6How shall I come before Yahweh, and bow myself before the exalted God? Shall I come before him with burnt offerings, with calves a year old?
7Will Yahweh be pleased with thousands of rams? With tens of thousands of rivers of oil? Shall I give my firstborn for my disobedience? The fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?
8He has shown you, O man, what is good. What does Yahweh require of you, but to act justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God?
6 How shall I come before Yahweh, and bow myself before the exalted God? Shall I come before him with burnt offerings, with calves a year old?
7 Will Yahweh be pleased with thousands of rams? With tens of thousands of rivers of oil? Shall I give my firstborn for my disobedience? The fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?
8 He has shown you, O man, what is good. What does Yahweh require of you, but to act justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God?
KJVKing James Version
6 Wherewith shall I come before the LORD, and bow myself before the high God? shall I come before him with burnt offerings, with calves of a year old?
7 Will the LORD be pleased with thousands of rams, or with ten thousands of rivers of oil? shall I give my firstborn for my transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?
8 He hath shewed thee, O man, what is good; and what doth the LORD require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God?
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JPSJPS Tanakh (1917)
6 'Wherewith shall I come before the LORD, and bow myself before God on high? Shall I come before Him with burnt-offerings, with calves of a year old?
7 Will the LORD be pleased with thousands of rams, with ten thousands of rivers of oil? Shall I give my first-born for my transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?'
8 It hath been told thee, O man, what is good, and what the LORD doth require of thee: only to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God.
Deuteronomy 10:12-13(v8)Now, Israel, what does Yahweh your God require of you, but to fear Yahweh your God, to walk in all his ways, to love him, and to serve…
Proverbs 21:3(v8)To do righteousness and justice is more acceptable to Yahweh than sacrifice.
Colossians 3:12(v8)Put on therefore, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, a heart of compassion, kindness, lowliness, humility, and perseverance;
Jeremiah 22:3(v8)Yahweh says: “Execute justice and righteousness, and deliver him who is robbed out of the hand of the oppressor. Do no wrong. Do no…
Hosea 6:6(vv7–8)For I desire mercy, and not sacrifice; and the knowledge of God more than burnt offerings.
Show all 100 cross-references
1 Samuel 15:22(vv7–8)Samuel said, “Has Yahweh as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices, as in obeying Yahweh’s voice? Behold, to obey is better than…
Isaiah 66:2(v8)For my hand has made all these things, and so all these things came to be,” says Yahweh: “but I will look to this man, even to he who is…
1 Peter 3:8(v8)Finally, all of you be like-minded, compassionate, loving as brothers, tenderhearted, courteous,
1 Peter 5:5-6(v8)Likewise, you younger ones, be subject to the elder. Yes, all of you clothe yourselves with humility, to subject yourselves to one another;…
Luke 6:36(v8)“Therefore be merciful, even as your Father is also merciful.
Isaiah 1:16-19(v8)Wash yourselves. Make yourself clean. Put away the evil of your doings from before my eyes. Cease to do evil. Learn to do well. Seek…
Amos 5:24(v8)But let justice roll on like rivers, and righteousness like a mighty stream.
Luke 11:42(v8)But woe to you Pharisees! For you tithe mint and rue and every herb, but you bypass justice and God’s love. You ought to have done these,…
Ephesians 4:32(v8)And be kind to one another, tender hearted, forgiving each other, just as God also in Christ forgave you.
Isaiah 58:6-11(v8)“Isn’t this the fast that I have chosen: to release the bonds of wickedness, to undo the straps of the yoke, to let the oppressed go free,…
Genesis 18:19(v8)For I have known him, to the end that he may command his children and his household after him, that they may keep the way of Yahweh, to do…
Ecclesiastes 12:13(v8)This is the end of the matter. All has been heard. Fear God and keep his commandments; for this is the whole duty of man.
Matthew 5:7(v8)Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy.
Hosea 12:6(v8)Therefore turn to your God. Keep kindness and justice, and wait continually for your God.
Isaiah 57:15(v8)For the high and lofty One who inhabits eternity, whose name is Holy, says: “I dwell in the high and holy place, with him also who is of a…
Zephaniah 2:3(v8)Seek Yahweh, all you humble of the land, who have kept his ordinances. Seek righteousness. Seek humility. It may be that you will be hidden…
2 Peter 1:5-8(v8)Yes, and for this very cause adding on your part all diligence, in your faith supply moral excellence; and in moral excellence, knowledge;…
Matthew 5:3(v8)“Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven.
Mark 12:30-34(v8)you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength.’ This is…
Daniel 4:37(v8)Now I, Nebuchadnezzar, praise and extol and honor the King of heaven; for all his works are truth, and his ways justice; and those who walk…
Luke 18:13-17(v8)But the tax collector, standing far away, wouldn’t even lift up his eyes to heaven, but beat his breast, saying, ‘God, be merciful to me, a…
James 4:6-10(v8)But he gives more grace. Therefore it says, “God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble.” Be subject therefore to God. Resist the…
Psalms 37:26(v8)All day long he deals graciously, and lends. His offspring is blessed.
Titus 2:11-12(v8)For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation to all men, instructing us to the intent that, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts,…
Nehemiah 9:13(v8)“You also came down on Mount Sinai, and spoke with them from heaven, and gave them right ordinances and true laws, good statutes and…
Isaiah 57:1-2(v8)The righteous perish, and no one lays it to heart. Merciful men are taken away, and no one considers that the righteous is taken away from…
Psalms 112:4(v8)Light dawns in the darkness for the upright, gracious, merciful, and righteous.
Jeremiah 7:3-6(v8)Yahweh of Armies, the God of Israel says, “Amend your ways and your doings, and I will cause you to dwell in this place. Don’t trust in…
2 Chronicles 34:27(v8)because your heart was tender, and you humbled yourself before God, when you heard his words against this place, and against its…
Psalms 73:28(v8)But it is good for me to come close to God. I have made the Lord Yahweh my refuge, that I may tell of all your works.
2 Chronicles 32:26(v8)Notwithstanding Hezekiah humbled himself for the pride of his heart, both he and the inhabitants of Jerusalem, so that Yahweh’s wrath…
Lamentations 3:26(v8)It is good that a man should hope and quietly wait for the salvation of Yahweh.
Matthew 3:8-10(v8)Therefore produce fruit worthy of repentance! Don’t think to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham for our father,’ for I tell you that God is able…
Matthew 18:32-35(v8)Then his lord called him in, and said to him, ‘You wicked servant! I forgave you all that debt, because you begged me. Shouldn’t you also…
1 Samuel 12:23(v8)Moreover as for me, far be it from me that I should sin against Yahweh in ceasing to pray for you: but I will instruct you in the good and…
2 Chronicles 33:12-13(v8)When he was in distress, he begged Yahweh his God, and humbled himself greatly before the God of his fathers. He prayed to him; and he was…
Psalms 112:9(v8)He has dispersed, he has given to the poor. His righteousness endures forever. His horn will be exalted with honor.
Romans 10:1-3(v8)Brothers, my heart’s desire and my prayer to God is for Israel, that they may be saved. For I testify about them that they have a zeal for…
James 2:20(v8)But do you want to know, vain man, that faith apart from works is dead?
Genesis 5:22(v8)After Methuselah’s birth, Enoch walked with God for three hundred years, and became the father of more sons and daughters.
Romans 9:20(v8)But indeed, O man, who are you to reply against God? Will the thing formed ask him who formed it, “Why did you make me like this?”
2 Chronicles 33:23(v8)He didn’t humble himself before Yahweh, as Manasseh his father had humbled himself; but this same Amon trespassed more and more.
Romans 7:16(v8)But if what I don’t desire, that I do, I consent to the law that it is good.
2 Thessalonians 2:16(v8)Now our Lord Jesus Christ himself, and God our Father, who loved us and gave us eternal comfort and good hope through grace,
Ezekiel 16:63(v8)that you may remember, and be confounded, and never open your mouth any more, because of your shame, when I have forgiven you all that you…
Luke 10:42(v8)but one thing is needed. Mary has chosen the good part, which will not be taken away from her.”
Leviticus 26:41(v8)I also walked contrary to them, and brought them into the land of their enemies; if then their uncircumcised heart is humbled, and they…
2 Kings 16:3(v7)But he walked in the way of the kings of Israel, yes, and made his son to pass through the fire, according to the abominations of the…
Psalms 51:16-17(v6)For you don’t delight in sacrifice, or else I would give it. You have no pleasure in burnt offering. The sacrifices of God are a broken…
1 Corinthians 7:16(v8)For how do you know, wife, whether you will save your husband? Or how do you know, husband, whether you will save your wife?
2 Chronicles 33:19(v8)His prayer also, and how God was entreated of him, and all his sin and his trespass, and the places in which he built high places, and set…
Psalms 51:16(v7)For you don’t delight in sacrifice, or else I would give it. You have no pleasure in burnt offering.
Romans 10:2-3(v6)For I testify about them that they have a zeal for God, but not according to knowledge. For being ignorant of God’s righteousness, and…
Psalms 40:6-8(v6)Sacrifice and offering you didn’t desire. You have opened my ears. You have not required burnt offering and sin offering. Then I said,…
Psalms 50:9(v7)I have no need for a bull from your stall, nor male goats from your pens.
2 Kings 3:27(v7)Then he took his oldest son who would have reigned in his place, and offered him for a burnt offering on the wall. There was great wrath…
2 Kings 21:6(v7)He made his son to pass through the fire, practiced sorcery, used enchantments, and dealt with those who had familiar spirits, and with…
2 Kings 23:10(v7)He defiled Topheth, which is in the valley of the children of Hinnom, that no man might make his son or his daughter to pass through the…
Jeremiah 7:31(v7)They have built the high places of Topheth, which is in the valley of the son of Hinnom, to burn their sons and their daughters in the…
Acts 2:37(v6)Now when they heard this, they were cut to the heart, and said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, “Brothers, what shall we do?”
Leviticus 18:21(v7)“ ‘You shall not give any of your children as a sacrifice to Molech. You shall not profane the name of your God. I am Yahweh.
Isaiah 40:16(v7)Lebanon is not sufficient to burn, nor its animals sufficient for a burnt offering.
Daniel 3:26(v6)Then Nebuchadnezzar came near to the mouth of the burning fiery furnace. He spoke and said, “Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, you servants…
Matthew 19:16(v6)Behold, one came to him and said, “Good teacher, what good thing shall I do, that I may have eternal life?”
Mark 5:7(v6)and crying out with a loud voice, he said, “What have I to do with you, Jesus, you Son of the Most High God? I adjure you by God, don’t…
Genesis 14:18-22(v6)Melchizedek king of Salem brought out bread and wine. He was priest of God Most High. He blessed him, and said, “Blessed be Abram of God…
Exodus 12:5(v6)Your lamb shall be without defect, a male a year old. You shall take it from the sheep, or from the goats.
Leviticus 1:3-17(v6)“ ‘If his offering is a burnt offering from the herd, he shall offer a male without defect. He shall offer it at the door of the Tent of…
Numbers 23:1-4(v6)Balaam said to Balak, “Build here seven altars for me, and prepare here seven bulls and seven rams for me.” Balak did as Balaam had spoken;…
Numbers 23:14-15(v6)He took him into the field of Zophim, to the top of Pisgah, and built seven altars, and offered up a bull and a ram on every altar. He said…
Numbers 23:29-30(v6)Balaam said to Balak, “Build seven altars for me here, and prepare seven bulls and seven rams for me here.” Balak did as Balaam had said,…
Judges 11:31(v7)then it shall be, that whatever comes out of the doors of my house to meet me when I return in peace from the children of Ammon, it shall…
Judges 11:39(v7)At the end of two months, she returned to her father, who did with her according to his vow which he had vowed. She was a virgin. It became…
2 Samuel 21:3(v6)and David said to the Gibeonites, “What should I do for you? And with what should I make atonement, that you may bless Yahweh’s…
Job 29:6(v7)when my steps were washed with butter, and the rock poured out streams of oil for me,
Psalms 10:8-13(v7)He lies in wait near the villages. From ambushes, he murders the innocent. His eyes are secretly set against the helpless. He lurks in…
Psalms 22:29(v6)All the rich ones of the earth shall eat and worship. All those who go down to the dust shall bow before him, even he who can’t keep his…
Psalms 95:6(v6)Oh come, let’s worship and bow down. Let’s kneel before Yahweh, our Maker,
Isaiah 1:11-15(v7)“What are the multitude of your sacrifices to me?”, says Yahweh. “I have had enough of the burnt offerings of rams and the fat of fed…
Jeremiah 7:21-22(v7)Yahweh of Armies, the God of Israel says: “Add your burnt offerings to your sacrifices and eat meat. For I didn’t speak to your fathers or…
Jeremiah 19:5(v7)and have built the high places of Baal, to burn their children in the fire for burnt offerings to Baal, which I didn’t command, nor speak,…
Ezekiel 16:20-21(v7)“ ‘ “Moreover you have taken your sons and your daughters, whom you have borne to me, and you have sacrificed these to them to be devoured.…
Ezekiel 23:37(v7)For they have committed adultery, and blood is in their hands. They have committed adultery with their idols. They have also caused their…
Daniel 4:9(v6)“Belteshazzar, master of the magicians, because I know that the spirit of the holy gods is in you, and no secret troubles you, tell me the…
Daniel 5:18(v6)“You, king, the Most High God gave Nebuchadnezzar your father the kingdom, and greatness, and glory, and majesty.
