Hey, this is John at the Bible Project. We've been in the middle of a conversation on the theme of rest in the Bible.

God created the earth in six days, and on the seventh day he stopped working.

He entered his creation like a king entering a throne room to rest and rule.

And he wants us, his image, to rule with him on this seventh day.

The problem is that left to our own devices, we've turned what meant to be rest into toil and violence and jealousy and mistrust.

What we call the natural world in the biblical story is an existence of humans living at odds with our real nature,

and we're living at odds with our environment.

But God is on a mission to bring us back to that restful rule with him and to recreate the world.

And so to do that, he chooses an ancient family. He makes a covenant with them so that they can find the rest for themselves

and for God's creation.

If you've been following along with this series, then you've likely been blown away with me about how much this theme of rest is woven into all the stories of Israel's patriarchs,

of Moses and the exile, and how God gives Israel their covenant law, which includes seven festivals,

a Sabbath day, and even a Sabbath year, a whole year where you let the land rest.

And all of this is meant to help them begin to live like the future rest has actually come.

Today on this episode, we're going to look again at how God's desire for the seventh day ideal is thwarted by our desire to rule on our own terms.

And what we'll look at today is how the biblical authors talk about this rebellion in the language of seventh day rest.

So after giving all the covenant laws, God says,

If after all this, you still don't listen.

I'll discipline you for your sins seven times over.

So if the ideal is the seventh day rest, the anti-ideal is the exile from Eden, multiplied by seven.

It all builds up to verse 33.

I'll scatter you among the nations.

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