Word studies · Hebrew · Strong's H7676
שַׁבָּת · shabbâth · appears 111 times in the Old Testament
In one line: A deliberate stop that says God, not you, holds it together.
Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy.
Exodus 20:8
Shabbath is the sabbath — a stopping, built into the week as a sign that life is God's gift rather than your achievement.
The sabbath is grounded twice in the Old Testament: in creation, because God ceased on the seventh day, and in the exodus, because Israel had been slaves who could not stop. It is commanded, protected and celebrated as a sign of the covenant, extended even to servants, foreigners and animals.
Shabbath is an intensive form of shabath, “to cease” or “stop.” The word says nothing about worship or rest as recovery — it names the act of stopping, which is why Genesis says God ceased rather than that He needed a nap.
English “rest” suggests recuperation; the Hebrew is a full stop. That is a sharper command than it sounds, because stopping means letting the work stand unfinished and letting the world go on without your hand on it.
Shabbath (H7676) appears 105 times in the Hebrew Bible, and its verb form is what Genesis 2:2 uses for God ceasing from His work.
Sabbath makes trust structural: a whole day each week says that provision comes from God rather than from labor. For a nation freshly out of slavery it was also social — rest belonged to servants and strangers too, which made the command a piece of justice as well as worship.
Stop something on purpose this week and leave it unfinished — a genuine ceasing rather than a change of task. Notice what your anxiety about that reveals about who you think holds things together.
intermission, i.e (specifically) the Sabbath
He told them, “This is what the LORD has said: ‘Tomorrow is to be a day of complete rest, a holy Sabbath to the LORD. So bake what you want to bake, and boil what you want to boil. Then set aside whatever remains and keep it until morning.’”
Exodus 16:23It is a Sabbath of complete rest for you, that you may humble yourselves; it is a permanent statute.
Leviticus 16:31While the Israelites were in the wilderness, a man was found gathering wood on the Sabbath day.
Numbers 15:32Observe the Sabbath day by keeping it holy, as the LORD your God has commanded you.
Deuteronomy 5:12“Why would you go to him today?” he replied. “It is not a New Moon or a Sabbath.” “Everything is all right,” she said.
2 Kings 4:23Some of their Kohathite relatives were responsible for preparing the rows of the showbread every Sabbath.
1 Chronicles 9:32Press and hold sabbath in any chapter and this study opens on the verse you are reading, with the lexicons, every occurrence and the commentaries beside it. The Bible is free to read.
Scripture quoted from the Berean Standard Bible, public domain. Strong's definitions are public domain. Counts come from The Pillar's own tagged text.