Daniel 5:21(v6)He was driven from the sons of men, and his heart was made like the animals’, and his dwelling was with the wild donkeys. He was fed with…
Amos 5:22(v7)Yes, though you offer me your burnt offerings and meal offerings, I will not accept them; neither will I regard the peace offerings of your…
Luke 10:25(v6)Behold, a certain lawyer stood up and tested him, saying, “Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?”
John 6:26(v6)Jesus answered them, “Most certainly I tell you, you seek me, not because you saw signs, but because you ate of the loaves, and were filled.
Acts 16:17(v6)Following Paul and us, she cried out, “These men are servants of the Most High God, who proclaim to us a way of salvation!”
Acts 16:30(v6)brought them out, and said, “Sirs, what must I do to be saved?”
Philemon 1:12(v7)I am sending him back. Therefore receive him, that is, my own heart,
Hebrews 10:4-10(v6)For it is impossible that the blood of bulls and goats should take away sins. Therefore when he comes into the world, he says, “You didn’t…
2 Chronicles 30:11(v8)Nevertheless some men of Asher, Manasseh, and Zebulun humbled themselves, and came to Jerusalem.
Ephesians 3:14(v6)For this cause, I bow my knees to the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ,
100 distinct cross-references across this passage (102 total citations).
Cross-references from openbible.info (CC BY 4.0)
Explain this passage (19 sources)
Historical commentary, presented as a primary source — not an endorsement.
John Calvin1540 · Public DomainOn vv6, 8The Prophet now inquires, as in the name of…
The Prophet now inquires, as in the name of the people, what was necessary to be done: and he takes these two principles as granted, — that the people were without any excuse, and were forced to confess their sin, — and that God had hitherto contended with them for no other end and with no other design, but to restore the people to the right way; for if his purpose had only been to condemn the people for their wickedness, there would have been no need of these questions. But the Prophet shows what has been often stated before, — that whenever God chides his people, he opens to them the door of hope as to their salvation, provided those who have sinned repent. As this then must have been well known to all the Jews, the Prophet here asks, as with their mouth, what was to be done.
He thus introduces them as inquiring, With what shall I approach Jehovah, and bow down before the high God?
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Shall I approach him with burnt-offerings, with calves of a year old? But at the same time there is no doubt, but that he indirectly refers to that foolish notion, by which men for the most part deceive themselves; for when they are proved guilty, they indeed know that there is no remedy for them, except they reconcile themselves to God: but yet they pretend by circuitous courses to approach God, while they desire to be ever far away from him. This dissimulation has always prevailed in the world, and it now prevails: they see that they whom God convicts and their own conscience condemns, cannot rest in safety. Hence they wish to discharge their duty towards God as a matter of necessity; but at the same time they seek some fictitious modes of reconciliation, as though it were enough to flatter God, as though he could be pacified like a child with some frivolous trifles. The Prophet therefore detects this wickedness, which had ever been too prevalent among them; as though he said, — “I see what ye are about to say; for there is no need of contending longer; as ye have nothing to object to God, and he has things innumerable to allege against you: ye are then more than condemned; but yet ye will perhaps say what has been usually alleged by you and always by hypocrites, even this, — ‘We wish to be reconciled to God, and we confess our faults and seek pardon; let God in the meantime show himself ready to be reconciled to us, while we offer to him sacrifices.’” There is then no doubt, but that the Prophet derided this folly, which has ever prevailed in the hearts of men: they ever think that God can be pacified by outward rites and frivolous performances.
He afterwards adds, He has proclaimed to thee what is good. The Prophet reproves the hypocrisy by which the Jews willfully deceived themselves, as though he said, — “Ye indeed pretend some concern for religion when ye approach God in prayer; but this your religion is nothing; it is nothing else than shamelessly to dissemble; for ye sin not either through ignorance or misconception, but ye treat God with mockery.” — How so? “Because the Law teaches you with sufficient clearness what God requires from you; does it not plainly enough show you what is true reconciliation? But ye close your eyes to the teaching of the Law, and in the meantime pretend ignorance. This is extremely childish. God has already proclaimed what is good, even to do judgment, to love kindness and to walk humbly with God.” We now perceive the design of the Prophet.
As then he says here, With what shall I appear before God? we must bear in mind, that as soon as God condescends to enter into trial with men, the cause is decided; for it is no doubtful contention. When men litigate one with another, there is no cause so good but what an opposite party can darken by sophistries. But the Prophet intimates that men lose all their labor by evasions, when God summons them to a trial. This is one thing. He also shows what deep roots hypocrisy has in the hearts of all, for they ever deceive themselves and try to deceive God. How comes it that men, proved guilty, do not immediately and in the right way retake themselves to God, but that they ever seek windings? How is this? It is not because they have any doubt about what is right except they willfully deceive themselves, but because they dissemble and willfully seek the subterfuges of error. It hence appears that men perversely go astray when ever they repent not as they ought, and bring not to God a real integrity of heart. And hence it also appears that the whole world which continues in its superstitions is without excuse. For if we scrutinize the intentions of men, it will at length come to this, — that men carefully and anxiously seek various superstitions, because they are unwilling to come before God and to devote themselves to him, without some dissembling and hypocrisy. Since it is so, certain it is, that all who desire to pacify God with their own ceremonies and other trifles cannot by any pretext escape. What is said here is at the same time strictly addressed to the Jews, who had been instructed in the teaching of the Law: and such are the Papists of this day; though they spread forth specious pretenses to excuse their ignorance, they may yet be refuted by this one fact, — that God has prescribed clearly and distinctly enough what he requires: but they wish to be ignorant of this; hence their error is at all times wilful. We ought especially to notice this in the words of the Prophet; but I cannot proceed farther now.
John Calvin's Commentaries (1540-1563) — public domain. Text from the Calvin Translation Society English edition (1840s-50s) via the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (ccel.org). Calvin's coverage is partial (roughly two-thirds of the Bible); uncommented books and verses are honest gaps, never fabricated. The 19th-century editor's footnotes and remarks are omitted so the notes are faithfully Calvin's own voice.
Geneva Bible translators1599 · Public DomainOn vv6–8Thus the people by hypocrisy ask how to please…
Thus the people by hypocrisy ask how to please God and are content to offer sacrifices, but will not change their lives.
Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain.
John Trapp1656 · Public DomainOn vv6–8Mic 6:6 Wherewith shall I come before the LORD,…
Mic 6:6 Wherewith shall I come before the LORD, [and] bow myself before the high God? shall I come before him with burnt offerings, with calves of a year old?
Ver. 6. Wherewith shall I come before the Lord?] This is vox populi, the voice of the people now convinced in part; or at least of some one for them. Praestat herbam dare quam turpiter pugnare: Better yield than disgracefully hold out the contest. God, say they, hath the better of us; neither need he now call upon heaven and earth to arbitrate, nor on the mountains and strong foundations to hear the quarrel, for we are self-condemned, Tit 3:11. Our own consciences read the sentence against us, we have deserved to be destroyed; but O, what may we do to avert and avoid his wrath? "what shall we do that we might work the works of God?" Joh 6:28. Lo, this is the guise of graceless men; fain they would pacify God, and work themselves into his grace and favour by ceremonies and frivolous businesses; yea, they offer largely for a dispensation to live in their sins, which they had as lief be knocked on the head as part with. Interea per flexuosos circuitus fingunt se ad Deum accedere, a quo tamen semper cupiant esse remoti, saith Calvin; they fetch a compass about God, but care not to come near him. Heaven they would either steal if they could, or buy at any hand, if they might; fain would they pass e coeno ad coelum, a deliciis ad delicias, from Delilah’s lap to Abraham’s bosom; fain they would (as one saith) dance with the devil all day, and then sup with Christ at night. They seem here very inquisitive and solicitous about their soul’s health; they give the half turn, sed ad Deum usque non revertuntur, but they return not even to God; like a horse in a mill, they move much, but remove not at all; like those silly women, 2Ti 3:6-7, or as ants that run to and fro about a mole hill, but grow not greater.
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And bow myself before the high God] Or, shall I bow myself, will that, or any like bodily exercise, please him or pacify him? If cringing or crouching will do it, if sackcloth and ashes, if hanging down the head and going softly, if penances and pilgrimages, &c., hypocrites do usually herein outdo the upright. Doth the publican look with his eye on the ground? the hypocritical Jews will hang down their heads like bulrushes. Doth Timothy weaken his constitution by abstinence? the Pharisee will never give over till his complexion be wholly withered and waned. Doth Paul correct his body with milder correction, as it were a blow on the cheek? the Jesuit will martyr his sides with the severe discipline of scorpions. But although God must be glorified with our bodies also, 1Co 6:20, and external service is required (whatever the Swenkfeldians say to the contrary), yet bodily exercise of itself profiteth little, 1Ti 4:8, and let those that brag of or bind upon their outward worship of Christ consider, that the devil himself in the demoniac of Gadara fell down and worshipped him. What comfort can there be in that which is common to us with devils? who, as they believe and tremble, so they tremble and worship. The outward bowing is the body of the action; the disposition of the soul is the soul of it.
Shall I come before him with burnt offerings, &c.] Shall I prevent him, and propitiate him with burnt offerings? shall I meet him marching against me, and thus make my peace with him? The Jews were much in sacrifices, till they wearied God’s soul therewith, and all his senses, Isa 1:13-15; but they were sacrificing Sodomites, Mic 6:10, they stuck in the bark, they pleased themselves in the work done, not attending the manner, which either makes or mars every action, and is mainly eyed by God; their devotions were placed more in the massive materiality than inward purity; and hence rejected David could tell (though these questionists could not) that God desired not sacrifice further than as thereby men were led to Christ; and that the sacrifices of God are a contrite spirit, Psa 51:16-17; that no burnt offering is acceptable, nor calf of a year old, unless laid on the low altar of a broken heart, which sanctifieth the sacrifice.
John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Matthew Poole1685 · Public DomainOn vv6–8In the foregoing part of the chapter you have…
In the foregoing part of the chapter you have God’s resolution to have a hearing, Mic 6:1,2, and his plea for himself against an ungrateful people, Mic 6:3-5. Now in this verse you have the result, which is either an unfeigned submission, and justification of God’s just proceedings, made by some of the best of this people, or else an inquiry made by men among them, who did yet retain some opinion of their own integrity; much like those Isa 58:3, they were ready to say, We have offered sacrifices as required, &c.; what would God have us do more? Or else it is an inquiry what the prophet would further direct them to do in this case, with an intimation that they were ready to offer any sacrifices God should require of them. Or else this verse is the prophet’s supposition, that some among them would be ready to inquire how they should in this case behave themselves, and so this prosopoeia fairly makes way for further direction to this people.
Wherewith? Heb. With what? what preparation shall I make for a due and right address unto God?
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Shall I, in the person of all the people, or else in the person of the most thinking among them: this I is the people of the Jews.
Come before the Lord: it is a temple phrase, and contains the solemn attendance on God in his worship; well paraphrased in the Chaldee paraphrase, With what shall I serve before the Lord?
And bow myself before: this is exegetical to the former phrase, When I come to bow myself and worship the Lord, with what shall I appear?
The high God; such was the God of Israel, heaven his throne, the earth his footstool; idols are dunghill gods, our God alone is the God who dwells on high.
Shall I come before him with burnt-offerings? shall these suffice for testimony that I owe my all to God, or appease his displeasure, which justly might devour me as the fire the sacrifice?
With calves of a year old: it is probable this repeats (as is usual in Scripture, to confirm and affect us the more) the thing before mentioned.
Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Matthew Henry1710 · Public DomainOn v6Here is the proposal for accommodation between God and…
Here is the proposal for accommodation between God and Israel, the parties that were at variance in the beginning of the chapter. Upon the trial, judgment is given against Israel; they are convicted of injustice and ingratitude towards God, the crimes with which they stood charged. Their guilt is too plain to be denied, too great to be excused, and therefore,
I. They express their desires to be at peace with God upon any terms (Mic 6:6, Mic 6:7): Wherewith shall I come before the Lord? Being made sensible of the justice of God's controversy with them, and dreading the consequences of it, they were inquisitive what they might do to be reconciled to God and to make him their friend. They apply to a proper person, with this enquiry, to the prophet, the Lord's messenger, by whose ministry they had been convinced. Who so fit to show them their way as he that had made them sensible of their having missed it? And it is observable that each one speaks for himself: Wherewith shall I come? Knowing every one the plague of his own heart, they ask, not, What shall this man do? But, What shall I do? Note, Deep convictions of guilt and wrath will put men upon careful enquiries after peace and pardon, and then, and not till then, there begins to be some hope of them. They enquire wherewith they may come before the Lord, and bow themselves before the high God. They believe there is a God, that he is Jehovah, and that he is the high God, the Most High. Those whose consciences are convinced learn to speak very honourably of God, whom before they spoke slightly of. Now, 1. We know we must come before God; he is the God with whom we have to do; we must come as subjects, to pay our homage to him, as beggars, to ask alms from him, nay, we must come before him, as criminals, to receive our doom from him, must come before him as our Judge. 2. When we come before him we must bow before him; it is our duty to be very humble and reverent in our approaches to him; and, when we come before him, there is no remedy but we must submit; it is to no purpose to contend with him. 3. When we come and bow before him it is our great concern to find favour with him, and to be accepted of him; their enquiry is, What will the Lord be pleased with? Note, All that rightly understand their own interest cannot but be solicitous what they must do to please God, to avoid his displeasure and to obtain his good-will. 4. In order to God's being pleased with us, our care must be that the sin by which we have displeased him may be taken away, and an atonement made for it. The enquiry here is, What shall I give for my transgression, for the sin of my soul? Note, The transgression we are guilty of is the sin of our soul, for the soul acts it (without the soul's act it is not sin) and the soul suffers by it; it is the disorder, disease, and defilement of the soul, and threatens to be the death of it: What shall I give for my transgressions? What will be accepted as a satisfaction to his justice, a reparation of his honour? And what will avail to shelter me from his wrath? 5. We must therefore ask, Wherewith may we come before him? We must not appear before the Lord empty. What shall we bring with us? In what manner must we come? In whose name must we come? We have not that in ourselves which will recommend us to him, but must have it from another. What righteousness then shall we appear before him in?
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II. They make proposals, such as they are, in order to it. Their enquiry was very good and right, and what we are all concerned to make, but their proposals betray their ignorance, though they show their zeal; let us examine them: -
1. They bid high. They offer, (1.) That which is very rich and costly - thousands of rams. God required one ram for a sin-offering; they proffer flocks of them, their whole stock, will be content to make themselves beggars, so that they may but be at peace with God. They will bring the best they have, the rams, and the most of them, till it comes to thousands. (2.) That which is very dear to them, and which they would be most loth to part with. They could be content to part with their first-born for their transgressions, if that would be accepted as an atonement, and the fruit of their body for the sin of their soul. To those that had become vain in their imaginations this seemed a probable expedient of making satisfaction for sin, because our children are pieces of ourselves; and therefore the heathen sacrificed their children, to appease their offended deities. Note, Those that are thoroughly convinced of sin, of the malignity of it, and of their misery and danger by reason of it, would give all the world, if they had it, for peace and pardon.
2. Yet they do not bid right. It is true some of these things were instituted by the ceremonial law, as the bringing of burnt-offerings to God's altar, and calves of a year old, rams for sin-offerings, and oil for the meat-offerings; but these alone would not recommend them to God. God had often declared that to obey is better than sacrifice, and to hearken than the fat of rams, that sacrifice and offering he would not; the legal sacrifices had their virtue and value from the institution, and the reference they had to Christ the great propitiation; but otherwise, of themselves, it was impossible that the blood of bulls and goats should take away sin. And as to the other things here mentioned, (1.) Some of them are impracticable things, as rivers of oil, which nature has not provided to feed men's luxury, but rivers of water to supply men's necessity. All the proposals of peace but those that are according to the gospel are absurd. One stream of the blood of Christ is worth ten thousand rivers of oil. (2.) Some of them are wicked things, as to give our first-born and the fruit of our body to death, which would but add to the transgression and the sin of the soul. He that hates robbery for burnt-offerings much more hates murder, such murder. What right have we to our first born and the fruit of our body? Do they not belong to God? Are they not his already, and born to him? Are they not sinners by nature, and their lives forfeited upon their own account? How then can they be a ransom for ours? (3.) They are all external things, parts of that bodily exercise which profiteth little, and which could not make the comers thereunto perfect. (4.) They are all insignificant, and insufficient to attain the end proposed; they could not answer the demands of divine justice, nor satisfy the wrong done to God in his honour by sin, nor would they serve in lieu of the sanctification of the heart and the reformation of the life. Men will part with any thing rather than their sins, but they part with nothing to God's acceptance unless they part with them.
III. God tells them plainly what he demands, and insists upon, from those that would be accepted of him, Mic 6:8. Let their money perish with them that think the pardon of sin and the favour of God may be so purchased; no, God has shown thee, O man! what is good. Here we are told,
1. That God has made a discovery of his mind and will to us, for the rectifying of our mistakes and the direction of our practice. (1.) It is God himself that has shown us what we must do. We need not trouble ourselves to make proposals, the terms are already settled and laid down. He whom we have offended, and to whom we are accountable, has told us upon what conditions he will be reconciled to us. (2.) It is to man that he has shown it, not only to thee, O Israel! but to thee, O man! Gentiles as well as Jews - to men, who are rational creatures, and capable of receiving the discovery, and not to brutes, - to men, for whom a remedy is provided, not to devils, whose case is desperate. What is spoken to all men every where in general, must by faith be applied to ourselves in particular, as if it were spoken to thee, O man! by name, and to no other. (3.) It is a discovery of that which is good, and which the Lord requires of us. He has shown us our end, which we should aim at, in showing us what is good, wherein our true happiness does consist; he has shown us our way in which we must walk towards that end in showing us what he requires of us. There is something which God requires we should do for him and devote to him; and it is good. It is good in itself; there is an innate goodness in moral duties, antecedent to the command; they are not, as ceremonial observances, good because they are commanded, but commanded because they are good, consonant to the eternal rule and reason of good and evil, which are unalterable. It has likewise a direct tendency to our good; our conformity to it is not only the condition of our future happiness, but is a great expedient of our present happiness; in keeping God's commandments there is great reward, as well as after keeping them. (4.) It is shown us. God has not only made it known, but made it plain; he has discovered it to us with such convincing evidence as amounts to a demonstration. Lo this, we have searched it, so it is.
2. What that discovery is. The good which God requires of us is not the paying of a price for the pardon of sin and acceptance with God, but doing the duty which is the condition of our interest in the pardon purchased. (1.) We must do justly, must render to all their due, according as our relation and obligation to them are; we must do wrong to none, but do right to all, in their bodies, goods, and good name. (2.) We must love mercy; we must delight in it, as our God does, must be glad of an opportunity to do good, and do it cheerfully. Justice is put before mercy, for we must not give that in alms which is wrongfully got, or with which our debts should be paid. God hates robbery for a burnt-offering. (3.) We must walk humbly with our God. This includes all the duties of the first table, as the two former include all the duties of the second table. We must take the Lord for our God in covenant, must attend on him and adhere to him as ours, and must make it our constant care and business to please him. Enoch's walking with God is interpreted (Heb 11:5) his pleasing God. We must, in the whole course of our conversation, conform ourselves to the will of God, keep up our communion with God, and study to approve ourselves to him in our integrity; and this we must do humbly (submitting our understandings to the truths of God and our will to his precepts and providences); we must humble ourselves to walk with God (so the margin reads it); every thought within us must be brought down, to be brought into obedience to God, if we would walk comfortably with him. This is that which God requires, and without which the most costly services are vain oblations; this is more than all burnt-offerings and sacrifices.
Matthew Henry's Commentary on the Whole Bible (1708–1710) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Gill1763 · Public DomainOn vv6–8Wherewith shall I come before the Lord,.... These are…
Wherewith shall I come before the Lord,.... These are not the words of the people of Israel God had a controversy with, and now made sensible of their sin, and humbled for it; and willing to appease the Lord, and make it up with him at any rate; for there are such things proposed by them as do by no means suit with persons of such a character, nay, even suppose them to be hypocritical; and much less are they what were put into their mouths by the prophet to say, as some suggest; but they are the words of Balak king of Moab, which, and what follow, are questions he put to Balaam, who had told him that he could do nothing without the Lord, nor anything contrary to his word: now he asks what he must do to get the good will of this Lord; in what manner, and with what he must appear before him, serve and worship him, as the Targum; that so he might have an interest in him, and get him to speak a word to Balaam in his favour, and against Israel; see Num 22:8;
and bow myself before the high God? the most high God, the God of gods, whose Shechinah or Majesty is in the high heavens, as the Targum: his meaning is, with what he should come, or bring with him, when he paid his homage and obeisance to him, by bowing his body or his knee before him; being willing to do it in the most acceptable manner he could:
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shall I come before him with burnt offerings, with calves of a year old? such as he had been used to offer on the high places of Baal to that deity. Sacrifices of this kind prevailed among the Heathens, which they had received by tradition from the times of Adam and Noah; see Num 22:41.
John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Wesley1765 · Public DomainOn vv6–8Wherewith - One whose heart was touched by the…
Wherewith - One whose heart was touched by the preceeding expostulation, may be supposed to make this enquiry.
John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.
Adam Clarke1810 · Public DomainOn vv6–8Verse 6. Wherewith shall I come before the Lord]…
Verse 6. Wherewith shall I come before the Lord] Now the people, as defendants, appear; but instead of vindicating themselves, or attempting to dispute what has been alleged against them, they seem at once to plead guilty; and now anxiously inquire how they shall appease the wrath of the Judge, how they shall make atonement for the sins already committed.
Bow myself before the high God] They wish to pray, and to make supplication to their Judge; but how shall they come before him? They have no right to come into his presence. Some offering must be brought; but of what kind, or of what value? Their sin is unprecedented, and usual methods of access will not avail. They are distracted in their minds, and make a variety of proposals to themselves, some rational, some absurd and impossible, and some even sinful.
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Shall I come before him with burnt-offerings] This is reasonable, and according to the law; but this will be insufficient.
Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Joseph Benson1811 · Public DomainOn vv6, 8Mic 6:6-7. Wherewith shall I come before the Lord…
Mic 6:6-7. Wherewith shall I come before the Lord — After the preceding reproof of the people’s ingratitude, they are here introduced as anxiously inquiring how they may propitiate God’s displeasure, and avert his judgments. They intimate that they are ready to offer any expiatory sacrifices, though never so costly, for that purpose. Shall I come before him with burnt-offerings, &c. — Will God accept of the ordinary sacrifices, such as we have offered on other occasions, as an atonement for sin? Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams, &c. — With a prodigious number; or ten thousands of rivers of oil — Were it possible to give them? Doth he expect more costly sacrifices than ordinary? We are ready, if that will appease him, to offer up to him multitudes of rams, and to add meat-offerings, prepared with oil, in proportion, though it should cost us an immeasurable quantity of that article. Shall I give my firstborn, &c. — The dearest of my offspring, or any other of my children, to Jehovah, by way of atonement for my transgression? It is well known that the Phenicians, and their descendants the Carthaginians, sacrificed their children to Saturn or Molech, and in their great dangers they were wont to offer the dearest of them. And some of the idolatrous Jews and Israelites imitated this horrid practice: see note on Lev 18:21, where God in a solemn manner prohibits it, as he frequently does elsewhere. These two verses give us an exact description of the character of hypocrites and habitual sinners, who hope to obtain God’s favour by performing certain external ceremonies; and are willing to purchase their own pardon upon any terms, except that of reforming their lives.
Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Albert Barnes1834 · Public DomainOn vv6, 8Wherewith shall I come before the Lord? - The…
Wherewith shall I come before the Lord? - The people, thus arraigned, bursts in, as men do, with professions that they would be no more ungrateful; that they will do anything, everything - but what they ought. With them it shall be but “Ask and have.” They wish only to know, with what they shall come? They would be beforehand with Him, anticipating His wishes; they would, with all the submission of a creature, bow, prostrate themselves before God; they acknowledge His High Majesty, who dwelleth on high, the most High God, and would abase themselves before His lofty greatness, if they but knew, “how” or “wherewith.”
They would give of their best; sacrifices the choicest of their kind, which should be wholly His, whole-burnt-offerings, offered exactly according to the law, “bullocks of a year old” Lev 9:2-3; then too, the next choice offering, the rams; and these, as they were offered for the whole people on very solemn occasions, in vast multitudes, thousands or ten thousands ; the oil which accompanied the burnt sacrifice, should flow in rivers ; nay, more still; they would not withhold their sons, their first born sons, from God, part, as they were, of themselves, or any fruit of their own body.
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They enhance the offering by naming the tender relation to themselves Deu 28:53. They would offer everything, (even what God forbade) excepting only what alone He asked for, their heart, its love and its obedience . The form of their offer contains this; they ask zealously, “with what shall I come.” It is an outward offering only, a thing which they would bring. Hypocritical eagerness! a sin against light. For to enquire further, when God has already revealed anything, is to deny that He has revealed it. It comes from the wish that He had not revealed what lie has revealed. : “whose, after he hath found the truth, discusseth anything further, seeketh a lie.” God had told them, long before, from the time that He made them His people, what he desired of them; So Micah answers,
Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary1859 · Public DomainOn vv6–8What shall I offer, &c. This is spoken in…
What shall I offer, &c. This is spoken in the person of the people, desiring to be informed what they are to do to please God. (Challoner) --- They can answer nothing in their own defence.
