Rest as a Site of Struggle: Reconsidering Sabbath (Non-)Transgression Narratives in the Hebrew Bible

Abstract

This dissertation revisits the liberative aspect of the Sabbath concept in the Hebrew Bible, particularly in the Sabbath-related narratives. It argues that despite the Sabbath's liberative promise, the Sabbath-related narratives in the Hebrew Bible disclose the struggle for rest phenomena where the Sabbath either entails privileges not universally shared for everyone or is utilized as an ideological apparatus to promote the interest of the ruling party. To sustain the argument, the project put the Sabbath-related narratives in conversation with labor relations in the ancient Near East, the Sabbath experiences of the enslaved in Antebellum North America and the colonized in the British colonial Global South, and contemporary intersectional theories on labor. These conversations highlight how Sabbath activities in two Sabbath-related narratives (Gen 1–2 & 2 Kgs 11) were not problematized because it was conducted for the purpose and interest of the ruling party, while in three other narratives (Exod 16, Num 15, & Neh 13) they were scandalized due to their conflict with the ruling party's concern to secure flow of resources. In both cases, the struggle for rest exists between the interests of the ruling party and the exploited workers. The project calls for a reimagined Sabbath concept that would benefit the rest of the week and the rest of the earth.