Exodus 20:11

Summary

The verse gives the rationale for Sabbath observance: it states that Yehovah completed the work of creating heaven, earth, sea, and all their contents in six days, then rested on the seventh day. Because of this rest, Yehovah blessed the seventh day and consecrated it.

Key words

• she.shet- ("six", H8337) — construct form directly bound to yamim, producing "six of days," the standard Hebrew way of expressing a numbered set of days.
• 'a.Sah ("he made", H6213) — qal perfect, marking the making of heaven and earth as a completed action, not ongoing.
• va.Ya.nach ("and he rested", H5117) — qal verb with narrative vav, linking it sequentially to the prior action: the making is finished, then the resting occurs.
• be.Rakh ("he blessed", H1288) — piel perfect of the root for "bless," an intensive verbal stem, again marking a single completed act, now performed by Yehovah directly on the day.
• y.ka.de.She.hu ("he set it apart as holy", H6942) — piel verb with narrative vav and 3ms suffix hu ("it"), referring back to the yom ("day"); the piel stem here conveys the causative/intensive sense of making something holy, not merely describing it as holy.

What the text says

The Hebrew sentence opens with the particle ki ("for", H3588A), which grounds this verse as a justification—it explains why the Sabbath commandment given earlier in the chapter applies. The six-day period is expressed through a construct chain, she.shet-yamim ("six of days"), rather than a simple adjective-noun pairing, which is typical Hebrew numeral syntax. The four objects of Yehovah's making—ha.sha.Ma.yim ("the heavens", H8064), ha.'A.retz ("the earth", H0776G), ha.Yam ("the sea", H3220G), and kol 'a.sher bam ("all that is in them")—are each marked individually with the object marker 'et, giving the list a formal, itemized structure rather than a single collective phrase.

The verse's second half pivots on 'al-ken ("therefore", H5921A/H3651C), a causal connector tying Yehovah's resting (va.Ya.nach) directly to the subsequent blessing (be.Rakh) and consecration (va.ye.qa.de.She.hu) of the day. Both final verbs are in the piel stem, an intensive/causative pattern, and both carry the narrative vav that presents them as the next events in sequence following the rest. The construct phrase yom ha.sha.Bat ("day of the sabbath", H3117G + H7676) names the day being blessed using the term shabbat explicitly, rather than simply calling it "the seventh day" as in the opening clause about resting (ba.yom ha.she.vi.'i, "on the seventh day").

Differences between versions

The LXX renders va.Yanach ("he rested") with κατέπαυσεν, a verb that can carry the sense of "caused to cease" as well as "rested," while the Vulgate's requievit aligns closely with "he rested." In the final clause, the Hebrew names the day yom ha.shabbat ("day of the sabbath"), but the LXX renders it as τὴν ἡμέραν τὴν ἑβδόμην ("the seventh day"), reusing the same terminology from the earlier clause rather than introducing the term "sabbath." The Vulgate, by contrast, follows the Hebrew more closely with diei sabbati ("day of the sabbath").