George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).
Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset & David Brown1871 · Public DomainOn vv6–8Wherewith shall I come before the Lord?--The people, convicted…
Wherewith shall I come before the Lord?--The people, convicted by the previous appeal of Jehovah to them, ask as if they knew not (compare Mic 6:8) what Jehovah requires of them to appease Him, adding that they are ready to offer an immense heap of sacrifices, and those the most costly, even to the fruit of their own body.
burnt offerings-- (Lev. 1:1-17).
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calves of a year old--which used to be offered for a priest (Lev 9:2-3).
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges1878 · Public DomainOn vv6–86. Wherewith] i.e. with what present?
6. Wherewith] i.e. with what present?
bow myself] With the obeisance of a subject before his king, or of a poor man before a rich.
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with calves of a year old] These were considered the choicest (Lev_9:3).
6–8. The people, feeling its need of atonement, anxiously (note the repeated questions) inquires of the prophet how it is to propitiate Jehovah. Bishop Butler, in his Sermon on the Character of Balaam, adopts the view that Mic_6:6-7 represent the question of Balak, and Mic_6:8 the answer of Balaam. This was probably suggested by 2Ki_3:27, where it is recorded that the king of Moab offered up his eldest son as a burnt-offering. But the inference is hasty; human sacrifices were one of the abominations of Israel (see below), which most excited the reprobation of the prophets. Bishop Butler, too, had probably not realized the amount of personification which exists in the prophetic writings. It is the people personified which speaks in these two verses (6 and 7).
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers1878 · Public DomainOn vv6–8(6) Wherewith shall I come . . .?—This has…
(6) Wherewith shall I come . . .?—This has been taken by some commentators as Balak’s question to Balaam, who gives his reply in Mic_6:8. Dean Stanley writes, after his picturesque manner, of “the short dialogue preserved, not by the Mosaic historian, but by the Prophet Micah, which at once exhibits the agony of the king and the lofty conceptions of the great Seer” (Jewish Church, Lect. 8). But it is rather in harmony with the context to understand it as the alarmed and conscience-stricken reply of the Jewish people impersonated in some earnest speaker to the pleading brought before them by the prophet in the Lord’s name.
A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Pulpit Commentary1880 · Public DomainOn vv6–8Vers. 6-8. The people, awakened to its ingratitude and…
Vers. 6-8. The people, awakened to its ingratitude and need of atonement, asks how to please God, and is referred for answer to the moral requirements of the Law.
It is greatly doubted who is the speaker here. Bishop Butler, in his sermon "Upon the Character of Balaam," adopts the view that Balak is the speaker of vers. 6 and 7, and Balaam answers in ver. 8. Knabenbauer considers Micah himself as the interlocutor, speaking in the character of the people; which makes the apparent change of persons in ver. 8 very awkward. Most commentators, ancient and modern, take the questions in vers. 6 and 7 to be asked by the people personified, though they are not agreed as to the spirit from which they proceed, some thinking that they are uttered in self-righteousness, as if the speakers had done all that and more than could be required of them; others regarding the inquiries as representing a certain acknowledgment of sin and a desire for means of propitiation, though there is exhibited a want of appreciation of the nature of God and of the service which alone is acceptable to him. The latter view is most reasonable, and in accordance with Micah"s manner. Wherewith; i.e. with what offering? The prophet represents the congregation as asking him to tell them how to propitiate the offended Lord, and obtain his favour. Come before; go to meet, appear in the presence of the Lord. Septuagint, katalabw , "attain to." Bow myself before the high God; literally, God of the height, who has his throne on high; (Isa_33:5 Isa_57:15) Vulgate, curvabo genu Deo excelso; Septuagint, antilhqomai Yeou mou uqistou , "shall I lay hold of my God most high." Calves of a year old. Such were deemed the choicest victims. (comp. Exo_12:5 Lev_9:2, Lev_9:3)
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Vers. 6-8. Man"s spiritual need, and its supply.
These verses form one of the most striking passages in the Old Testament Scriptures. Let any one inquire as to the nature of true religion, and he may find the exposition of it expressed here with marvellous vigour and terseness of speech, and with a completeness leaving nothing to be supplied. The false conception respecting true religion as consisting in that which is external is swept clean away as with a besom, and the loftiest view concerning it is set before us in diction so simple that it cannot be misunderstood and in tone so earnest that it cannot fall to come home to the conscience and the heart.
I THERE UNDERLIES THESE WORDS THE THOUGHT OF MAN"S DEEP NEED OF GOD. To "come before the Lord" and to "bow before the most high God" is a necessity of humanity. Uncentred from God, the children of men are ever craving after seine unattained good, and which alone consists in the Divine favour and blessing. They turn to objects that are unworthy and that can never meet the wants of their higher nature. They seek satisfaction in that which is material, in cherishing attachment to the outward, the fleeting, the unreal; even as these people of Judah turned to luxury, ease, and self-indulgence; and the result is and ever must be miserable disappointment. Or they turn to objects such as are really worthy wealth, scholarship, oratory, political and civic honours; but anticipating getting more out of these than they had any right to expect, there is failure and consequent disquietude. "He hath showed thee, O man, what is good." God has declared that true heart rest can alone be found in himself. "Thou hast formed us for thyself, and our heart is disquieted till it resteth in thee" (Augustine). Consider
II THE IMPOSSIBILITY OF FINDING THE SATISFACTION OF THIS DEEP NEED OF THE SOUL IN A MERELY FORMAL AND EXTERNAL SERVICE. It is a great thing when a true reformer succeeds in making an impression. When evils have become deep-rooted, when men have become accustomed to perverted ways, there is an indifference and callousness about them which it is difficult indeed to overcome. And the distinction of this Hebrew seer is seen in the success he achieved where so many have signally failed. By the force of his own personal character, combined with the simplicity and vividness, the mingled severity, tenderness, and the intense earnestness of his language, he succeeded in rousing many to a sense of their sinfulness, and in awakening within them desires and aspirations after a truer life, and impelling them to cry, "Wherewith shall I come," etc.? (ver. 6). But mark what followed. Micah prophesied in the reign of Hezekiah, and the history shows that the people rested in outward reformation and external forms. They cried, "Shall I come before him with burnt offerings...rivers of oil?" (vers. 6, 7); i.e. shall I bring the costliest and choicest sacrifices, and cause the oil which accompanies the offerings to flow plenteously? "Shall I" (following the practice of the heathen) "give my firstborn," etc.? (ver. 7). And they acted in the spirit of these inquiries. The interest in the temple and its services became revived, the Law was read, the sacrifices renewed, the fasts and feasts once more observed, and the threatened judgments were delayed. But all this was only temporary, there was outward reformation, but unaccompanied by inward renewal; the observance of external forms and the resting in these instead of in God; so that the spiritual unrest continued, and the process of national decay went on, whilst the voice of God was heard uttering the strongest denunciations, saying, "To what purpose,". (Isa_1:11-15) Beware of cherishing a merely formal piety, of honouring God with your lips whilst your hearts are far from him, of resting in outward reformation and external worship. (Psa_51:16, 17 Joh_4:23, Joh_4:24)
III THIS NEED OF THE HEART IS MET IN THE POSSESSION OF SINCERE AND GENUINE PIETY. Such piety is described (ver. 8) as consisting in doing justly, loving mercy, and walking humbly with God. It is spiritual in its nature, and has its seat in the heart. Possessing a heart renewed, trustful, and obedient to the Divine will, God will dwell with us, will be cur chief joy, and in all places and at all seasons will manifest himself to us. So shall we at all times and under all circumstances find tranquillity and peace. So shall we sing"Without thee life and time are sadness, No fragrance breathes around; But with thee even grief is gladness, The heart its home hath found.
Vers. 6-8. The essentials of godliness.
If the questions of vers. 6 and 7 are those of Balak and the answers are Balaam"s, they remind us of how a man may know and explain clearly the path of righteousness and peace, and yet neglect it. Balsam may prophesy; Demas may preach; Judas may cast out devils; but "I never knew you; depart from me ye that work iniquity!" Or if we regard the questions as proposed, either by the nation convicted of sin (vers. 1-5), or by any one sin-stricken soul, we learn the same truths. It is the old controversy, older than Balak, between God and man, as to the grounds of man"s acceptance with God and the essential requirements from man by God. We see
I ANXIOUS QUESTIONS. (Vers. 6, 7) These questions remind us of:
1. Man"s sense of distance from God. He is not consciously walking "with God," like Enoch; "before God," like Abraham.
2. His conviction that he cannot come to God by any right or merit of his own. "Wherewith?" He cannot come just as he is, empty-handed. He has no right of entry to the court of the Divine King.
3. And that if he comes at all he must bow," as an inferior, conscious of absolute dependence. This "consciousness of absolute dependence" (Schleiermacher"s definition of religion), which is shared by all intelligent creatures, is intensified by the consciousness of sin. Sin has as its shadow guilt, and the brighter the light the clearer and darker the shadow. That shadow projects itself into the mysterious future. A sense of desert of punishment and "a certain tearful looking for of judgment" are the attendants of sin, though there may be no meltings of godly sorrow from a sense of its base ingratitude. Thus sin is the great separater; man feels it; God declares it. (Isa_59:1, Isa_59:2) Hence there follow suggestive inquiries as to the means by which acceptance with God may be obtained. Shall they be "burnt offerings"? There was a germ of truth in this thought. (cf. 2Sa_24:24) Burnt offerings were entirely devoted to God. They might be precious in quality, like "calves of a year old," or multiplied in quantity ("thousands of rams," etc.). These burnt offerings were designed to denote God"s right to our entire surrender, but could be no substitute for that surrender. They might be signs of eager desire for acceptance, though at a high price. But in themselves they could bring no sense of access to God and of peace with him. Then comes the suggestion of a sacrifice infinitely more costly ("my firstborn," etc.). To a parent a child"s life is more precious than his own. If the sinner can be forgiven and accepted only at such a price, shall it be paid? Terror-stricken, deluded consciences have answered, "Yes;" but the peace has not come. While some of these proposals are detestable to God, all of them are worthless. Unless the man himself is right with God, no sacrifice can avail. Yet many would rather sacrifice health, life, wife, child, than give up sin which is the great separator. Sinful man can ask such anxious questions as these, but he cannot answer them. His suggestions land him in deeper guilt, or at the best leave him in blank despair.
II REASSURING ANSWERS. (Ver. 8) These come from God himself. Every fragment of gospel news of good, is news from God. It was given not now for the first time. God had spoken at sundry times and in divers manners by Moses and the earlier prophets. All previous revelations of Law and grace were means of showing men "what is good." In regard to man himself, God from the beginning has testified that his only real "good" is real godliness. This was the sum of his requirements. (see Deu_10:12, Deu_10:13, etc.) He did not seek for something from themselves, but for themselves and for the fruit of his Spirit within them. There were false methods by which "that which is good" was sought, such as heathen sacrifices and austerities. There were inadequate methods, such as God"s own appointed system of sacrifices and services, when emptied of the spirit of self-surrender they were designed to foster and of the teaching they contained of the need of "better sacrifices". (Heb_9:23) These symbolical educational sacrifices were but part of a process which was to issue in man"s acceptance by God, that thus man might render to God what he required, and might know and "prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God". (cf. Heb_10:1-10, Heb_10:19-25) Looking closely at ver. 8, we see a summing up of both Law and gospel.
1. To do justly. " Elementary morality is here linked with all that is Divine. To do justly is not only to do what is just, but because it is just, and with an earnest desire to be right with God. The "righteousness" which "the righteous Lord loveth" (Psa_11:7) is more than the outward act. And yet these most elementary acts of righteousness were neglected by many then (vers. 10-12 and Mic_7:3) as well as now, who proposed anxious questions about their acceptance with God or even professed to have found satisfactory answers to them.
2. To love mercy." Mercy is more than justice, just as "a good man" is more than a merely "righteous" one. (Rom_5:7) The lack of it may arise from hardness of character, or from never having passed through the temptations by which some have fallen. To cultivate the love of mercy will bring us nearer to God, and will make it easy for us to scatter blessings around our path, even to the unthankful and the evil. (Pro_21:21 Mat_5:7 Luk_6:32-36) Such a disposition is incompatible with spiritual pride. But lest a just and benevolent man should be tempted to pride himself and to rely on his outward conduct, we are reminded of God"s last requirement.
3. To walk humbly with thy God." Here the first table of the Decalogue and the law of the gospel are combined. "Walk with God." How can the sinner, except he be reconciled? (Amo_3:3) Hence the need of peace in God"s appointed way. This way to us is not the way of self-righteousness or the way of ceremonies and sacraments, but it is the way of faith in God"s own appointed and accepted atonement. (Rom_4:4, 5 1Jn_3:23) To "submit" to this righteousness of God requires a humbling of many a proud heart. And if we have welcomed reconciliation as God"s free gift through Christ, we shall ever after walk humbly with our God as his grateful, happy children. Such a humble walk will make justice and mercy easier to us. When Luther was asked what was the first step in religion, he replied "Humility;" and when asked what was the second and the third, answered in the same way. Therefore walk humbly, as a learner; as a pensioner; as a pardoned and joyous child, "looking for the mercy of the Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal life". E.S.P. (Tit_2:11-14)
HOMILIES BY A. ROWLAND Vers. 6-8. Man"s yearning for his Maker.
