QUOTE“So once [the fall] happened, we go to Genesis 3, and all of a sudden the ground that was the source of humanity’s life as a gift from God—‘cursed is the ground because of you.’ So all of a sudden, we’ve lost the seventh-day ideal and not attained it.”KEY TAKEAWAYSAfter the fall, there was a change in the fundamental nature of humanity’s work. Before the fall, it was enjoyable by default. After the fall, work becomes a task done for survival.God calls Abraham in Genesis 12 with a seven line poem. This is a symbolic use of the number seven and meant to tie in with the Genesis creation narrative.In Genesis 2:15 a keyword is introduced to the story. That word is nuakh, “rested him” (וינחהו / nuakh) and it is meant to portray an act of full abiding residence. Humanity was meant to be fully present and abide in the garden that God created.SHOW NOTESWelcome to episode three in our series on the theme of the seventh-day rest in the Bible.In part 1 (0-21:45), Tim comments on Genesis 2:15.Genesis 2:15Then the Lord God took the human and ‘rested him’ (וינחהו / nuakh) into the garden of Eden to work it and keep it.God “rests” the human in the garden so that he can “work” it. Tim notes that this is the first appearance of the Hebrew word nuakh in the Bible. This becomes an important word in the theme of seventh-day rest. Tim says that this word can be understood as “to dwell,” or “to abide and rest in.” Humanity is to be fully present in the garden (Heb. nuakh = “to take up residence”).Tim also says that this abiding rest is conditional. Will humans obey God and not take of the tree of the knowledge of good and bad? Answer: no. So what happens? Humanity rebels and is exiled from the heaven and earth Eden mountain, sent to “work/labor” the ground.Genesis 3:17-19Cursed is the ground because of you;through painful toil you will eat food from itall the days of your life.It will produce thorns and thistles for you,and you will eat the plants of the field.By the sweat of your browyou will eat your fooduntil you return to the ground,since from it you were taken;for dust you areand to dust you will return.Tim says that this is a change in the nature of our work. The work is no longer enjoyable by default; instead, work becomes a task done for survival.In part 2 (21:45-33:20), Jon asks how this idea fits with God’s call for humanity to tend and maintain the garden. Wouldn’t ruling and subduing creation take work?Tim responds by talking about two different types of work. Humanity was created to work, but the original work they were destined for was fundamentally different from the post-fall, post-eden work. Tim quotes from Abraham Joshua Heschel, a famous 20th century Jewish rabbi and his book The Sabbath.“We are all infatuated with the splendor of space and the grandeur of the things of space. Thing is a category that lays heavy on our mind, tyrannizing all our thoughts. In our daily lives we attend primarily to that which are senses are spelling out for us. Reality to us is thinghood, consisting of substances that occupy space. Even God is perceived by most of us as a thing. The result of our thinginess is a blindness to all realities that fail to identify itself as a thing. This is obvious in our understanding of time, which being thingless and unsubstantial appears to us as having no reality. Indeed we know what to do with space but do not know what to do with time, except to make it subservient to space. Most of us seem to labor for the sake of things of space. As a result we suffer from a deeply rooted dread of time and stand aghast when compelled to look into its face. Time to us is sarcasm. A slick treacherous monster with a jaw like a furnace incinerating every moment of our lives. Shrinking therefore from facing time, we escape for shelter to things of space.” (Abraham Joshua Heschel, The Sabbath, prologue)In part 3 (33:20-40:45), Tim focuses on Psalm 90.Lord, you have been our dwelling placein all generations.Before the mountains we