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Just the other day at work a colleague of mine casually and rather flippantly made the comment “no rest for the wicked” with a big smile on her face in response to having a challenging day at work. This phrase made me think as it had been quite a while since I remember hearing this. We say things all the time without really thinking much about it. There are times words are out of our mouth like a knee jerk reaction as something to say based on habit, time constraints, or not really thinking about what we should say. My thoughts on this idiom “No rest for the wicked” led me to one significant prevailing thought: yes there is rest every week and this is on the Sabbath for God’s people! While I thought this, I did not say it out loud to my colleague as I left the room.
I wondered how this old phrase came about, the origin of which was intriguing to me, and so I sought answers from the Bible as well as the internet. What I found was quite interesting. The word ‘rest’ was originally touted as ‘peace’ according to the website www.phrases.org.uk where citation was made to the biblical references in Isaiah to mean that there was no rest for the wicked in hell. Not entirely satisfied with this explanation, further research entailed looking at the world’s largest online idiom dictionary www.idioms.thefreedictionary.com to see their meaning which was extrapolated somewhat to say “The lack of peace in one's life, or the perpetual need to be working or be busy, stems from one's sinfulness”. Another online website was checked for further meaning from www.macmillandictionary.com which stated “used for saying that you have a lot of work to do, which is a punishment for bad things that you have done”.
When reading what the Bible (NKJV) actually says in Isaiah 48:22 “There is no peace,” says the Lord, “for the wicked.” God goes on to further say through the prophet Isaiah in 57:20-21 “But the wicked are like the troubled sea, when it cannot rest, whose waters cast up mire and dirt. ‘There is no peace,’ says my God, ‘for the wicked.’” This meaning is somewhat different from the secular websites which is no surprise at all. For some reason the world thinks that to be very busy in work pursuits is likened to punishment for sin or wickedness. On the other hand one would think to be idle or not very busy is the reward of good character. This really does not make much sense at all. To be busy can be a real joy but what is an even greater joy is to be meaningfully busy, with rest at the end of every week on the Sabbath day.
Keeping the Sabbath is the domain of all those desiring to live righteously. Being wicked (practicing wickedness) has no place in the life of a Sabbath keeper. Wicked living is deliberately making a choice to do harm and is more than sin. Sabbatarians still sin but are on an ongoing quest to resist and overcome their carnality by lining up everything they think, say and do with the Bible in order to live righteously. The difference is huge between the wicked and the righteous. The wicked are an abomination to God (Proverbs 15:9) while the righteous are the apple of His eye (Psalms 17:8).
The conclusion drawn from life is that the righteous and the wicked are busy with their individual pursuits, however Sabbath keepers enjoy a peaceful rest at the end of each week on the seventh day because they listen carefully to God’s instruction in Leviticus 23:3 which says “Six days shall work be done, but the seventh day is a Sabbath of solemn rest, a holy convocation. You shall do no work on it; it is the Sabbath of the Lord in all your dwellings”. Whereas the wicked never have any rest or peace for that matter as they are always thinking, scheming and plotting to do wickedly. Their god, the god of this age, the devil (2 Corinthians 4:4) is a hard task master and has enslaved the wicked to do as much harm as they can, whether by fraudulent means involving deception, lying, cheating, stealing, killing, murdering, or leaving a trail of chaos, confusion and destruction wherever they go.
What choice will you make? To do wickedly with no peace, or to live righteously with great peace? Psalm 119:165 says “Great peace have those who love Your law, and nothing causes them to stumble”. Proverbs 3:33 advises “The curse of the LORD is on the house of the wicked, but He blesses the home of the just”. Do we in our right minds choose God’s blessings, or do we choose the cursings shown in Deuteronomy 30? We all have free will to choose. Choose life, choose God’s way, the righteous way, the way of living a busy, productively purposeful life with weekly refreshment of the Sabbath we call a delightful joy. It truly is the only way to live in order to enjoy the true benefits of rest and peace. Don’t you want to claim your blessing from our loving Father who greatly desires to give you this peaceful rest? Let’s seize the day and enter HIS rest!