Stop! In the Name of Love
“Come to me all you who are weary and heavy laden and I will give you rest.” Are you burnt out? Exhausted? Tired of being so tired, and ashamed at not being able to energize yourself again? How sweet are Jesus’ words to the one who is ready to hear them. Over this past year, I have found myself in this position more often than I am pleased to admit. “How?” is a question that I have often asked God, looking in vain for some sort of technique, routine, or mindset that would enable me to experience the rest that I craved. But what I have found is that rest is not something that we can get or make for ourselves; it is something that we must receive, and then share with others.
The concept of rest comes up frequently in the Bible. God rests after creating the universe (Genesis 2:2), and then He makes the first people to rest in the garden of Eden (Genesis 2:15). Later on, God commands the Israelites to rest every seven days (Exodus 23:12). Finally, Jesus promises to give rest to anyone who would come to Him (Matthew 11:28). Each of these verses mentions rest. In English this appears as a single concept, expressed by a single word. But under the surface lies a variety of Hebrew and Greek words, each with their own nuance.
The two most significant of these words for rest in the Old Testament are the verbs šāḇaṯ (shaBAT) and nûaḥ (NOOakh). These words are not used interchangeably in Scripture. The word šāḇaṯ appears in Genesis 2:2 when God “rested on the seventh day from all His work that He had done.” The interesting thing about šāḇaṯ as it appears here is that it is transitive. God doesn’t simply rest, He rests from, and what He rests from is His work. More specifically then, šāḇaṯ means to cease, to desist, to rest,[1] and it carries with it a sense of finishing and setting aside. Alternate translations of this passage could read, “on the seventh day, He ceased from all His work that He had done.” In contrast to šāḇaṯ, nûaḥ means to rest, to settle down and remain, to repose, to have rest, to be quiet.[2] In Genesis 2:15, “The LORD God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and keep it.” The word translated “put” is actually a causative form of nûaḥ meaning that God made or caused the man to nûaḥ in the garden. This verse could also be translated, “God then took the man and made him to have rest in the garden.” This second kind of rest, this settling down to remain, is the kind of rest that we long for, because it is the kind of rest that we were made for.
A final passage, Exodus 23:12 shows us how these two verbs relate to one another: “For six days you shall do your work, but on the seventh day you shall šāḇaṯ; that your ox and your donkey may have nûaḥ, and the son of your servant woman, and the alien, may be refreshed.” There are two points worth noting here. The first is that the purpose of this command to šāḇaṯ is not for the sake of the Israelites alone, but for the sake of those who are dependent on them.[3] The second point, which follows from the first, is that the ability of these animals and people to nûaḥ depends on the willingness of those who have authority over them to šāḇaṯ.
According to this dynamic of pause and rest, it is not possible to procure for ourselves the rest and refreshment that we need in order to live and flourish. Every college student understands this dilemma. Regardless of what measures they take to keep their lives balanced, they will inevitably experience stress and pressure all semester long until they hand in their final exam. Only then will they feel that sudden rush of freedom and release that is the experience of nûaḥ. Why? Because that is the moment their professors šāḇaṯ and cease from giving more assignments.
The reality of this dynamic ought to affect us in two ways. First of all, it ought to liberate us from trying to get nûaḥ for ourselves by either working harder to try and get ahead out from under the demands upon us or somehow insulating ourselves from feeling their weight. Instead, we ought to direct our efforts towards the end of giving nûaḥ to those around us. Returning to Genesis 2:15, we see that God made the man nûaḥ in order to work and keep the garden. The essence of this original work, which Exodus 23:12 expresses in more detail, is at its heart the work of sharing all of the blessings–including nûaḥ–that God has given to us with others, so that the whole of His creation might come to enjoy and worship God.[4]
The precondition for our being able to give nûaḥ to others, then, is having received it ourselves. This raises the question of how we, who are frequently “weary and heavy laden” can possibly have any nûaḥ to give to anyone. Indeed, it is entirely likely that at any given moment, our parents or bosses or professors and their relentless demands will deprive us of the nûaḥ we need.[5] But ultimately, there is a God to whom all of us answer, and He is not like that. He is a God who rested (šāḇaṯ) in Eden on the seventh day of creation and who also rested in the tomb where He was preparing the new creation. The true God šāḇaṯ because He knows that we depend on Him for nûaḥ. He šāḇaṯ because He loves us.
So where does our help come from? Who is the one who can give us rest? While the gods of this world incessantly demand from us more toil, Jesus has already finished His work and is now seated at the right hand of God, bidding us to follow and come to Him. That is our God, whom we serve–and no other. That is our God who loved us enough to šāḇaṯ for our sake. So may this same love also compel us, the people of God in whom His Spirit dwells, to šāḇaṯ from our work, whatever it may be, for the sake of our children, our spouses, our employees, our students–for the sake of all those whose nûaḥ is in our hands.
[1] https://www.blueletterbible.org/lexicon/h7673/rsv/wlc/0-1/
[2] https://www.blueletterbible.org/lexicon/h5117/rsv/wlc/0-1/
[3] The immediate context for this passage is that God has delivered the people of Israel from slavery in Egypt, where they were constantly oppressed and put to hard labor. Now He is leading them on a trek through the wilderness to a land in which He will give them the nûaḥ that had been denied to them. But before they get there, God wants to make sure that they don’t become tyrants who enslave their dependents in the same way that Pharaoh had previously enslaved them.
[4] The eventual exile of the Israelites from the land of Canaan adds further evidence that this ultimate purpose for God’s people is of paramount importance. See Leviticus 26:34-35 and 2 Chronicles 36:21 which make clear that the reason for Israel’s exile lies in the fact that God is also faithful to provide for the land, and the animals and other people within it. Israel’s refusal to šāḇaṯ denied these the nûaḥ that God desired to give them, and so Israel was sent into exile so that the land might have its rest.
[5] Old Testament scholar Walter Brueggemann wrote a short book called Sabbath as Resistance, in which he points out the connection between Pharaoh's idolatry and Israel's lack of rest. In Pharaoh's world, the king could secure divinity by pleasing the existing gods, which in turn required the building of monuments, which in turn required slave labor. Since Pharaoh's gods never ceased demanding of him–or at least since he could never be sure if he had reached the required threshold—he could never cease demanding of those beneath him. Ultimately, however, the true God intervened for His people and gave them their rest in another manner. See Walter Brueggemann, Sabbath as Resistance (Westminster John Knox Press: Louisville, Kentucky, 2014), Ch. 1.
