You asked

how might the original israelite audience have understood 'rest' differently from us, given their agrarian society?

The passage, plainly, with room to sit with it.

Exodus 20:8-10

“Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days you shall labor, and do all your work; but the seventh day is a Sabbath to Yahweh your God. You shall not do any work in it, you, nor your son, nor your daughter, your male servant, nor your female servant, nor your livestock, nor your stranger who is within your gates;”

This passage is part of the Ten Commandments, given by God to Moses at Mount Sinai for the people of Israel. These laws were foundational for their life as a newly formed nation, establishing core principles for their relationship with God and one another.

What does truly resting, for yourself and those around you, require you to stop doing?

Keep thinking

Read alongside it

Deuteronomy 5:12-15
This parallel command adds the remembrance of their liberation from slavery as a reason for Sabbath rest.
Leviticus 25:1-7
This passage extends the idea of rest to the land itself, requiring it to lie fallow every seven years.

Ask your own follow-up