Chapter Two - 2:1-4a - Creation - Day Seven

• The statement that God finished creation on the seventh day is not a mistake (as has been suggested by others), it shows that creation is not just of the physical universe but includes a 'different order of work'.
• This day is shown to be unique by: the repeated formula ((announcement, imperative, report, evaluation, temporal framework) is absent; the day itself is blessed (not the creatures).
• The reucurring theme of separation reaches its apex - rest is not an anti-climax, 'in comparison to the chaos that preceded the creative activity rest is an appropriate, climactic and paradoxically counterbalancing conclusion'.
• Usually 'generation' statements introduce blocks of narrative but 2:4a should be seen as the conclusion of this block, not the introduction to the next bit since it makes a poor link with the rest of chapter 2 but echoes 1:1. "In the beginning God cretaed the heavens and the earth/These were the generations of the heavens and the earth when they were created"