Shabbat shalom.
Why “of all SEASONS, You sanctified it”?
A profound truth is contained in the above image, that helps explain that quotation, which is an historic revelation to a pious believer.
The image is telling us that the LINK (symbolized by Shabbat, the everlasting covenant sign of our sanctification – Ex 31:13,16), between the FIRST GARDEN, that established God’s Sovereignty over man by his need to gratefully accept the yoke of Heaven’s rule (Gen 2:15-17; Matt 6:9,10; 11:29,30), and the ETERNAL PARADISE in which the Tree of Life will never again be traded for unwisdom by adding to and subtracting from the oracles of YHWH (Deut 12:32; Prov 30:4-6; Rev 22:14,15,18,19), is “faithfulness (devotion) to Fear God” (Ps 119:38; Is 8:13,14,16,20; 33:6b) by at all costs “establishing His Instruction” (Rom 3:31) by the rule of faith, by obedience to His commandments, to be obedient to “the faith” as proof of repentance and as proof of love for God and of knowing Him (Jn 14:21-24; Acts 26:18,20; Rom 1:5; 3:31; 15:16-18; 16:26; 1 Jn 2:3-6,17).
Paradise was lost when defilement by the sin of Adam’s rebellion disqualified and banished its inhabitants.
The Last Adam’s ‘New Eden’ (the New Jerusalem and the New Earth, with the seventh millennial Day Reign of the King of the Jews, Y’shua Son of David – Mk 11:10; Rev 20:6, as Preparation for that eternal Eighth Day, prefigured by the mystery “Last Great Day of Sukkot/Tabernacles” – Jn 7:37, just as the sixth day of the week is Preparation for the seventh), will be attained only by a remnant who’ve learned Eden’s hard lesson, to be “wholly sanctified (by the commandments, ordinances and traditions), spirit, soul and body” (1 Cor 7:19; 11:1,2; 1 Thess 5:23; 2 Thess 2:13-15).
Y’shua-Jesus “IS our shalom” (Eph 2:14), but contrary to the overworked imaginations of those who love to rather impracticably allegorize Scripture, to avoid having to face the reality of inconvenient truth, He simply cannot BE our Sabbath DAY! That’s not within the realm of SANITY (Matt 12:8; Mk 2:27,28).
So since our LORD and Saviour is Heir and “Master even of Shabbat” which He made for Himself (Col 1;15,16), to be worshipped in the Father, since “ALL things have been delivered to Him” (Matt 11:27), now’s as good a time as any, to take another dive into the mystery of Shabbat, to define the useage of ‘season’ in the sages’ description of the twenty four hour Shabbat.
Just as Eden is treated by the sages as a ‘concentrated case study in sin’ (breach of one ordinance in particular, carrying a dire penalty for transgression, which has left none of us unaffected), Shabbat is regarded as the crowning SYMBOL of ALL the ‘sublime duties of man’ and is therefore likened to a conCENTRATED season of conSECRATION (dedication formally to a purpose) to be “wholly SANCTIFIED (purified), spirit, soul and body” (Eccl 12:13; Ps 103:17,18; Is 56:6; Lk 17:10; Rom 3:31).
The sages express this insight in the expressive maxim: “Of ALL DAYS You blessed it; of all SEASONS, You sanctified it” (from Gen 2:2,3; Ex 20:8-11).
Probably from the fact that none of the Biblical Feast seasons lack at least one ceremonial High Shabbat, and most have at least one weekly Sabbath too which is why the sages regard Shabbat as more holy than even Passover or Yom Kippur, both of which are Shabbatot Ha Gadol (Great Sabbaths) which represent the vicarious Sacrifice of our sin-Bearer.
Also from the fact that just as each of the three Pilgrim Feasts (Ex 23:12-17) have spans of Preparation (four days of inspection preceding Passover; fifty days from within Unleavened Bread within the Passover season, to Shavuo’t/Pentecost “fully come” (Lev 23:15,16; Acts 2:1); and thirty days of repentance before Trumpets (Yom Teruah) and Ten days of Awe before the commemorative New Covenant Yom Kippur, with a five day bridge from there, for preparation of the soul for the eight day Sukkot season), experience shows that even though the sixth and final day of the working week (‘Yom Shishi’) is the official “Preparation” for Shabbat (Lk 23:54-56; 24:1), all six days preceding Shabbat in the overflow of the PREVIOUS Shabbat’s blessing for honouring the embargo on work and transacting, in their ascending order (1-6) like the fifty day ‘counting-up of the omer,’ prepare the heart to keep INTACT, and set apart the Holy Seventh (held up in the Word as the pinnacle of Creation, along with man for whom it was made), with all joy and solemnity as the Prologue to the ordinance and Biblical tradition of the seven Holy Convocations (Lev 23; 1 Cor 11:1,2; 2 Thess 2:15).
No other day is both a COVENANT in its own right (Ex 31:13,16; Is 56:6), and a 24 hr period regarded as equivalent to a SEASON of unique sanctity through intense personal consecration, through which we seek the help of the Spirit of Truth to navigate the week virtuously (the meaning of “establish His covenant” in Deut 8:18), to ‘go up to YaHWeH’ (‘make aliYah to the Presence’) every seventh day in a state of grace through timeous weekly repentance, because Shabbat was made for man independently of the Jewish people and the calendar. In effect, the calendar is dictated by Shabbat just as Caesar’s calendar is defined by misuse of Sun day.
So when Moses in Ex 16:23 said about Y’shua’s unchanged Shabbat, that “THIS (the day following the giving of a double- portion of provision of sustenance and revelation knowledge for meditation) is THAT (the appointed Sabbath according to the Fourth Comnandment – Lk 22:56)…” ; just as He’d said about the Passover of “Christ our Passover” (Ex 12:42; 1 Cor 5:7,8), he was reminding exiled Israel of an almost forgotten heritage of incalculable RICHES and of enormous CONSEQUENCE, in His one and only Shabbat which was to be forever linked to Passover (prescribed to this day – Deut 5:15), so much so that breaking this ordinance would vitiate our blessings by sending Creation into a spiral of decline and decay causing greater and greater grief and ruin (Is 24:3-6; Lk 21:25-36; Rom 8:18-22; Rev 6-18).
Shabbat can be seen as a reminder of the purposefulness of the world and the rôle of human beings in it and their need to foster the well-being of the Creation by never failing to safeguard and observe the weekly Memorial, of its existence being due entirely to the mercy and genius of the God of the Hebrews, Israel’s Maker, Guardian, Saviour, Deliverer and Sanctifier (Deut 5:15; Ps 107:15-22; 136; Is 44:24)
