute holiness. If sin is a spiritual disease, and God is eternal righteousness that cannot abide sin by nature, then when these two forces meet, only one of them will be left standing – God’s “body” of essence, which is all good, all perfect and all just, consuming and destroying sin, like an all powerful all divine “immune system” which doesn’t let any hint of spiritual disease or evil survive.
Is it afterall, just for show, for the sake of it, that the Levites, the priests of God’s Temple had to ritually wash themselves of any dirt or defilement in water before entering into the Holy and Most Holy compartments? (Exodus 30:17-21). Or that there were several states of “unncleaness” in the Torah, which required the people to bath to be both physically and ceremonially clean? (Numbers 19:13-22, Leviticus 12-15)
If entering the Holy compartments of the Temple in a physically unclean state, the priests were warned by God that they would be struck down, and we do well to pay attention to the ‘spiritual’ meaning of this. God wasn’t just angry with people who had a bit of dirt on them, but it’s a symbol of spiritual cleanness, to be free of sin, pure, that is the deeper significance, and this was always understood by the ancient Hebrews.
But for us today and the advanced knowledge we have, there is even further significance to this in that we should understand that if our physical bodies are unclean, we can become sick, and that sickness then has to be purged – hence, this further explains why uncleaness, as well as disease and deformity (Leviticus 21:18-21), could not ceremonially enter into God’s presence, because in a greater spiritual sense, spiritual sickness, sin, is something God’s nature cannot withstand.
In the same way, this symbolism is carried over into the New Covenant, the Christian faith. Paul tells us, sin grieves the spirit of God (Ephesians 4:30)
When we baptise ourselves in water with faith in Yeshua, we are engaging in a form of a symbolic purification ritual, a “Tevilah”, in which we are “washing away the dirt of our sins”.
- “And this water symbolises the immersion that now saves you also—not the removal of dirt from the body, but the pledge of a clear conscience toward God—through the resurrection of Yeshua the Anointed” – 1 Peter 3:21
- “And now why do you wait? Get up and be immersed and wash away your sins, calling on his name!“. – Acts 22:16
All death, disease and sickness we suffer, has its origins in sin, and this infection has come from our Adamic inheritance, the first man who sinned against God and ‘chose’ to become diseased with sin, through which we have all become sinners, even those who have not sinned against any laws:
- “Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all people, because all sinned—To be sure, sin was in the world before the law was given, but sin is not charged against anyone’s account where there is no law. Nevertheless, death reigned from the time of Adam to the time of Moses, even over those who did not sin by breaking a command, as did Adam, who is a pattern of the one to come.” – Romans 5:12-14
- “Our sins are washed away and we are made clean because the Anointed One gave his own body as a gift to God. He did this once for all time” – Hebrews 10:10
We all therefore, through means of the Lord Yeshua, need to be “symbolically washed clean” in baptism, so that the “dirt” we have, which is the cause of disease, can be purged from us. And that only being through the sacrifice Yeshua paid, as ransom payment for Adam and satisfying God’s justice which is a part of his divine holy nature, so that in a sense, Yeshua can act as our “antivirus”, so that we can recieve God’s spirit and restitution back into his divine family.
Through this, we finally can have true Sabbath rest, rest in him (Luke 6:5, Matthew 11:27-28, Hebrews 4:1-5, 10-11) and in that respect, we rejoin God in his eternal rest, his perfection, the “original completeness” when all things were “good” (Genesis 1:31, 2:1-3), which has been so long symbolised throughout the Law for thousands of years, and all of us, becoming one unified family, one body by and in the Anointed One, no longer seperated or purged.
Conclusion
The Sabbath, we can see, has multiple layers to it. It was a symbol of God’s rest from creation, a symbol of the “completelness” of it, its perfection.
We see that Sabbaths were always relative to the being or object it was applied to, and because not all Sabbaths are equal in this respect, God’s own Sabbath is something far beyond a simplistic day of a 24 hour or 1000 year rest that he had.
We see that, the depths of the Sabbaths, reveal to us that the Earth itself, and its seasons, parallel all life forms and their daily routines on this planet. In turn, the entire creation is an artistic expression of God, his nature, with humanity as the ‘ultimate’ image of God, which is charged with custody over the rest, just as God is the caretaker of us.
The very depths of the “bodies” of the Universe and their parallels, their survival mechanisms, and their fight against disease, also might just reveal something of a divine quality, of God himself also eliminating the disease of our sins, his perfect nature being unable to abide it which is why our sin is so death dealing and condemning, and yet him also giving us a cure for it, through the means of our Saviour Yeshua.
Just as the Earth reacts violently and eliminates “disease” to it, and our own bodies seek to eliminate disease, perhaps God’s divine nature also, eliminates “disease”. But if we are all but consumed by disease, then we too would be eliminated ‘as’ disease, that disease being unrepentant and unpaid sin.
Whilst the ancient writers didn’t have an understanding of the nature of disease or the immune system like we do via scientific advancement, it ‘is’ something that is a part of God’s design, and in that respect should be considered to be part of his “invisible qualities”, and such foreknowlege of cleanliness, even without full knowledge of the details of the immune system and sickness, is present in the scriptures in ways that are both scientifically advanced for its time, but more so, as a deeper spiritual secret for us to ponder on.
All of this can be seen in the nature of the relative Sabbaths of man, animal and earth, which tell us that Universe itself is like an organism and is to be treated as one with respect, and that this very layered nature of the Universe which reveals not only his universal designs and laws, but God’s qualities, and might just be hinting toward the divine nature, the disease of sin, and the “rest” we all need from it, to be able to rest with God again, as one family, free of our sickness and the “work” of the Law which had been condemning all humanity.
The Universal Sabbath is a message that it is not just us, but ‘everything’ needs reconciliation to God.
In order that we can be made to be “good” again, as it was in the Beginning, we need to be able to rejoin that period in which everything was “made to be good”, the age of God’s original rest, his Sabbath, and that rest is entered by means of his Son; the payment, the sacrifice, the mediator, and the “cure”.
In this, may we all have eternal “Shabbat Shalom”.
Proselyte of Yah 