The prophet supposes that his earnest appeals have had some effect that the people are stirred from their senselessness, and are beginning to feel after God. Overwhelmed with a consciousness of sin, they dare not approach him as they are. Their hesitation and their self-communing are like those of the prodigal in the far country when he came to himself. The sense of distance between the finite and the infinite, between the sin-stained and the holy, is oppressive and painful, and it finds expression in the words of our text.
I THE ANXIOUS INQUIRY. "Wherewith shall I come before the Lord, and bow myself before the high God?" Whether men wish to do so or not, they are bound by the inexorable laws of God to appear before him. They may come as sinners, casting themselves upon his mercy, as David and the publican came; but they must come, on the last great day, as responsible creatures, to give an account of the deeds done in the body, whether they are good or bad. It is not as a race, or even as families, that judgment will be received by men, but by each in his individual capacity. Hence the wise man asks himself," Wherewith shall I come before the Lord?
1. This implies belief in a personal God. There is no conception here or elsewhere in Scripture of the world being ruled by an impersonal Power, by a tendency which makes for righteousness. Such theories are in the long run destructive of the sense of personal accountability, and therefore fatal to the basis on which moral law rests.
2. This implies conviction of sin. Else why this nameless dread, and this notion of sin offering? It matters not how it is aroused, whether by tender touches of Divine love or by fervid appeals by inspired messengers; nor is it of consequence whether the sins were those of omission or of commission; but in some form, and by some means, a sense of sin is aroused in most men by the power of the Holy Spirit, whose office it is to "convince the world of sin, of righteousness, and of a judgment to come.
3. This implies willingness to make some sacrifice. Even the heathen have had the innate consciousness that without the shedding of blood there is no remission. The Jews had a divinely ordained and most elaborate system of sacrifice, which kept this idea before their minds, in all the changeful conditions of life. But they were taught that it was not these outward and visible offerings which atoned for sin. "Thou desirest not sacrifice, else would I give it," etc. "Lebanon is not sufficient to burn" etc. "The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit: a broken and a contrite heart, O God, thou wilt not despise".
II THE SATISFACTORY ANSWER. With ever increasing fulness it came, until at last the voice of the Lord Jesus was heard saying, "I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life; no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.
1. Christ Jesus has offered an atonement for us. "Once, in the end of the world, he hath appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself," He has not repealed the morel law; he has not abolished the necessity for means of moral culture; he has not quenched the Divine wrath; but he has revealed (not created) the Divine purpose, and has commended (not purchased) the Divine love. "God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.
2. Christ Jesus has brought God near to us. In him God is manifest in the flesh. "He that hath seen me hath seen the Father.
(1) By seeing him we can understand what God is. The unseen power which pulsates through this boundless universe is too vast for our appreciation; but revealed in the Lord Jesus, we know him to be a Person, speaking to us in wisdom and love.
(2) Through Jesus we know that God is love. He inspires hope and trust in those who are alienated and afraid. A display of Divine glory would terrify us; but we are encouraged to draw near by One who appeared as the Babe of Bethlehem, as the patient Teacher of the disciples, as the gracious Friend of the sinful and distressed.
3. Christ Jesus attracts us to God. Arousing gratitude and confidence, he is the great magnet of human hearts. "And I, if I be lifted up, will draw all men unto me.
III THE DIVINE REQUIREMENT. "He hath showed thee, O man, what is good; and what doth the Lord require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God." This is not required as a means of our Justification, but as an evidence of it. It does not exclude the work of Christ, but presupposes it. But, on the other hand, it effectually refutes the notion that the elect can live as they list. They are only "predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son.
1. To do justly" involves the discharge of fairly demanded duties both towards God and towards man. We are unjust in our dealings with God when we withhold time and wealth and influence which we are able to devote to him. We are unjust as servants when we render mere eye service; unjust as employers when we look only "on our own things." Buyers and sellers, statesmen and diplomatists, need all hearken to this law.
2. To love mercy" is to go beyond the strict rights which others may claim of us in the exercise of generosity and pity. "Blessed is he that considereth the poor," etc.; "If thine enemy hunger, feed him.
3. To walk humbly with God" implies fellowship, constant and real. Reverence and seriousness in the treatment of the Divine revelation; consciousness of the infinitude of truth, and our incapacity to grasp it; lowly submission to our Father"s will, when it is contrary to our own wishes; and steadfast progress in the Christian life, as we walk hand in hand with him; are all involved in walking humbly with our God. "Walking in reverence Humbly with thee, Yet from all abject fear Lovingly free; E"en as a friend with friend, Cheered to the journey"s end, Walking with thee. A.R.
Vers. 6-8. Fellowship with God.
"Wherewith shall I come before the Lord, and bow myself before the high God? shall I come before him with burnt offerings, with calves of a year old? Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams, or with ten thousands of rivers of oil?" etc. We raise from these words three general observations
I THAT A LOVING FELLOWSHIP WITH THE GREAT GOD IS THE ONE URGENT NEED OF HUMANITY. "Wherewith shall I come before the Lord?" The language is that of a soul convinced of its sin, and roused to a sense of the importance of friendship with the Almighty. "Wherewith shall I come?" Come I must; I feel that distance from him is my great sin and misery.
1. Loving fellowship with the great God is essential to the happiness of moral intelligences. Reason suggests this. All souls are the offspring of God; and where can children find happiness but in the friendship, the intercourse, and the presence of their loving Father? Conscience indicates this. Deep in the moral souls of all men is the yearning for intercourse with the Infinite. The hearts of all "cry out for the living God." The Bible teaches this. What means such utterances as these: "Come now, and let us reason together;" "Return to the Lord;" "Come unto me," etc.? Not more impossible is it for a planet to shine when cut off from the sun, a river to flow when cut off from the fountain, a branch to grow when severed from the root, than for a soul to be happy apart from God. "In thy presence is fulness of joy;
2. Man, in his unregenerate state, is estranged and far away from God. He is represented as a lost sheep wandering in the wilderness away from the fold, as the prodigal son remote from his father"s house and in a far country. How far is the human soul, in its unregenerate state, from God? How far is selfishness from benevolence, error flora truth, pollution from holiness, wrong from right? The moral space or gulf that lies between is immeasurable.
II THAT SACRIFICES THE MOST COSTLY ARE UTTERLY INSUFFICIENT TO SECURE THIS FELLOWSHIP. "Shall I come before him with burnt offerings, with calves of a year old?" Such offerings were presented under the Law (Leviticus 1, etc.). "Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams, or with ten thousands of rivers of oil?" This also was enjoined in Leviticus. Oil was to be poured on the meat offering. "Shall I give my firstborn for my transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?" The Jews offered many human sacrifices in the valley of Hinnom. They caused their children to pass through the fire in honour of Moloch. The idea is Are there any sacrifices I can make, however costly and however painful, in order to commend me to the favour and friendship of Almighty God? The interrogatory implies a negative No. Offer the cattle upon a thousand hills: can they be a satisfaction for sin? Can they commend you to Infinite Love? All are his. How men came at first to suppose that human sacrifices could be acceptable to God is one of the greatest enigmas in history. "Though a man give his body to be burned, without charity he is nothing." Two things are here presented.
1. The great cry of a sin-convicted soul is for God. No sooner is conviction of sin struck into the human soul, than it turns itself away at once from the world to God: "I want God; I have lost him; God I must have; oh that I knew where I might find him!
2. Worldly possessions, in the estimation of a sin-convicted soul, are comparatively worthless. He is prepared to make any sacrifices. Holocausts, thousands of rams, ten thousands of rivers of oil; what are they? Nothing in comparison with the interests of the soul "What shall it profit a man if he gain the whole world," etc.? It feels this when convicted of sin.
III THAT MORAL EXCELLENCE IS THE ONE METHOD BY WHICH THIS FELLOWSHIP CAN BE OBTAINED. "He hath showed thee, O man Hebrew, "Adam," the whole race, Jew and Gentile alike, what is good; and what doth the Lord require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God?" This moral excellence consists of two parts, social and religious.
1. That which refers to man.
(1) "Do justly;" "Whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them?" "Render to all men their due.
(2) "Love mercy." Mere justice is not enough, there must be tender commiseration for the suffering; the poor and the distressed must be remembered. Mercy must not only be shown, but loved. To help the needy must be delight.
2. That which refers to God. "Walk humbly with thy God." Walking with God implies consciousness of the Divine presence, harmony with the Divine will, progress in Divine excellence. This is moral excellence the moral excellence that God has revealed to all men, Jew and Gentile, the entire race, and which he requires from all; and this is the condition of fellowship with him. How is this moral excellence to be attained? it may be asked. Philosophically, I know but of one way faith in him who is the Revelation, the Incarnation, the Example of all moral excellence Jesus Christ.
CONCLUSION. Learn from this what religion is how transcendent! It is the soul going away from sin and the world to God. Not merely to temples, theologies, ceremonies, but to God; and to him, not through intellectual systems or ceremonial observances, but through a true life, both in relation to man and God. D.T.
The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Biblical Illustrator1887 · Public DomainOn vv6, 8Wherewith shall I come before the Lord
Mic_6:6-8
Wherewith shall I come before the Lord
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Pleasing God
This is a momentous question, which the world has ever been asking--How shall we approach God?
For men feel that they are separated from Him,--that there is something which prevents access, and they have sought how to remove the obstacles which intervene.
I. Three methods likely to effect the desired purpose. They are--
1. Outward acts. What must I do? This is to a certain extent natural, for we cannot obtain any substantial good in the world without work, or its equivalent, money. Some attempt one particular deed, such as self-denial, others a notably moral life; others, again, obsequious religious observances.
2. Pious gifts. With burnt offerings. This shows the innate idea of atonement or propitiation. There is a universal consciousness of innate guilt and sinfulness, and there is a universal feeling that it must be punished. There is also in the text the idea of purchase. Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams? It is not uncommon for men to think that they can bribe God by outward acts of philanthropy, by building churches or hospitals.
3. Personal suffering and self-denial. Should I give my firstborn, etc. How terrible the consequences of such an act! Yet men have thought that mortifying the natural sentiments of humanity would gratify God. Many have voluntarily submitted to mutilation, to pilgrimages; they have even sacrificed their children in the hope of obtaining eternal life.
II. The text points out the only true method of acceptance with God. The prophet rebukes these popular ideas in a quiet manner. He says,--There is no excuse for your ignorance. Then why do men ask? It is because of their want of faith, for seeing they see not. He hath showed this in His Word, in His precepts, in His examples of life. We have here as components of that way--
1. Holiness. God hath required of thee to do justly. We must not forget that justice is due to God as well as to man. Just dealing demands reverence, faith, trust towards God in Christ, as much as honesty towards our fellow creatures.
2. Mercy. This means tenderness of disposition, and an ability to receive Gods message as well as to show our mercy to others.
3. Humility. Accepting Gods method of salvation, leaving our hopes and destiny with Him, receiving the sacrifice wrought out for us at Calvary; not to think higher of himself than a man ought to think. To live justly is to live in Christ, for in Him all justice is fulfilled. To love mercy is to imbibe Christs spirit, for He is the manifestation of Divine mercy. To walk humbly is to follow Christs teaching, for He inculcates humility, self-denial, and trust. (J. J. S. Bird, B. A.)
The worlds cry concerning the method of being brought into fellowship with God
It is not that God has withdrawn from us; it is that we are alienated from Him by wicked works. Here is one of the worlds cries. Where can we get a satisfying response? There are only three answers--
1. That which has reference to the presentation of sacrifices. This is the way in which the heathen have sought to bridge the gulf between themselves and their Maker. Yes, and the old Hebrew too. Millions of victims have been slain, and oceans of blood have been shed. But is this satisfactory? To say that we are to return to God through sacrifices, however costly and abundant, is not quite sufficient. In the first place, it is repugnant to our reason to suppose that such sacrifices can be acceptable to the God of love and mercy. In the second place, it is opposed to the declarations of the Bible. For thou desirest not sacrifice; else would I give it. Thou delightest not in burnt offering (Psa_51:16). To what purpose is the multitude of your sacrifices unto Me? saith the Lord (Isa_1:11). And Lebanon is not sufficient to burn, nor the beasts thereof sufficient for a burnt offering (Isa_40:16). None of them can by any means redeem his brother, nor give to God a ransom for him: for the redemption of their soul is precious, and it ceaseth forever (Psa_49:7-8). And in the third place, such sacrifices, as a fact, have never removed from man this feeling of distance from his Maker. The gulf remains as deep and broad though the cattle upon a thousand hills were offered.
