Rest

Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days shalt thou labour, and do all thy work: But the seventh day is the sabbath of the LORD thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy manservant, nor thy maidservant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates: 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.

The sabbath command as it stands in the Ten Commandments. It stops the work of a whole household at once: son, daughter, manservant, maidservant, livestock, and the foreigner inside the gates. Nobody in the house rests by keeping somebody else at work.

Keep the sabbath day to sanctify it, as the LORD thy God hath commanded thee. Six days thou shalt labour, and do all thy work: But the seventh day is the sabbath of the LORD thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, nor thy manservant, nor thy maidservant, nor thine ox, nor thine ass, nor any of thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates; that thy manservant and thy maidservant may rest as well as thou. And remember that thou wast a servant in the land of Egypt, and that the LORD thy God brought thee out thence through a mighty hand and by a stretched out arm: therefore the LORD thy God commanded thee to keep the sabbath day.

Deuteronomy repeats the command with a different reason attached. Not creation this time but slavery: Israel was worked without rest in Egypt, and the day exists so the servant rests as well as the master. Labour law with a memory behind it.

And six years thou shalt sow thy land, and shalt gather in the fruits thereof: But the seventh year thou shalt let it rest and lie still; that the poor of thy people may eat: and what they leave the beasts of the field shall eat. In like manner thou shalt deal with thy vineyard, and with thy oliveyard. Six days thou shalt do thy work, and on the seventh day thou shalt rest: that thine ox and thine ass may rest, and the son of thy handmaid, and the stranger, may be refreshed.

Two rests in three verses. The field is left unsown every seventh year so the poor and the wild animals eat what grows there, and the seventh day is off so the ox, the donkey, the servant's child and the resident foreigner are refreshed.

Six years thou shalt sow thy field, and six years thou shalt prune thy vineyard, and gather in the fruit thereof; But in the seventh year shall be a sabbath of rest unto the land, a sabbath for the LORD: thou shalt neither sow thy field, nor prune thy vineyard. That which groweth of its own accord of thy harvest thou shalt not reap, neither gather the grapes of thy vine undressed: for it is a year of rest unto the land.

The land itself is given a sabbath year: no sowing, no pruning, no harvest gathered in. Rest here is not a mood but an economic arrangement, and a year's income is the price of keeping it.

And as he lay and slept under a juniper tree, behold, then an angel touched him, and said unto him, Arise and eat. And he looked, and, behold, there was a cake baken on the coals, and a cruse of water at his head. And he did eat and drink, and laid him down again. And the angel of the LORD came again the second time, and touched him, and said, Arise and eat; because the journey is too great for thee. And he arose, and did eat and drink, and went in the strength of that meat forty days and forty nights unto Horeb the mount of God.

Elijah, exhausted and asking to die, is neither corrected nor handed a task. An angel wakes him twice, feeds him, and lets him sleep in between. Only after food and sleep does anything else get said to him.

It is vain for you to rise up early, to sit up late, to eat the bread of sorrows: for so he giveth his beloved sleep.

A line about overwork: rising early, sitting up late, eating the bread of sorrows. The psalm calls that vain and speaks of sleep as something given. It is an observation about strain, not a guarantee that sleep always comes.

And he said unto them, The sabbath was made for man, and not man for the sabbath: Therefore the Son of man is Lord also of the sabbath.

Jesus answers a dispute about disciples picking grain on the sabbath by saying the sabbath was made for man, not man for the sabbath. The day exists to serve the people keeping it, not the other way round.

And he said unto them, Come ye yourselves apart into a desert place, and rest a while: for there were many coming and going, and they had no leisure so much as to eat.

The disciples come back from a preaching tour into crowds arriving and leaving so constantly that they have not eaten. He takes them away to a quiet place to rest. In the event the crowd follows on foot and the rest is interrupted.

Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.

The invitation to all who labour and are heavy laden. What is offered is a yoke rather than the absence of one: a lighter load under a different master, described as rest for the soul, not release from work.