ASBI Parent-Child Learning Bereishit 5781

(31) And God saw all that He had made, and found it very good. And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day. (1) The heaven and the earth were finished, and all their array. (2) On the seventh day God finished the work that He had been doing, and He ceased on the seventh day from all the work that He had done. (3) And God blessed the seventh day and declared it holy, because on it God ceased from all the work of creation that He had done.

ויכל אלהים ביום השביעי AND ON THE SEVENTH DAY GOD FINISHED — R. Simeon says: A human being (literally, flesh and blood) who cannot know exactly his times and moments (who cannot accurately determine the point of time that marks the division between one period and that which follows it) must needs add from the week-day and observe it as the holy day (the Sabbath), but the Holy One, blessed be He, who knows His times and moments, began it (the seventh day) to a very hair’s breadth (with extreme exactness) and it therefore appeared as though He had completed His work on that very day (Genesis Rabbah 10:9). Another explanation: What did the world lack? Rest! Sabbath came — Rest came; and the work was thus finished and completed (Genesis Rabbah 10:9)!

And it appears. I.e., it appears to people as if Hashem concluded His work on that day, but it is not really so. Thus, “Elohim completed on the seventh day” describes the appearance, not the reality.