King James Bible
"And God blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it: because that in it he had rested from all his work which God created and made."
God sets apart the seventh day as holy and bestows divine favor upon it, establishing the first distinction between sacred and ordinary time. This sanctification creates a pattern for human rest and worship that will become central to Israel's identity through the Sabbath. The Hebrew word for 'rested' (shabat) means to cease or stop, not recuperation from fatigue. God's cessation from creative activity provides the reason for the day's holiness and models rhythmic work and rest for humanity. This phrase emphasizes the completeness of creation using two Hebrew verbs (bara and asah) that together express God's sovereign creative power. The redundancy underscores that all creative work was finished, making the seventh day a celebration of cosmic completion.