2. There is that which has reference to a right moral conduct. He hath showed thee, O man, what is good; and what doth the Lord require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God? This is just what philosophy would say. Think the true, love the good, and do the right, and you will be accepted of your Maker--you will come back into a friendly state with Him. This is satisfactory so far as it goes; for to do the right thing is reconciliation with heaven. Those who live a holy life walk with God, and are happy in His fellowship. But the question is, How to come into this morally right state? And the philosophy which presents this method has no answer to this question.
3. There is that which has reference to the intervention of Christ. This is the answer of the Bible. It teaches that Christ is mans way back to fellowship with his Maker. I am the way: no man cometh unto the Father, but by Me. Through Him we both have access by one Spirit unto the Father (Eph_2:18). But, now, in order to see the satisfactoriness of this answer, it may be necessary to ask the question, In what way does Christ bring man into fellowship with God? Negatively--First: Not by repealing any of the laws of moral obligation binding on man. Christs intervention did not render man in the slightest degree less bound to obey every precept in heavens moral code. That code is as immutable as God Himself, Secondly: Not by dispensing with any of the settled conditions of spiritual culture and improvement. Christ does not make men good in any miraculous way. Observation, reflection, study, resolution, faith, practice, these are the means by which souls must ever advance. Thirdly: Not by effecting any change in the Divine mind. The mission of Christ was the effect--not the cause--of Gods love. Christ was its messenger and minister, not its creator. Nor did He change Gods purpose. It was according to His eternal purpose that Christ came, and to work that purpose out was Christs mission. What, then, does He do? He is the Reconciler. He reconciles not God to man, but man to God. God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto Himself. In Christ, as the reconciler or remover of this felt distance between man and his Maker, we discover a twofold adaptation of the most perfect kind.
I. In Him we see a special approach of God to Man. In Christ there is a change in the Divine manifestation. He in Christ comes to man in mans own nature. God is manifest in the flesh. In man He reveals the image of His invisible self. In this manifestation two great obstructions to mans union to God are removed.
1. The obstruction of inappreciableness. God in nature is so vast as to be inappreciable by man, but in the Man Christ He comes within our horizon, and within the compass of our faculties.
2. The obstruction of guilty dread. Was there an obstruction to this union on Gods part? If so, who shall describe its nature? Men, the world over, feel that they have sinned, and are liable to a terrible punishment. This sense of guilt hangs as a portentous cloud over the soul of the world. Men, by millions, often stagger with horror under its black shadow, and anxiously seek some shelter from the threatened storm. This guilty dread first drove man from his Maker. I heard Thy voice in the garden, and I was afraid. The soul, from the laws of its nature, flees from the object of its dread. Fear is the centrifugal force of the spirit; it drives it from its Maker. This dread of God is as universal as sin, and as deep as the heart of humanity. It accounts for all the horrid views that men have of their Maker, and for all their hostility to Him in heart and life. Now, how does God in Christ remove this? He comes to man in just such a form as is adapted to expel fear, and inspire hope and trust. In what form could He come but in the form of a man to effect this? Would a revelation of Himself in all His absolute glory do it? No! this, if it could be borne by mortals, would only raise the terror to a more overwhelming degree. Would a revelation of Himself through angelic natures do it? The Eternal, to disarm man of this terrible fear, comes to him in mans own nature. Are you afraid of a Teacher, who, free from all assumption of superiority, scholastic stiffness, and pedantic utterance, mingles with the crowd, and utters truth the most lofty to the imagination, the most reasonable to the intellect, the most real to the conscience, the most inspiring and ennobling to the heart? Transport yourselves in thought to the mountains of Capernaum, and the shores of Galilee, and listen to Him who speaks as never man spake. God is in that Teacher, and through Him He says, It is I, be not afraid. Are you afraid of a Philanthropist, the most tender in heart, the most earnest in affection, the most race wide in sympathy? Follow Jesus of Nazareth during the three years of His public life, as He goes about doing good. Count the diseased that He heals, the hungry that He feeds, and the disconsolate that He comforts.
II. In Him we see a special attraction of Man to God. This is another step. He not only comes to man, but He attracts man to Himself. He does this--
1. By awakening the highest gratitude. Gratitude attracts, draws the soul into loving sympathy with its benefactor. Kindness is a magnet that draws the object to its author. God in Christ displays such infinite mercy as is adapted to inspire the soul with the strongest gratitude. Where is there mercy like this? He loved us and gave Himself for us.
2. He does this by awakening the highest love. Love attracts, love draws us into the presence of its object and makes us one with it, feel as it feels, and move as it moves. God in Christ is moral beauty in its sublimest form. All conceivable virtues centre there, and radiate thence, in infinite perfection. Holiness, as it streams directly from the Absolute One, would be too strong for our vision, would dazzle and confound us, but in Christ it comes mildly and fascinatingly, reflected through the humanities of our nature.
3. He does this by awakening the highest hope. Hope draws the heart to its object, Thus we are drawn to Him. We feel that our fellowship is with the Father, and with His Son, Jesus Christ. (Homilist.)
The religion of man, and the religion of God
I. The religion of man. Wherewith shall I come before the Lord? etc.
1. This is simply the voice of mans religious instinct seeking after God. In Popes universal prayer, there is truth, as well as error. There are, says the late Dr. Vaughan, tendencies in man which make religion, in some form, a necessity of his nature; but it is no less certain that there are tendencies in him which ensure that the religion chosen by him will not be a spiritual one, etc.
2. Consciousness, history, the Bible, prove that this inward light has become darkness. Mans religious faculty has become impaired, and reveals its degeneracy in superstition and cruelty. God must be propitiated, but by thousands of rams, and ten thousands of rivers of oil, and by the sacrifice of their own offspring. Where there is no vision, etc.
3. The ignorance in which man has involved himself is rectified by Gods revealed will. He hath showed thee, O man, etc. Reason has failed to discover a resting place for the soul. The course of ages witnessed the trial, and in the most favourable circumstances.
II. Gods religion. He hath showed thee, O man. Notwithstanding their gorgeous economy of symbol and sacrifice, they were taught that the symbol could not save, that God desired truth in the inward parts. The religion of God is summed up under three heads--
1. Do justly. Love to God ensures love and justice to man.
2. Love mercy. This strikes at the selfishness of our nature.
3. Walk humbly with thy God. The soul of religion is here; reconciliation--communion--reverent, constant converse with God. (John Lewis.)
The ancient question
A question which has troubled mankind in every age. For the religious feeling is natural to man. All nations have had some idea of God, and have worshipped Him according to their notion of His nature and attributes. Consequently, strange answers have been given to this inquiry, which have led to cruelty and human sacrifices. Men have mistaken the character of God.
1. The question which the heathen tried to answer is still waiting for our individual answer. In the minds of all thinking and earnest persons the question will sometimes arise, Am I living as God intended me to live? Am I at peace with God? There are times when we are brought face to face with the living realities of life, and of death, and of eternity.
2. To this question many and different answers have been given. The old Jews thought the best way to approach God was by the sacrifices of the Levitical law. Will God be pleased with outward observances and external show? Can we gain Gods favour by bribing Him with flattery and gifts? Not Jews only, many Christians have had such fancies. What does Isaiah say to such religionists? God wants no gifts and offerings. Can Gods favour be obtained by suffering? Shall I lacerate my tenderest affection? Shall I give up everything that is pleasant? Hundreds have asked themselves this question. But they have utterly mistaken the character of God. They thought He was pleased with torture and self-sacrifice. But He is a God of love, our Father, and not a hard taskmaster.
3. To this question the prophet gives us the true answer. God would have us live justly, and mercifully, and humbly before our God. Our Fathers will is that we do our duty where He has placed us, to God, and to our fellows, and to ourselves; that we be just, with a justice that hates oppression, and will not tolerate wrong; that scorns petty vices and despicable meannesses; merciful, with a mercy that condescends to the helpless, the fallen, and the despised; and humble, with an honest reverence towards God, the Author and Giver of all good things. This is what God requires, goodness, and justice, and sincerity, and love. (John Vaughan, M. A.)
The awakened sinner
Here the purport, though not the express words, of a conversation between Balak and Balaam is introduced, in order strongly to describe the slate of a mind harassed with guilt, and clearly to point out the only way in which relief can be obtained.
I. Show what is implied in the anxious inquiries of the awakened sinner.
1. Such inquiries imply the existence of a sense of sin. Sin is the transgression of the Divine law--an infraction of the immutable rule of righteousness which God hath given to His creatures--a state and course of rebellion against His rightful authority; and an opposition to His character, and the interests of His holy dominion. Every child of Adam is the subject of moral failure, chargeable with moral delinquency, and exposed to all the evils of moral ruin. The great bulk of mankind are totally insensible to their real condition. Sooner or later the spell on them will be broken. The idea of God presents itself. The character of God is seen as infinitely pure and inflexibly just. The sinner finds he has broken His law in innumerable instances, in thought, word, and deed. There is often some particular transgression to which the sinner is addicted.
2. The questions before us imply a conviction of the indispensable necessity of expiation. The awakened sinner is convinced, not only that God has a right to demand satisfaction for the injury done to His moral character, in the view of intelligent beings, but that reparation of one kind or other must be made, else it is absolutely impossible for the offender to escape. Under the influence of such views, the sinner asks, Wherewith shall I come before the Lord, etc. His concern is, to get the obstacle removed which intervenes between him and the favour of the Almighty. Something, he conceives, must be done: some sacrifice must be presented; a suitable expiation must be made.
3. The words imply a willingness to go any length, and to be at any expense, if only expiation can thereby be made, and the desired pardon be obtained. It is to this natural principle of the carnal mind that we are to ascribe the numerous austerities and works of supererogation practised by the members of the Church of Rome.
4. All these anxious inquiries, with all the self-righteous efforts to which they give rise, discover an awful and lamentable ignorance of the only way of salvation. How can a creature that is bound by the laws of his moral constitution to yield a perfect, uninterrupted, and perpetual obedience to the reasonable demands of his Maker, throughout every period of his being, make compensation by any subsequent conduct for former omissions and transgressions?
II. the cheering import of the prophets reply. Revelation alone solves the difficulty. In the Bible, and in the Bible alone. Of this Divinely authenticated communication the substance is this: that the whole human race, having, by transgression and rebellion, forfeited the Divine favour, and become obnoxious to the everlasting infliction of the Divine wrath, and being utterly destitute of all aid from themselves and from all creatures, the Infinite Jehovah, whose laws they had broken, and whose authority they had rejected and contemned, Loved with amazing pity, sent His own equal Son into the world to suffer, the just for the unjust: that by the infliction of the punishment upon Him as the substitute of the guilty, a sufficient manifestation might be afforded of the Divine opposition to sin, while mercy is extended to every sinner that betakes himself by faith to the Lord Jesus Christ as his Saviour, his Righteousness, and his Strength. Whoever, of all the guilty sons or daughters of Adam, believes in the all-sufficiency of the atonement which the Son of God made with His infinitely precious blood upon the Cross, is freed from his obligation to punishment, and obtains a right to all the privileges and all the blessedness of the kingdom of heaven. The atonement is that good which we individually require. Nothing else can satisfy the mind, remove its fears, or inspire it with a good hope towards God.
III. A description is here given of evangelical holiness. There are two rocks on which men are ever disposed to make shipwreck of their souls: the one is self-righteousness; the other is, turning the grace of God into lasciviousness. Multitudes go down to the grave with part of the concluding words of the text as a lie in their right hand. Piqueing themselves on the probity of their character before men, the charity which they distribute to the poor, and their going regularly through the outward forms of religion, they imagine that they have Divine authority itself for believing that all will be well with them at last. But the words admit of no such construction. They do not, in fact, apply at all to unconverted and unbelieving sinners; but to such only as have found the good which the maintain good works. (E. Henderson.)
The good way of coming before the Lord
The question of an awakened soul. Wherewith shall I come before the Lord? An unawakened man never puts that question. He does not like to think of God, or the claims of God.
I. The piercing question of every awakened soul.
1. An awakened soul feels that his chief happiness is in coming before God. This was unfallen Adams happiness. This is the joy of holy angels. This is the true happiness of a believer.
2. An awakened soul feels difficulties in the way. Two great difficulties. The nature of the sinner. When God really awakens a soul, He shows him the vileness and hatefulness of himself. He directs the eye within. The nature of God. The High God. When God really awakens a soul, He generally reveals to him something of His own holiness and majesty. See the cases of Isaiah and Job. The anxiety of the awakened soul leads to the question, Wherewith? It is the question of one who has been made to feel that one thing is needful. Anything he has he would give up to get peace with God.
II. The answer of peace to the awakened soul. He hath showed thee, O man, what is good. Nothing that man can bring with him will justify him before God. There is nothing a man would not do--nothing he would not suffer--if he might only cover himself before God. Tears, prayers, duties, reformations, devotions--the heart will do anything to be righteous before God. But all this righteousness is filthy rags. For--
1. The heart remains an awful depth of corruption.
2. Supposing the righteousness were perfect, it cannot cover the past. Old sins, and the sins of youth still remain uncovered. Christ is the good way. The good way to the Father--
(1) Because He is so suitable.
