The concept of rest is as old as the Bible. On the seventh day, after creating the world and all that was in it, we are told that the Lord rested. Not, however, in His case, from fatigue, but to contemplate His further creations. Alain Corbin, a French scholar who has recently published a brief History of Rest, holds that for God, the day of rest was “a creative pause.” Later on, God tells Moses: “Speak to the sons of Israel and say, ‘You must keep my sabbaths carefully, because the sabbath is a sign between myself and you from generation to generation to show that it is I who sanctify you. You must keep the sabbath, then; it is to be held sacred by you.’”
Keeping the Sabbath, in Corbin’s words, is not about rest alone but “the holy nature of that rest.” Mutatis mutandis, Christians, who were of course initially mostly Jews, took up the notion of a holy day of rest, with theirs being Sunday. In some quarters, both religions are even now defined by their days of rest. Militant Islamists have been known to claim that “after we finish off the Saturday people, we shall finish you, the Sunday people.” Meanwhile, it is understood that there is no rest for the wicked, which is to say none in Hell, which in good part is what must make it so hellish.
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