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Calvin's Saturday Morning Sermon on Micah 6.6–81
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 February 2009
Extract
With what shall I appear before the Lord and bow before the sovereign God? Shall I come before Him with burnt-offerings and year-old calves? Will the Lord want a thousand sheep or ten thousand cattle from the rich valleys? Shall I give my first-born son in payment? The fruit of my body for the sin of my soul? O Man, He has told you what is good; and what else does the Lord require of you but to do justice and to love kindness and to walk humbly withyour God
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- Copyright © Scottish Journal of Theology Ltd 1970
References
page 166 note 2 The text is given here in full and renders the French version of Olivetan (1535) which Benoit thinks it safe to assume Calvin relied on as the version familiar to his hearers. The MS takes the French text only as far as ‘vallées grasses’ (rich valleys), the rest being indicated by an ampersand. In the later lectures in Latin on the prophet Micah, the Latin version is Calvin's own and differs considerably from the Vulgate version as given for example in R. Stephan's Paris edition of 1532 and subsequent editions.
page 168 note 1 Calvin's responsibility to the Hebrew text is the basis of his freedom in rendering the meaning in the French tongue, as also in his Latin version. His Latin here is ‘in decem millibus vallium olei (vel. pinguedinis?)’ where the Vulgate has ‘in multis millibus hircorum pinguium’. Stephan's edition has a marginal alternative, ‘torrmtium olei’. The paraphrase of this verse which follows is a fine example of Calvin's clarity in expounding the substance of the text on the basis of careful exegesis of the Hebrew.
page 172 note 1 As Benoit notes, at the words ‘Ià dedans’ the preacher probably smote his breast; a small point but one which brings Calvin vividly to life as a preacher.
page 174 note 1 This seems to be a reference to Isaiah I. 11ff. It is not always possible to determine with certainty Calvin's references to other Scripture passages, which often paraphrase or assimilate several passages.
page 174 note 2 Isaiah 66.3 The RSV renders this: ‘He who slaughters an ox is like him who kills a man’, while the Jerusalem Bible gives it as: ‘Some immolate an ox, some slaughter a man.’ Calvin adheres to his version in his lectures on Isaiah ad loc.
page 174 note 3 Psalm 50.12. It is, of course, God speaking in the psalmist's words.
page 174 note 4 Isaiah 1.11 & 17.
page 174 note 5 Jeremiah 6.20.
page 175 note 1 Cf. Isaiah I. II.
page 175 note 2 Calvin's view of the OT sacrificial system and its counterpart in the Roman Mass can be found in various passages of the Institutes: 11.7.17, IV. 18 (‘The Papal Mass, A Sacrilege by Which Christ's Supper was not only Profaned but Annihilated’). The Heidelberg Catechism of 1563 describes the Mass as ‘a denial of the one sacrifice and passion of Jesus Christ and an accursed idolatry’ (Q.80).
page 176 note 1 The Jesusalem Bible indicates the variations here as follows: ‘has been explained’ (Gk.); ‘He has explained’ (Hb.); ‘I will make known’ (Syr., Vulg.). In his Latin version, Calvin departs from the Vulgate (indicabo) and has indicavit.
page 177 note 1 Cf. Exodus 13.If, 11–16; Numbers 3.13; Luke 2.23.
page 177 note 2 Cf. 2 Kings 23.10; Jeremiah 32.35.
page 179 note 1 This introductory formula ‘Suyvant cette saincte doctrine…’ regularly appears in Calvin's sermons as the transition to the closing prayer. The sermon ends with this paragraph. Benoit has added the French text of the prayer used by Calvin at the close of his lecture on these verses.