(2) Because He is so free.
(3) Because He is so God-glorifying.
All other ways of salvation are man-glorifying; but this way is God-glorifying.
III. Gods requirement of the justified.
1. God requires His redeemed ones to be holy.
(1) He requires you to do justly; to be just in your dealings between man and man.
(2) To love mercy. This is the brightest feature in the character of Christ. If you are in Christ, drink deep of His Spirit.
(3) To walk humbly with your God.
2. Remember that this is Gods end in justifying you. He loved the Church, and gave Himself for it, that He might sanctify and cleanse it. If you are not made holy, Christ died for you in vain.
3. Whatever He requires, He gives grace to perform. Christ is not only good as our way to the Father, but He is our fountain of living waters. Be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus. Look as much to Him for sanctification as for justification. (R. M. MCheyne.)
On the atonement
The first rites of all religions but one are rites of propitiation. Men everywhere, feeling themselves sinners, justly conceive it necessary that, in order to obey God acceptably, they must first be reconciled to Him, and obtain indemnity for past offences. Among the pro fessors of idolatry, ancient and modern, the principle of self-atonement has taken up its residence. Even we may think that our sufferings ought to be accepted as a partial atonement for our offences. The mistake is not mans conviction of the necessity of an atonement, but the way in which that atonement is sought. The mistake is mans making his conviction a foundation for his pride to erect its fancied claims on the Divine justice, and his self-righteousness to flatter itself with the hopes of meritorious exertion. God has provided the necessary burnt-offering. He has provided it in a way at once the most suitable to His own glory, the most congenial to the harmony of the Divine attributes, and adapted, with unspeakable wisdom and felicity, to the lost and hopeless state of His guilty creatures. Being justified by His grace, through the atonement which He has accepted, we have a ground of confidence before God. And being reconciled to God through the death of His Son, we should walk acceptably before Him, in newness of life. (C. R. Maturin.)
How to come before God
Assuming the fall of our first parents, human reason brings us to the conclusion that we are all naturally the worthy objects of Gods wrath and punishment. Scripture seems to teach this, and our experience confirms it. How then can we be delivered out of this state? Wherewith shall we come before the Lord?
1. Shall we come with repentance and amendment of life? No. These may be indispensable conditions of salvation, they can, in no sense, be its meritorious and procuring cause.
2. Shall we come before Him with burnt offerings? etc. There is no virtue in animal sacrifices to wash out the guilty stain of our offences.
3. Shall we give our firstborn for our transgression? Would human sacrifices do, if animal sacrifices would not? No. They would be neither an adequate nor perfect sacrifice, such as God could accept.
4. Is there any created being that would suffice to redeem us? There is no creature that could meet the two required conditions, and be, at the same time, a perfect and an adequate sacrifice.
5. The apostle answers the question in Eph_2:13-18. Christ was the victim everyway adapted to the necessities of the case. He was a perfect sacrifice, and He was a sufficient sacrifice. (Ch. G. Lawson, M. A.)
The principles of the Reformation and of Protestantism
I propose to consider that peculiar element of Christianity which, though not exclusively held by the Churches of the Reformation, yet it was the glory of the Reformation to have brought fully out. The warning of the prophet Micah consists of three parts, which contain within themselves the doctrine and practice of all true Protestant religion.
I. the authority to which all religious questions must be referred. The question of authority is one by which men in these days are often perplexed. It is said that our business is not to ask what is taught, but only to know who it is that teaches us. This is not the way in which the Bible speaks of authority. We are to heed what it is that is said, and what it is that commends itself to our own consciences. The person, the office, no doubt is something; but the message, and the substance of the message is much more. The real authority which guides and ought to guide us, is that which needs no external support or credentials. Everywhere the true voices of God make themselves heard and felt, if not immediately, yet at last, not by external weight, but by their own intrinsic force. The real teachers and oracles of mankind have been those who, in every age, and in every station, and in every race of men, have been raised up by God. The Bible is the great and supreme authority, because the Bible contains the greatest of all truths in the most enduring, persuasive, and exalted form. We do not believe the Bible to be true because it is inspired; but we believe the Bible to be inspired because and in proportion as it is true. There is, therefore, no need to go to any external official source for guidance.
II. The great question which has to be settled. Wherewith shall I come before the Lord? That question is the root at once of all religion, and of all superstition. Man feels that there is a Being above him, whom he longs to propitiate and to approach. Between weak, frail, sinful man, and the great, supreme, holy God what is there in common? Many ways have been devised. In the early ages of the world it was by the offering of gifts--the gifts of the earth, the gifts of slain animals, the gift even of human life. In Christian times other modes have been adopted, also of the most various kinds. Even the wildest and the worst of them is instructive as expressive of the yearning of the human heart, even in its lowest condition, to bridge over the gulf, to express its reverence for the Most High, to be at peace with its Maker. The modes of approaching God might be wrong, but the question how we are to approach, and how we are to please the great Father of all human spirits, is the question which cannot be put aside.
III. The Divine answer to that question. This is the answer to the question how God is to be approached. There is no other answer--by justice, by mercy, by humility. Though this answer came from a heathen prophet, it was yet the Word of God, and commends itself at once to every enlightened heart and conscience. It needs no defence; it needs no explanation. It is the foundation of all true religion, because it rests on the only true idea of the character of God. This is true theology; this is a true account of what God is, and of what God requires. False religion imagines that God can be pleased by other means than by a good, merciful, and humble life. True religion teaches that whatever else may be pleasing to God, there is and there can be nothing so pleasing to Him as doing justly, loving mercy, and walking humbly. There are many other great truths in the Bible besides this; but this is the one master truth which runs through from first to last, controls and covers all the rest. And this is the teaching of the New Testament. Through that ideal of human justice, mercy, and reverence, was the Divine nature manifested in Jesus of Nazareth. And it is the end and meaning of the death of Christ. Not by the blood of bulls and goats, but by the eternal spirit of holiness and truth, He offered Himself. It is the end and meaning also of His resurrection. He rose again that we might rise above the follies and sins of the world, that we might die unto sin and live unto righteousness. (Dean Stanley.)
The true sacrifice for sin
Does any one ask, Wherewith shall I come before the Lord? Then we have a cheering answer for him. No such way of acceptance as is suggested in this passage. It is a mistake to imagine that by an increased attention to outward services, and by a devotion to specified duties, he can compensate for the violations or omissions of days gone by. God requireth another sort of service than that of mere outward ceremony. He is to be worshipped in spirit and in truth: He requireth a new heart and a right spirit. Nor can the most painful efforts or arduous instances of self-punishment or self-denial avail. We are too apt to have a low estimate of the sinfulness of sin. It requires a deep sense of the holiness and majesty of God to estimate sin in some degree aright. When we do, we may comprehend more adequately the nature of that precious and costly atone ment of Gods own providing, set forth in Scripture as a sufficient sacrifice and oblation, and satisfaction for the sins of the whole world. We are not competent, in the weakness of our present powers, to comprehend these matters fully. Should the newly awakened sinner ask what sacrifice he shall offer; what self-infliction shall he undergo? we say, No such things are required of thee. Look to the Cross of Christ as the heaven sent remedy for the disease of the soul, and as the Divinely appointed way of reconciliation with God. (J. B. Smith, D. D.)
Outward and inward religion
Does the prophet, in these words, really condemn all outward rites and sacrifices as such? All that the prophet seems to inveigh against was enjoined by the express commands of Almighty God. Neither Micah, nor Isaiah, nor any other prophet, had authority to dispense with the requirements of the Mosaic law. And our blessed Lord came not to destroy the law. The office of the prophets was clearly to prepare the way for a more spiritual religion than the law had given to Israel. Their mission was to perfect, or rather to prepare the way for perfection. And so they disparaged legal ordinances, not as useless or wrong, but because they were imperfect. The law was given for a particular use, to be a schoolmaster to bring men to Christ. But if men made it an end, instead of the way to an end, no wonder that the prophets lifted up their voices in warning against it. You are not necessarily arguing for the total disuse of a thing, because you maintain its proper use against its abuse. Christianity grafted a higher state of things upon what was already in existence. What the prophets say is, in effect, this,--Your sacrifices are nothing in themselves, but connected with the truth they typify and shadow forth, they have a value and dignity. But while you practise injustice, cruelty, and pride, they are utterly valueless in the sight of God. You cannot please God with these alone, unless you are pleasing Him by the discharge of your social and moral duties. The truth for us is, that no attention to the externals of religion can satisfy the demands of our Creator and Redeemer if it be not accompanied with a holy and virtuous life. (J. C. Chambers, M. A.)
God requires what He does
Taking the text as a revelation of the character of the Speaker Himself, we may say that God does in His own economy and sphere what He asks us to do in ours. What does this revelation do?
1. It does away with all ostentatious piety. Many of us would be glad to buy ourselves off from judgment. We may not put the question into words; it is not, therefore, less a question of the soul. What can I buy my liberty for? No amount of oil shall stand between me and release; no number of calves and rams shall for a moment deter me from paying the fine, if so be I can have the arrow drawn out of my heart, the poison withdrawn from my blood. But the Lord will not have all this. He does not want your gaiety but your simplicity; He does not want you to drive up to His door in chariot of gold and with steeds of fire, that he may receive your patronage; He sends word down to you by the first and humblest servant He lights upon,--Go and say all I want is that thou shalt do justly, love mercy, and walk humbly with thy God. This will take all the paint off our religion; this will deplete our decoration; this will leave us in ruins as to external appearance; but there are ruins that are true palaces. It will do away with all our ostentation of another kind than that which is merely physical, ornamental, or decorative; it will do away with all our intellectual contributions and displays of patronage in reference to the Cross. The Cross does not want your intellectual homage.
2. This revelation vindicates God from the charge of delighting in animal sacrifices. Does He love to see the smoking hecatomb? No; when He has required blood of the merely animal kind, it has always been symbolically, typically, or prefiguratively; it was a necessary part of the alphabet of spiritual lessons. He must begin His lessons where the scholar can begin. Everything the Lord did require of a physical and external kind was only in a temporary sense, the whole thought of God leading up to spirituality. God is a Spirit: and they that worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth.
3. This revelation destroys the notion of piety by proxy. My firstborn for my transgressions. We are always willing to make away with other people; we are exceedingly liberal with the lives of others. We philosophise and theorise with admirable serenity, as if we had abundance of leisure in which to contemplate the tragedy of mankind, and we say, If a thousand perish, and ten thousand be saved, the gain is on the side of salvation. No! That is false; that is a misuse of the principle of majorities. There ought to be no man lost. And no man will be lost but the son of perdition. If after the Lord has dealt with a man by His providence and by His Spirit, and by all the mystery of the Cross, there is found in that man nothing but devil, he must go to his own place, and to his own company. But the Lord will do the handling upon a scale we cannot comprehend, and if the Lord gives up any human soul we may well say sadly, Amen. (Joseph Parker, D. D.)
The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Alexander MacLaren1905 · Public DomainOn v8
Micah
GOD’S REQUIREMENTS AND GOD’S GIFT
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Mic 6:8.
This is the Prophet’s answer to a question which he puts into the mouth of his hearers. They had the superstitious estimate of the worth of sacrifice, which conceives that the external offering is pleasing to God, and can satisfy for sin. Micah, like his great contemporary Isaiah, and the most of the prophets, wages war against that misconception of sacrifice, but does not thereby protest against its use. To suppose that he does so is to misunderstand his whole argument. Another misuse of the words of my text is by no means uncommon to-day. One has heard people say, ‘We are plain men; we do not understand your theological subtleties; we do not quite see what you mean by “Repentance toward God, and faith in Jesus Christ.” “To do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with my God,” that is my religion, and I leave all the rest to you.’ That is our religion too, but notice that word ‘require.’ It is a harsh word, and if it is the last word to be said about God’s relation to men, then a great shadow has fallen upon life.
But there is another word which Micah but dimly caught uttered amidst the thunders of Sinai, and which you and I have heard far more clearly. The Prophet read off rightly God’s requirements, but he had not anything to say about God’s gifts. So his word is a half-truth, and the more clearly it is seen, and the more earnestly a man tries to live up to the standard of the requirements laid down here, the more will he feel that there is something else needed, and the more will he see that the great central peculiarity and glory of Christianity is not that it reiterates or alters God’s requirements, but that it brings into view God’s gifts. ‘To do justly, to love mercy, to walk humbly with our God,’ is possible only through repentance towards God, and faith in our Lord Jesus Christ. And if you suppose that these words of my text disclose the whole truth about God’s relation to men, and men’s to God, you have failed to apprehend the flaming centre of the Light that shines from heaven.
I. So, then, the first thing that I wish to suggest is God’s requirements.
Now, I do not need to say more than just a word or two about the summing-up in my text of the plain, elementary duties of morality and religion. It covers substantially the same ground, in a condensed form, as does the Decalogue, only that Moses began with the deepest thing and worked outwards, as it were; laying the foundation in a true relation to God, which is the most important, and from which will follow the true relation to men. Micah begins at the other end, and starting with the lesser, the more external, the purely human, works his way inwards to that which is the centre and the source of all.
