Shabbat: A Glimpse of Eternity – Returning to God’s Rhythm for Mankind

I want to dispel a myth that millions of Christians believe: Shabbat didn’t begin at Sinai. It didn’t start with Moses, and it isn’t a Jewish tradition.

Before there were nations, before there was sin, before there was even a covenant—there was Shabbat. Holy, divine rest. A day blessed and set apart by God. A sanctuary in time for mankind.

That is what Shabbat is. It’s not just a day to avoid work. It’s not legalism, and it’s not just tradition.

It’s a shadow of Eden. A foretaste of eternity. Shabbat is the first moed, God’s appointed time—given to all creation.

Over the centuries, that picture has been distorted. The early church, in an effort to distance itself from Jewish roots, turned its back on the seventh-day Sabbath. It replaced what God had established with Sunday observance created by man. Not by the command of Yeshua. Not by apostolic decree. But through anti-Jewish sentiment and the authority of man. And in doing so, we lost something precious. We lost the very rhythm God wrote into creation to bring us back to Him week after week.

But the story doesn’t end there.

I believe God is restoring all things—including His appointed times. He is calling His people back to the ancient paths. Back to the rhythm of rest. Back to the covenant of peace. As Isaiah 66 says, from one new moon to another and from one Shabbat to another, all flesh will come to worship before the Lord. Shabbat is not done away with—it’s eternal.

This blog post is a tiny glympse of two years of my research to prepare for my Master’s thesis in Biblical Studies. Shabbat has been one of the greatest gifts of God in my life and one that helped me aligned my life to His rhythm for mankind.

So today, I invite you to see Shabbat not as a command to be obeyed out of duty—but as a gift to receive—a weekly taste of eternity.

1. Shabbat in the Garden: Eternal Before the Fall

But to truly understand the depth of Shabbat, we have to go back to the beginning. Back to the Garden of Eden. Before there was Israel, before the tablets of stone and commandments were given, there was Shabbat.

Let’s open the Word together to Genesis 2:1–3.

“So the heavens and the earth were completed along with their entire array. God completed—on the seventh day—His work that He made, and He ceased—on the seventh day—from all His work that He made. Then God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it, for on it He ceased from all His work that God created for the purpose of preparing.”

This wasn’t a commandment given to a nation. This was a divine rhythm established at the very foundation of the world for all mankind. On the seventh day, God did something He didn’t do on any of the other six days—He blessed it and sanctified it.

He didn’t bless the first day, or the fourth, or even the sixth—though those were all good, and the third day was called good twice! But the seventh-day… He blessed the seventh. He didn’t just call it good. He called it holy. Why? Because it was the day He ceased/rested from completing the creation of all things. The Hebrew word there, shavat, means more than just “He stopped”—it means He entered into rest.

Shabbat was the atmosphere of Eden. It was a time of peace, presence, provision, and pure fellowship with God. Adam and Eve walked and talked with God panim al panim (face-to-face) The seventh day was life under God’s blessing. As Rich Robinson, author of Christ in the Sabbath, puts it beautifully, “The seventh day was life lived under God’s blessing.”

This was God’s design from the very beginning—that we would live in a rhythm of work and rest, of creativity and communion, not out of exhaustion, but out of intimacy. Shabbat wasn’t a recovery day—it was a relational day. It was time set apart to be with our Creator in the fullness of His joy and rest.

So before we ever talk about Sabbath as law, we must first recognize Shabbat as gift. As grace. As God’s original intention for humanity. Before sin entered the world, rest entered the world. Shabbat wasn’t given because we were tired—it was given because He delighted in us.

2. Sin Disrupted the Eternal Rest—but God Gave Us a Weekly Glimpse

In the Garden, everything was as it should be – as God had created it for eternity!

Shabbat wasn’t just a day of rest—it was life under God’s blessing. There was no fear, no sickness, no striving, no separation from God. Can you imagine what it would feel like to live 24/7 in the presence of the Only True God, the Creator of Heaven and Earth?

Adam and Eve had everything they needed! They had peace. They had a perfect relationship with God. They had purpose and an abundance of provisions. Everything God created was good, and it was all theirs to enjoy.

But sin changed everything.

When Adam and Eve disobeyed God, they lost the safety, the peace, and the abundance of Eden. They lost access to God’s presence. What was once a life of joy and blessing, became a life of fear, shame, hard labor, and separation.

From that moment on, mankind has been searching for peace. Searching for meaning. Searching for rest to fulfill the empty void that sin left inside us. We work and strive and stress and worry. We fear lack. We live disconnected from the rhythm God gave us. That’s the consequence of sin.

And we all here know that God is the only one that can fulfill that void – nothing else! Drinking, drugs, and pornography won’t bring you peace, security, and love. Only God can!

