Answers in unexpected places

If someone were to tell me, "Write a paper explaining everything you know on the topic of 'The Sabbath' " I'm afraid I wouldn't have been able to write much. Oh sure, I know about the command to honor the Sabbath, etc. My understanding of the reason for the Sabbath, however, has always been woefully shallow. Knowing something is important to God is one thing. Knowing why is another.

Answers come in unexpected places. The other day I was reading K&D's commentary on Isaiah 58 and was absolutely floored and enlightened by their words. The discussion began at vs 13 "If because of the sabbath, you turn your foot from doing your own pleasure on My holy day, and call the sabbath a delight, the holy day of the Lord honorable, and shall honor it, desisting from your own ways, from seeking your own pleasure and speaking your own word, (14) then you will take delight in the Lord, and I will make you ride on the heights of the earth; and I will feed you with the heritage of Jacob your father, for the mouth of the Lord has spoken."

Here, slightly abridged by my own discretion and emphases of my own added, are K&D's thoughts:

The third part of the prophecy now adds to the duties of human love the duty of keeping the Sabbath, for the service of works is sanctified by the service of worship. The duty of keeping the Sabbath is also enforced by Jeremiah (17:19ff) and Ezekiel (20:12ff; 22:8,26), and the neglect of this duty severely condemned. The Sabbath, above all other institutions appointed by law, was the true means of uniting and sustaining Israel as a religious community, more especially in exile, where a great part of the worship necessarily fell into abeyance on account of its intimate connection with Jerusalem and the holy land; but while it was a Mosaic institution so far as its legal appointments were concerned, it rested, in a way which reached even beyond the rite of circumcision, upon a basis much older than that of the law, being a ceremonial copy of the Sabbath of creation, which was the divine rest established by God as the true object of all motion; for God entered into Himself again after He had created the world out of Himself, that all created things might enter into Him. In order that this, the great end set before all creation, and especially before mankind, viz., entrance into the rest of God, might be secured, the keeping of the Sabbath prescribed by the law was a divine method of education, which put an end every week to the ordinary avocations of the people, with their secular influence and their tendency to fix the mind of outward things, and was designed by the strict prohibition of all work to force them to enter into themselves and occupy their minds with God and His word. The prophet does not hedge round this commandment to keep the Sabbath with any new precepts, but merely demands for its observance full truth answering to the spirit of the letter.
Again, if you call (i.e. from inward contemplation and esteem) the Sabbath a pleasure (because it leads you to God, and not a burden because it leads you away from your everyday life; cf Amos 8:5) and the holy one of Jehovah honorable...then, just as the Sabbath is your pleasure, so will you have your pleasure in Jehovah, i.e. enjoy His delightful fellowship and He will reward you for your renunciation of earthly advantages with a victorious reign, with an unapproachable possession of the high places of the land - i.e., chiefly, though not exclusively, of the promised land - and with the free and undisputed usufruct of the inheritance promised to your forefather Jacob, - this will be your glorious reward.

I am a visual thinker and the picture they paint of God entering into Himself after He had created the world out of Himself and His desire to draw all men into Himself...well, that picture of the Sabbath was an entirely new one for me. And I must say a convincing one. How well I know that unless one periodically ceases from the active pursuit of daily outward things one will rarely "enter into themselves and occupy their minds with God and His word."

I'm not advocating a strict adherence to the outward form of keeping the Sabbath. But I see for myself the need to plan in periods of conscious ceasing/fasting from daily outward things to occupying my heart with God and drawing into His rest.

I could never hope to say it as well as K&D but if I had to write that paper, at least now I think I'd have a few more millimeters of depth to my answer.