What Does Hebrews 4:4 Mean?
For he said somewhere concerning the seventh day in this way, "And God settled on the seventh day from all his works."
Key words are shown with the Hebrew or Greek and what each word meant.
Selah Decoded Version The Selah Decoded Version renders what the Hebrew and Greek words meant to the people who first heard them.
King James wording
King James Version
For he spake in a certain place of the seventh day on this wise, And God did rest the seventh day from all his works.THE KEY
God’s rest is the stopping that marks completed work.
THE MEANING
Here, God ceases after all his works; the work is complete, and stopping belongs to its shape. The seventh day speaks now of a kind of completion that can be marked by ceasing, rather than endless production.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
Stopping does not mean the work has failed or remains unfinished; here it follows the completion of all the work.
THE ROOT
κατέπαυσεν
katépausen
GROWS FROM
παύω (pauō), stem παυ
to stop, cease
The Greek verb καταπαύω (katapauō, bring to rest or cease) rests on παύω (pauō, stop or cease). It renders Genesis’s וַיִּשְׁבֹּת (vayishbot, he ceased), from שבת (shavat, cease), the root of Sabbath: the verse’s rest carries the idea of cessation.
ALSO GROWS
pauō: cease, stop
παύω
This is the base verb beneath the word for God’s rest, making the stopping audible inside the English word “rest.”
katapausis: rest, cessation
κατάπαυσις
This noun appears again in Hebrews 4:9, where the same root describes a rest that remains for God’s people.
THE PATTERN
Completed work finds its expression in cessation, and that rest is given for human life.
And on the seventh day God finished his work which he had made, and he stopped on the seventh day from all his work which he had made.For in six days the LORD made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and settled on the seventh day. Therefore the LORD blessed the sabbath day, and set it apart.He said to them, The Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath.THE THREAD
Therefore a Sabbath settling remains for the people of God.The Greek word κατάπαυσις (katapausis, rest or cessation) shares the root παύω (pauō, stop or cease) with κατέπαυσεν (katépausen, he rested or ceased) in this verse. The cessation that marks God’s completed work is also described as remaining for God’s people.
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