But God, in His mercy, loved us so much that He didn’t take Shabbat completely away.

Even after the fall, even after exile from the Garden, God left us with a reminder. He gave us a weekly taste of what we lost—and a promise of what’s coming. Shabbat is a gift of mercy. A sign that God still wanted a relationship with us. That He still wanted us to enter into His rest, His presence.

In Exodus 16, we see this clearly. Before the Ten Commandments, before Sinai, while Israel was still wandering in the wilderness, God gave them manna. But on the sixth day, He gave them a double portion. Why? Because on the seventh day, they were to rest. No gathering. No striving. No fear of lack. Just trust and rest.

Shabbat didn’t begin at Sinai—it was remembered there.

How can you remember something you never knew?

God was restoring His rhythm to His people. He was teaching them again how to trust, how to rest, and how to walk with Him. He was giving them a weekly invitation to stop, breathe, and remember who He is.

And He still is.

Even now, in the middle of our busy, noisy, stressed-out world, God offers us the same invitation: “Come. Rest. Be still. Remember Me.”

Shabbat is a gift. It’s a glimpse of what we were created for—and what will one day be fully restored.

3. Shabbat as a Moed: God’s Appointed Time

1Then Adonai spoke to Moses saying: 2“Speak to Bnei-Yisrael, and tell them: These are the appointed moadim of Adonai, which you are to proclaim to be holy convocations—My moadim.

3“Work may be done for six days, but the seventh day is a Shabbat of solemn rest, a holy convocation. You are to do no work—it is a Shabbat to Adonai in all your dwellings.

The giving of the manna was more than provision—it was a glimpse of Eden. God Himself provided for His children, just like He did in the Garden. They didn’t have to earn it. They didn’t have to strive. He gave them what they needed, and He gave them rest.

That’s what Shabbat is meant to be—God’s provision and presence, wrapped together in time.

In Leviticus 23:1–3, God says something powerful. He doesn’t just say, “These are your Sabbaths.” He says, “These are My appointed times.”

The Hebrew word used here is moed (מוֹעֵד), which means an appointed time or meeting. In other words, Shabbat is not just a day off—it’s an appointment with God. A holy convocation. A sacred gathering.

And did you notice? Shabbat is listed first—even before the feasts, even before Passover or Yom Kippur. Why? Because it is foundational. Shabbat is the pattern that all of God’s moedim are built on.

It’s like God marked this day on His calendar every week and said, “I’ll be here. Will you meet Me?”

Shabbat isn’t our offering to God. It’s His invitation to us.

Abraham Joshua Heschel said, “The Sabbath is a sanctuary in time.” That means even if the world around us is chaos—even if we’re in the middle of trials—we can step into Shabbat and find shelter.

It’s not just a day—it’s a place of refuge. A holy pause where we remember who we are, and who He is.

Shabbat reminds us that we’re not slaves to our work, to our schedule, or to the culture around us. We are children of the King, and He has set a table for us every seventh day. Leviticus 23:1–3

When God introduces the feasts in Leviticus 23, He begins not with Passover, not with Sukkot—but with Shabbat.

“Then Adonai spoke to Moses, saying: ‘Speak to Bnei-Yisrael, and tell them: These are the appointed moadim of Adonai, which you are to proclaim to be holy convocations—My moadim. Work may be done for six days, but the seventh day is a Shabbat of solemn rest, a holy convocation. You are to do no work—it is a Shabbat to Adonai in all your dwellings.’”
—Leviticus 23:1–3

Shabbat is the first of God’s appointed times. The Hebrew word here is moed (מוֹעֵד), which means a fixed appointment—a scheduled meeting between God and His people. This shows us that Shabbat is not man’s idea. It’s not just a cultural tradition. It’s God’s invitation. He set it apart. He declared it holy. He appointed it as His time with us.

Abraham Heschel captures this beautifully when he writes: “The Sabbath is a sanctuary in time.”

We often think of holiness as something tied to space—a building, a place, a location. But Shabbat reminds us that God sanctifies time. It’s not about going somewhere to meet with Him—it’s about stopping. It’s about entering into His rhythm, His rest, His presence—wherever we are.

Heschel also said,

“The meaning of the Sabbath is to celebrate time rather than space… to turn from the results of creation to the mystery of creation.”

In other words, Shabbat is not about what we can do—it’s about who He is and what He has already done. It’s a time to step away from striving and to enter into wonder. To stop producing and start being. To stop running and start resting.

It’s a holy convocation. A weekly meeting where God says,

“I’ll be here. Will you come meet with Me?”

Shabbat reminds us that He desires relationship, not performance. It’s not a burden—it’s a blessing. It’s not about restriction—it’s about presence.

