Gen. 2:1-3
The Sabbath was set aside to allow people to have that quiet time which he knew w4e’d need to fellowship with Him. As Jesus says, the Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath. (Mark 2:27) the legalist views of what people can and can’t do on the Sabbath must be given with grace, or they are not of God. Remember, He desires mercy, and not sacrifice. (Hos. 6:6, et. al.) For instance, one can certainly drive in an emergency.
We see here that God rested, though. Why? He could have kept going. For that matter, he could have created everything in an instance.
Stability: Mankind was created to fellowship with God. A biological clock of sorts was placed in people that required a period of rest. When governments have sought to abolish the 7-day week, their attempts have failed miserably. The Soviet Union abandoned their attempt after just one year. People were totally overworked; the time is needed for people to rest. Jesus Himself says that the Sabbath was made for man. It provides people with the opportunity to relax, fellowshipping with God without the bother of having to work, as if it were a normal work day. It allows for a stable cycle in peoples’ minds.
Certainty: Every civilization has some idea of a seven-day week. That stable cycle is ingrained, something Soviet officials couldn’t grasp in trying to abandon it. Yet, it’s more than just a cycle. It allows certainty to exist. If God had not emphatically ceased from His creation, one would never know when something new would appear. Instead, as Solomon writes in Ecclesiastes, “There is no new thing new under the sun.” (Ecc. 1:9)
Now, of course, professional baseball, computers, candy canes, and many other things were waiting to be invented. But, this verse means that any different thing is just a combination of things which had existed since the dawn of time, or at the latest since man introduced sin into the world. Professional baseball is just a combination of two things – people being paid to work and playing as a form of entertainment. Computers are simply combinations of existing materials, put together in a certain way, which people can use for good or for evil. Candy canes are combinations of things which had existed. Someone developed that combination of flavors and shapes to tell about Jesus – who, as noted, was slain from the foundation of the world - during a holiday – a type of day which already existed, even though the particular holiday didn’t when Solomon wrote.
God’s rest from His work, then, created certainty which allowed mankind to flourish. And yet, there were so many combinations within the things and concepts that creation within those things would seem infinite.
This, in turn, can lead us back to all of Creation. All the stuff that is new since Solomon’s time is just combinations of stuff which was there in his day - silicon for computer chips, fiber optic communication, etc. - albeit mostly undiscovered. In the same way, all the creatures we now have are just combinations of creatures which were there at the dawn of time, just in different forms.
