Has there ever been a world where rest and work coexisted?

I think there is something to the use of the verb נוח (nwḥ) in Genesis 2:15. Here’s the ESV with the translation of נוח italicized:

The LORD God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and keep it.

I know that נוח can simply mean “put,” but the core concept of the root has to do with ceasing and resting. Even when you put something on the shelf the sense of “causing it to rest there” is present. In a context like putting something on the shelf choosing a word like נוח (nwḥ), rather than שׂים (śym), could be motivated by any of several different reasons—some significant, some insignificant. Context has to determine whether the idea of resting is signigicant.

The thing is, here in Genesis 2, the author has already talked about putting the man in the garden in verse 8, and in that instance he did use the more basic word שׂים (śym):

And the LORD God planted a garden in Eden, in the east, and there he put the man whom he had formed.

I think it’s worth entertaining the idea that in Genesis 2:15, by using נוח (nwḥ), something more significant than put is intended. Put is a fine translation, but reading נוח (nwḥ) rather than שׂים (śym) resonates with more meaning. There’s a connotation of resting and settling.

You don’t have to scroll very far through instances of נוח to see the basic idea of rest. You can explore a English-Hebrew diglot of the instances of נוח here if you want. There are a lot of instances where נוח has the sense “cause to rest” with all the positive connotations of blessing and safety and flourishing or the comforting idea of settling down. See, for example, Genesis 8:4; 19:16; Exod 20:11; 33:14.

If we try to explicitly bring this sense into Genesis 2:15, it would sound really weird:

The LORD God took the man and caused him to rest in the garden of Eden to work it and keep it.

The question, however, is why. Why does that sound weird? Maybe part of the reason is because we can’t imagine rest and work coexisting.

But this is Genesis 2.