4. Shabbat is the First of the Sevens: God’s Rhythmic Blueprint

Leviticus 23, Leviticus 25:1–10

Shabbat isn’t just one day of the week—it’s the foundation for a much bigger rhythm that God built into creation. It’s the first of the sevens, and it sets the pattern for everything that follows in Scripture.

When you study Torah, you start to see something intentional. Over and over again, God works in cycles of seven:

• 7 days → Shabbat
• 7 weeks → Shavuot
• 7 months → fall feasts
• 7 years → the Shemitah (Sabbath year)
• 7 Shemitah cycles → Jubilee, the 50th year

This is not random. God designed time to flow in sevens—and Shabbat is where it all begins.

In Leviticus 23, God outlines all the moedim, His appointed times. But notice this: Shabbat is listed first. It’s the weekly anchor that holds all the other appointments in place.

In Leviticus 25:1–10, God gives instructions for the Sabbath year and the Year of Jubilee. Every seventh year, the land itself was to rest. No sowing. No reaping. Just trust. Just provision. Just rest. And after 7 of those cycles—49 years—came the Jubilee, a year of freedom, restoration, and returning to what was originally given.

Where does it all start? With the weekly Shabbat.

Shabbat is not arbitrary; it is the blueprint for all biblical sevens.

You can’t understand God’s calendar if you don’t understand Shabbat. It’s the heartbeat of heaven’s rhythm.

This is where what you shared earlier fits perfectly:

Shabbat comes first. Always. It’s the foundation for all of God’s appointed times. What makes it different from the others is this: all the other moedim happen once a year. Shabbat happens every week.

It’s as if God is saying, “I don’t want you to wait a whole year to meet with Me. I want to walk with you every seven days.”

Shabbat sets the pace for how we live. It teaches us to work from rest, not for rest. It reminds us that time belongs to God, and He orders it with purpose and meaning.

This pattern of sevens is a reminder that time belongs to God, rest is a sacred gift, and restoration is the outcome.

Every “seven” in Scripture echoes the first holy day as an appointed time, calling God’s people to remember, rest, and realign with Him.

When we align our lives with this rhythm, we’re not just keeping a command—we’re walking in sync with the Creator.

Shabbat is holiness in time!

“The essence of the Sabbath is completely detached from the world of space. The meaning of the Sabbath is to celebrate time rather than space. Six days a week we live under the tyranny of things of space; on the Sabbath we try to become attuned to holiness in time.”[1]

Abraham Joshua Hershel explains that the sanctity of time came first, before the sanctity of man or space.[2] From the beginning of time, God sanctified the seventh day, not man and not creation itself. Shabbat is the climax and purpose of the weekly cycle of work and rest (Ex. 20:8-11). Nowhere in Scripture is any other day described as holy. Nevertheless, many contemporary Christians believe that the Sabbath commandment can be fulfilled by designating any day of the week for rest. This raises a critical theological question: Can one keep holy a day that God Himself never made holy? Holiness, after all, is not something man can assign to time; he can only keep what God has already set apart. This view is affirmed by L. Michael Morales, who emphasizes the foundational significance of the seventh day in the biblical narrative:

The seventh day is the first object that is “sanctified” [set apart as sharing in God’s holiness] in the Hebrew Bible … By this consecration, God creates the seventh day as a “cathedral in time” [Abraham Heschel], forming a temporal space and filling it with holiness so that here, at the culmination of creation, “forming and filling” kiss each other. Further, the description of the seventh day in 2:1 forms an inclusio frame around all of Genesis 1 by matching Gen 1:1-2. The seventh day is justly interpreted as the fulfillment, purpose, and end of the story in Genesis 1, the goal of the whole creative process.[3]

“the Sabbath is a palace in time which we build,” emphasizing the sacred function of the Sabbath as a sanctuary within the temporal realm. He further states that the Sabbath is to time what the temple and tabernacle are to space, a divinely appointed realm of holiness.[4]

Harvey Cox confirms Heschel’s view in his book Common Prayers, observing that:

“the Jewish faith is positioned in time much more so than in space.”[5]

5. Prophetic Picture: The Eternal Shabbat to Come

Shabbat doesn’t just point us back to Eden. It also points us forward—to the world to come.

Shabbat is not just about resting from labor—it’s about returning to God’s presence. Each Shabbat is a dress rehearsal for the Kingdom. And the rehearsal hasn’t ended because the Olam Haba is not here yet.

In the last chapter of Isaiah, the prophet speaks of the new heavens and the new earth. A restored creation. A redeemed people. And right in the middle of that prophetic vision, Shabbat is still there.

“From one New Moon to another and from one Shabbat to another, all flesh will come to worship before Me,” says Adonai.
—Isaiah 66:23

Shabbat is not temporary. It’s eternal.

It’s not just for the past, or just for now—it’s part of the future Kingdom of God. It’s the rhythm of heaven. A time when all nations, all people, will come before the Lord in worship. No more striving. No more fear. No more separation. Only rest, joy, and perfect fellowship.

