Gen 2:1–3: finished, ceased, blessed and sanctified

Says The unit opens וַיְכֻלּוּ (Pual, "were completed") and continues וַיְכַל (Piel, "and he finished"), the same verb; BDB glosses its Piel "complete, bring to an end, finish." "The seventh day" occurs three times: בַּיּוֹם הַשְּׁבִיעִי twice in 2:2 and יוֹם הַשְּׁבִיעִי in 2:3. God וַיִּשְׁבֹּת and, in 2:3, שָׁבַת (BDB "cease, desist, rest"); he blessed the day (וַיְבָרֶךְ) and sanctified it (וַיְקַדֵּשׁ; BDB Piel "set apart as sacred, consecrate"). This day has no evening-and-morning line, and the noun "Sabbath" does not occur. Gen 2:3 ends אֲשֶׁר־בָּרָא אֱלֹהִים לַעֲשׂוֹת, "which God created, to make"; the BSB has "all the work of creation that He had accomplished."

Uncertain How God "finished" on the seventh day. (1) The BSB reads a pluperfect: "by the seventh day God had finished," the work being complete before the day began. (2) The finishing is the ceasing, blessing and sanctifying of that day; Keil–Delitzsch (p. 68) takes the completion to consist in the cessation and in the blessing and sanctifying of the seventh day. (3) The completion is the seventh day's own act, set apart from the six days of work. No lean is taken here.

The days-views note (note.exegetical.Gen.1.1-Gen.1.31.creation-days-views) counts the day's lack of an evening-and-morning line, "an unclosed seventh day," among the grounds of one view; the five views are not reopened here. The Greek and Samaritan "sixth day" at 2:2 is treated in var.Gen.2.2.seventh-sixth.