The God Who Gives Rest

Abstract

Theological exposition of the Book of Exodus is neither obvious nor easy, because the book is quite complex. There is an elemental constancy that focuses upon YHWH; but that constancy is handled with great flexibility and freedom. This chapter elucidates the constancy-cum flexibility to see how God is rendered in the book. The God in the Book is the one who gives rest, who authorizes, permits, and insists upon Sabbath and who wills emancipation from social arrangements that refuse Sabbath. It is clear that Sabbath authorization-permission-insistence is not reducible to a religious practice. It is an icon for a socio-economic-political arrangement of social power in a distinctive way that is critical of an alternative to other social arrangements that are authorized by other gods. At the center of the Book is the pericope, the narrative account of YHWH's and Israel's entry into covenant of mutuality between lord and subject. Keywords: Exodus; God; religious practice; Sabbath; Sinai pericope