The author of Hebrews affirms this when he writes:

“So there remains a Shabbat rest for the people of God. For the one who has entered God’s rest has also ceased from his own work, just as God did from His.”
—Hebrews 4:9–10

4For somewhere He has spoken about the seventh day in this way: “And God rested on the seventh day from all His works,” 5and again in this passage: “They shall never enter My rest.” 6So then it remains for some to enter into it; yet those who formerly had Good News proclaimed to them did not enter because of disobedience. 7Again, God appoints a certain day—“Today”—saying through David after so long a time, just as it has been said before, “Today, if you hear His voice, do not harden your hearts.” 8For if Joshua had given them rest, God would not have spoken of another day later on. 9So there remains a Shabbat rest for the people of God. 10For the one who has entered God’s rest has also ceased from his own work, just as God did from His. (We rest on Shabbat because we trust God as our Provider) 11Let us, therefore, make every effort to enter that rest, so that no one may fall through the same pattern of disobedience.

If the pattern of disobedience is not to enter His rest, then what is the pattern of obedience? To enter His Sabbath rest!

This rest isn’t about a day off. It’s about experiencing eternal rest in God’s presence while still here. It’s about re-entering the rest that was lost in Eden. And the weekly Shabbat is our reminder—our glimpse of eternity—until that promise is fully realized.

When we enter into Shabbat now, we’re practicing for the world to come.

🌿 Conclusion – A Glimpse of Eternity

Shabbat was never meant to be a burden. It was always meant to be a gift. A blessing. A rhythm that began in creation was preserved through covenant and will be fulfilled in the Messianic Kingdom.

We are a people living between Eden and Eternity, the already and the not yet.

And Shabbat is the thread that ties both together.

Every seventh day, God calls us to pause. To remember. To return. To rest. And to realign our hearts with His. Not out of obligation, but out of invitation.

Shabbat is not legalism. It’s liberation. It’s not bondage. It’s belonging.
It’s not just about stopping work. It’s about starting again with God at the center.

So when we light the candles, bless the bread, welcome the Shabbat in our homes—we are not just keeping a tradition. We are stepping into a holy appointment with the Creator, a small taste of what was, and what will be again.

Let’s not miss the rhythm He set in motion.
Let’s keep Shabbat as a glimpse of eternity.

🌿 Personal Reflection & Heart Response

1. Before reading this post, what did you believe about Shabbat?
   Did anything here challenge or reshape your understanding?
2. What stood out to you most as you read—something new, something affirming, or something uncomfortable? Why?
3. How do you currently experience rest in your life?
   Do you feel rested, or constantly striving?
4. When you think about “rest,” what emotions come up for you—peace, guilt, fear, longing?

[1]. Abraham Heschel, The Sabbath: Its Meaning for the Modern Man, 1st edition. (Boston: Shambhala, 2003), 10.

[2]. Ibid.

[3]. Morales, The Tabernacle Pre-Figured, 93.

[4]. Heschel, The Sabbath, 9–10.

[5]. Harvey Cox, Common Prayers (Mariner Books, 2002), 10.

This blog post is a very short summary of the first part of own Master of Arts in Biblical Studies’ thesis.

Estimated reading time: 15 minutes

Books on Shabbat I Recommend

 The Sabbath (FSG Classics) From Sabbath to Sunday: A Historical Investigation of the Rise of Sunday Observance in Early Christianity From Sabbath to Sabbath: Returning the Holy Sabbath to the Disciples of Jesus (Restoration Series) Stop, in the Name of God by Charlie Kirk, Book Summary, Podcast, English Remember the Sabbath: What the New Testament Says About Sabbath Observance for Christians The Sabbath Breaker: Jesus of Nazareth and the Gospels’ Sabbath Conflicts Christ in the Sabbath The Sabbath Practice: A Four-Session Companion Guide to Help You Stop, Rest, Delight, and Worship Embracing Rhythms of Work and Rest: From Sabbath to Sabbatical and Back Again (Transforming Resources) Enjoying God’s Gift of Sabbath: An Experiential Journey into God’s Day of Rest Sabbath as Resistance: Saying No to the Culture of Now

About Ana Willis

Ana is the unhurried homeschool mom of 3, wife, and homeschool blogger. She loves to encourage, inspire and empower moms to go from stressed to blessed by providing them with the tips, strategies, and resources they need to succeed. Ana is the founder of They Call Me Blessed and the creator of: Hebrew for Homeschoolers, Charlotte Mason Online Conference, The Homeschool Sisterhood, and the Beyond Blessed Life Planner. She leads a vibrant free community for homeschool moms on Facebook and you can connect with her at www.facebook.com/theycallmeblessedblog.