1The heavens, the earth, and all their vast array were finished. 2On the seventh day God finished his work which he had done; and he rested on the seventh day from all his work which he had done. 3God blessed the seventh day, and made it holy, because he rested in it from all his work of creation which he had done.
4This is the history of the generations of the heavens and of the earth when they were created, in the day that Yahweh God made the earth and the heavens. 5No plant of the field was yet in the earth, and no herb of the field had yet sprung up; for Yahweh God had not caused it to rain on the earth. There was not a man to till the ground, 6but a mist went up from the earth, and watered the whole surface of the ground. 7Yahweh God formed man from the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul. 8Yahweh God planted a garden eastward, in Eden, and there he put the man whom he had formed. 9Out of the ground Yahweh God made every tree to grow that is pleasant to the sight, and good for food, including the tree of life in the middle of the garden and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. 10A river went out of Eden to water the garden; and from there it was parted, and became the source of four rivers. 11The name of the first is Pishon: it flows through the whole land of Havilah, where there is gold; 12and the gold of that land is good. Bdellium and onyx stone are also there. 13The name of the second river is Gihon. It is the same river that flows through the whole land of Cush. 14The name of the third river is Hiddekel. This is the one which flows in front of Assyria. The fourth river is the Euphrates. 15Yahweh God took the man, and put him into the garden of Eden to cultivate and keep it. 16Yahweh God commanded the man, saying, “You may freely eat of every tree of the garden; 17but you shall not eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil; for in the day that you eat of it, you will surely die.”
18Yahweh God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make him a helper comparable to him.” 19Out of the ground Yahweh God formed every animal of the field, and every bird of the sky, and brought them to the man to see what he would call them. Whatever the man called every living creature became its name. 20The man gave names to all livestock, and to the birds of the sky, and to every animal of the field; but for man there was not found a helper comparable to him. 21Yahweh God caused the man to fall into a deep sleep. As the man slept, he took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh in its place. 22Yahweh God made a woman from the rib which he had taken from the man, and brought her to the man. 23The man said, “This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh. She will be called ‘woman,’ because she was taken out of Man.” 24Therefore a man will leave his father and his mother, and will join with his wife, and they will be one flesh. 25The man and his wife were both naked, and they were not ashamed.
Many of Jesus' healings were performed on the Sabbath, as in the case of the man at the pool of Bethesda (John 5:9). The strenuous objections of the Jews led to their persecution of Jesus (v. 16), and their plotting to kill Him (v. 18). But why was their concern so extreme?
The practice of setting apart the seventh day for rest and worship originated with God's rest from His work of creating the universe and man (Gen 2:2). It was formalized in the Mosaic Law as a provision for man and requirement for Israel. They were to do no work on the Sabbath (Exod 20:8-11; 35:3). To break the Sabbath was to rebel against God and become guilty of death (Exod 31:14). During the period between the Old and New Testaments, as works-based righteousness became more and more important, the religious leaders of Israel added myriads of detailed rules to Sabbath-keeping in an attempt to clarify what activities violated the Sabbath. Attempts were made to define what constituted forbidden work, such as what foods may be cooked before the Sabbath for consumption on the Sabbath, what animals could wear on the Sabbath, which knots could be tied on the Sabbath and how far one could walk on the Sabbath, among hundreds of other rules. This oral tradition substituted human law for God's law (Matt 15:9). It made Sabbath observance a burden of external rules that defeated its purpose of rest and delight in the Lord (Luke 11:46). The scribes and Pharisees held to the oral tradition of the elders, written down in the Mishnah, and later interpreted and commented upon in the Talmud, as being equally authoritative with God's Word. Jesus kept the Sabbath (Luke 4:16) and, as Lord of the Sabbath, He urged others to do so (Mark 2:28). But He condemned pharisaic Sabbath-abuse, which missed the benevolent purpose of God's provision (Luke 13:10-16; John 7:22, 23).