there remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God, for whoever has entered God’s rest has also rested from his works as God did from his… (Hebrews 4:9)

The focus of New Testament book known as ‘Hebrews’ is apostasy; specifically of those Jews who had previously made a profession that Jesus was the Messiah.  Under Roman rule, Jews and their strict observance of the Law of Moses was more than tolerated, it was facilitated.  There was no greater example of this than special dispensation to have day of rest – the concept of having a day off each week being anathema to the commercially minded Roman.

‘Rest’ translates the noun κατάπαυσις katapausis, derived from the verb katapauó, the combination of the preposition kata ‘down from’ and pauó ‘to make to cease’ or ‘hinder’.  Classically, katapausis could mean a lull, or the state of being becalmed, but in New Testament Greek it stands for repose and was used to represent the ‘inactivity’ of the Sabbath.