Eh, I’m not so sure. That seems like saying people that die in blizzards aren’t really dead. The *action* takes place, and we can more or less make sense of it; it simply says nothing about the one performing the action. Thus according to the Rambam, it may seem to a person based on G-d’s actions that G-d loves them, but it is impossible to say G-d loves at all, as a descriptor. HIS experience of what we understand is not understandable. So I understand that yes, G-d takes lives. The lives are as taken as when a human takes them, ostensibly. Nevertheless, what HE is doing is not what any human does. Does that make sense?

So Shabbat observance is not commanded by God, at least not in any readily comprehensible or literal sense.

Correct! It is incorrect to call God a commander or writer and to view him with any of the connotations those words imply; his commanding and writing are not like ours at all.