‘To do justly,’ that is elementary morality in two words. Whatever a man has a right to claim from you, give him; that is the sum of duty. And yet not altogether so, for we all know the difference between a righteous man and a good man, and how, if there is only rigidly righteous action, there is something wanting to the very righteousness of the action and to the completeness of the character. ‘To do’ is not enough; we must get to the heart, and so ‘love mercy.’ Justice is not all. If each man gets his deserts, as Shakespeare says, ‘who of us shall scape whipping?’ There must be the mercy as well as the justice. In a very deep sense no man renders to his fellows all that his fellows have a right to expect of him, who does not render to them mercy. And so in a very deep sense, mercy is part of justice, and you have not given any poor creature all that that poor creature has a right to look for from you, unless you have given him all the gracious and gentle charities of heart and hand. Justice and mercy do, in the deepest view, run into one.
Then Micah goes deeper. ‘And to walk humbly with thy God.’ Some people would say that this summary of the divine requirements is defective, because there is nothing in it about a man’s duty to himself, which is as much a duty as his duty to his fellows, or his duty to God. But there is a good deal of my duty to myself crowded into that one word, ‘humbly.’ For I suppose we might almost say that the basis of all our obligations to our own selves lies in this, that we shall take the right view-that is, the lowly view-of ourselves. But I pass that.
‘To walk humbly with thy God.’ ‘Can two walk together unless they be agreed?’ For walking with God there must be communion, based in love, and resulting in imitation. And that communion must be constant, and run through all the life, like a golden thread through some web. So, then, here is the minimum of the divine requirements, to give everybody what he has a right to, including the mercy to which he has a right, to have a lowly estimate of myself, and to live continually grasping the hand of God, and conscious of His overshadowing wing at all moments, and of conformity to His will at every step of the road. That is the minimum; and the people who so glibly say, ‘That is my religion,’ have little consciousness of how far-reaching and how deep-down-going the requirements of this text are. The requirements result from the very nature of God, and our relation to Him, and they are endorsed by our own consciences, for we all know that these, and nothing less than these are the duties that we owe to God. So much for God’s requirements.
II. Our failure.
There is not one of us that has come up to the standard. Man after man may be conceived of as bringing in his hands the actions of his life, and laying them in the awful scales which God’s hand holds. In the one are God’s requirements, in the other my life; and in every case down goes the weight, and ‘weighed in the balances we are altogether lighter than vanity.’ We stand before the great Master in the school, and one by one we take up our copybooks; and there is not one of them that is not black with blots and erasures and swarming with errors. The great cliff stands in front of us with the victor’s prize on its topmost ledge, and man after man tries to climb, and falls bruised and broken at the base. ‘There is none righteous, no, not one.’ Micah’s requirements come to every man that will honestly take stock of his life and his character as the statement of an unreached and unreachable ideal to which he never has climbed nor ever can climb.
Oh, brethren! if these words are all the words that are to be said about God and me, then I know not what lies before the enlightened conscience except shuddering despair, and a paralysing consciousness of inevitable failure. I beseech you, take these words, and go apart with them, and test your daily life by them. God requires me to do justly. Does there not rise before my memory many an act in which, in regard to persons and in regard to circumstances, I have fallen beneath that requirement? He requires me ‘to love mercy.’ He requires me ‘to walk humbly,’ and I have often been inflated and self-conceited and presumptuous. He requires me to walk with Himself, and I have shaken away His hand from me, and passed whole days without ever thinking of Him, and ‘the God in whose hands’ my ‘breath is, and whose are all’ my ‘ways,’ I have ‘not glorified.’ I cannot hammer this truth into your consciences. You have to do it for yourselves. But I beseech you, recognise the fact that you are implicated in the universal failure, and that God’s requirement is God’s condemnation of each of us.
If, then, that is true, that all have come short of the requirement, then there should follow a universal sense of guilt, for there is the universal fact of guilt, whether there be the sense of it or not. There must follow, too, consequences resulting from the failure of each of us to comply with these divine requirements, consequences very alarming, very fatal; and there must follow a darkening of the thought of God. ‘I knew thee that thou wert an austere man, reaping where thou didst not sow, and gathering where thou didst not straw.’ That is the God of all the people who take my text as the last word of their religion-God ‘requires of me. The blessed sun in the heavens becomes a lurid ball of fire when it is seen through the mist of such a conception of the divine character, and its relation to men. There is nothing that so drapes the sky in darkness, and hides out the great light of God, as the thought of His requirements as the last thought we cherish concerning Him.
There follows, too, upon this conception, and the failure that results to fulfil the requirements, a hopelessness as to ever accomplishing that which is demanded of us. Who amongst us is there that, looking back upon his past in so far as it has been shaped by his own effort and his own unaided strength, can look forward to a future with any hope that it will mend the past? Brethren! experience teaches us that we have not fulfilled, and cannot fulfil, what remains our plain duty, notwithstanding our inability to discharge it-viz., ‘To do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with our God.’ To think of God’s requirements, and of my own failure, is the sure way to paralyse all activity; just as that man in the parable who said, ‘Thou art an austere man,’ went away and hid his talent in the earth. To think of God’s requirements and my own failures, if heaven has nothing more to say to me than this stern ‘Thou shalt,’ is the short way to despair. And that is why most of us prefer to be immersed in the trivialities of daily life rather than to think of God, and of what He asks from us. For the only way by which some of us can keep our equanimity and our cheerfulness is by ignoring Him and forgetting what He demands, and never taking stock of our own lives.
III. Lastly, my text leads us to think of God’s gift.
I said it is a half-truth, for it only tells us of what He desires us to be, and does not tell us of how we may be it. It is meant, like the law of which it is a condensation, to be the pedagogue, to lead the child to Jesus Christ, the true Master, and the true Gift of God.
God ‘requires.’ Yes, and He requires, in order that we should say to Him, ‘Lord, Thou hast a right to ask this, and it is my blessedness to give it, but I cannot. Do Thou give me what Thou dost require, and then I can.’
The gift of God is Jesus Christ, and that gift meets all our failures. I have spoken of the sense of guilt that rises from the consciousness of failure to keep the requirements of the divine law; and the gift of God deals with that. It comes to us as we lie wounded, bruised, conscious of failure, alarmed for results, sensible of guilt, and dreading the penalties, and it says to us, ‘Thine iniquity is taken away, and thy sin purged.’ ‘God requires of thee what thou hast not done. Trust yourselves to Me, and all iniquity is passed from your souls.’
I spoke of the hopelessness of future performance, which results from experience of past failures; and the gift of God deals with that. You cannot meet the requirements. Christ will put His Spirit into your spirits, if you will trust yourselves to Him, and then you will meet them, for the things which are impossible with men are possible with God. So, if led by Micah, we pass from God’s requirements to His gifts, look at the change in the aspect which God bears to us. He is no longer standing strict to mark, and stern to judge and condemn: but bending down graciously to help. His last word to us is not ‘Thou shalt do’ but ‘I will give.’ His utterance in the Gospel is not ‘do,’ but it is ‘take’; and the vision of God, which shines out upon us from the life and from the Cross of Jesus Christ, is not that of a great Taskmaster, but that of Him who helps all our weakness, and makes it strength. A God who ‘requires’ paralyses men, shuts men out from hope and joy and fellowship; a God who gives draws men to His heart, and makes them diligent in fulfilling all His blessed requirements.
Think of the difference which the conception of God as giving makes to the spirit in which we work. No longer, like the Israelites in Egypt, do we try to make bricks without straw, and break our hearts over our failures, or desperately abandon the attempt, and live in neglect of God and His will; but joyfully, with the clear confidence that ‘our labour is not in vain in the Lord,’ we seek to keep the commandments which we have learned to be the expressions of His love. One of the Fathers puts all in one lovely sentence: ‘Give what Thou commandest, and command what Thou wilt.’
Think, too, of the difference which this conception of the giving rather than of the requiring God brings into what we have to do. We have not to begin with effort, we have to begin with faith. The fountain must be filled from the spring before it can send up its crystal pillar flashing in the sunlight; and we must receive by our trust the power to will and to do. First fill the lamp with oil, and let the Master light it, and then let its blaze beam forth. First, we have to go to the giving God, with thanks ‘unto Him for His unspeakable gift’; and then we have to say to Him, ‘Thou hast given me Thy Son. What dost Thou desire that I shall give to Thee?’ We have first to accept the gift, and then, moved by the mercy of God, to ask, ‘Lord I what wilt Thou have me to do?’
Alexander MacLaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture (1904–1910) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
unfoldingWord translationNotes2017 · CC BY-SA 4.0On v6What should I bring to Yahweh ... God? Should…
What should I bring to Yahweh ... God? Should I come ... old? Will Yahweh be pleased ... oil? Should I give ... sin?
Micah speaks as if he were a person who truly wanted to know what God expects him to do. Possible meanings are 1) he asks questions and then in verse 8 answers the questions he has asked or 2) he is using questions to teach the people. AT: "I know that I do no need to bring to Yahweh ... God, or come ... old, and that Yahweh will not be pleased ... oil or if I give ... sin." (See: Rhetorical Question)
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thousands of rams ... ten thousand rivers of oil
"rams in groups of 1,000 ... 10,000 rivers of oil" (See: Rhetorical Question and Numbers)
He has told you
"Yahweh has told you"
good, and what Yahweh requires from you: Act ... God
Many versions read, "good. And what does Yahweh require from you? He wants you to act ... God." or "good. And what does Yahweh require from you but to act ... God?"
love kindness
The abstract noun "kindness" can be translated using the adjective "kind." AT: "love being kind to people" (See: Abstract Nouns)
Tyndale Open Study Notes2022 · CC BY-SA 4.0On vv6, 86:6-7 Israel’s case was hopeless, but they queried the…
6:6-7 Israel’s case was hopeless, but they queried the Lord as to how they could placate or please him. The proffered items are listed in a crescendo of significance, from calves to rams and olive oil to firstborn children. None of this was sufficient or acceptable to God, who judges the heart (1 Sam 15:22; 16:7; Jer 17:9).
GEBible — Godless Engineer's Bible App
John Calvin 1540 · Public Domain On vv6, 8 The Prophet now inquires, as in the name of…
The Prophet now inquires, as in the name of the people, what was necessary to be done: and he takes these two principles as granted, — that the people were without any excuse, and were forced to confess their sin, — and that God had hitherto contended with them for no other end and with no other design, but to restore the people to the right way; for if his purpose had only been to condemn the people for their wickedness, there would have been no need of these questions. But the Prophet shows what has been often stated before, — that whenever God chides his people, he opens to them the door of hope as to their salvation, provided those who have sinned repent. As this then must have been well known to all the Jews, the Prophet here asks, as with their mouth, what was to be done.
He thus introduces them as inquiring, With what shall I approach Jehovah, and bow down before the high God?
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Shall I approach him with burnt-offerings, with calves of a year old? But at the same time there is no doubt, but that he indirectly refers to that foolish notion, by which men for the most part deceive themselves; for when they are proved guilty, they indeed know that there is no remedy for them, except they reconcile themselves to God: but yet they pretend by circuitous courses to approach God, while they desire to be ever far away from him. This dissimulation has always prevailed in the world, and it now prevails: they see that they whom God convicts and their own conscience condemns, cannot rest in safety. Hence they wish to discharge their duty towards God as a matter of necessity; but at the same time they seek some fictitious modes of reconciliation, as though it were enough to flatter God, as though he could be pacified like a child with some frivolous trifles. The Prophet therefore detects this wickedness, which had ever been too prevalent among them; as though he said, — “I see what ye are about to say; for there is no need of contending longer; as ye have nothing to object to God, and he has things innumerable to allege against you: ye are then more than condemned; but yet ye will perhaps say what has been usually alleged by you and always by hypocrites, even this, — ‘We wish to be reconciled to God, and we confess our faults and seek pardon; let God in the meantime show himself ready to be reconciled to us, while we offer to him sacrifices.’” There is then no doubt, but that the Prophet derided this folly, which has ever prevailed in the hearts of men: they ever think that God can be pacified by outward rites and frivolous performances.
He afterwards adds, He has proclaimed to thee what is good. The Prophet reproves the hypocrisy by which the Jews willfully deceived themselves, as though he said, — “Ye indeed pretend some concern for religion when ye approach God in prayer; but this your religion is nothing; it is nothing else than shamelessly to dissemble; for ye sin not either through ignorance or misconception, but ye treat God with mockery.” — How so? “Because the Law teaches you with sufficient clearness what God requires from you; does it not plainly enough show you what is true reconciliation? But ye close your eyes to the teaching of the Law, and in the meantime pretend ignorance. This is extremely childish. God has already proclaimed what is good, even to do judgment, to love kindness and to walk humbly with God.” We now perceive the design of the Prophet.
As then he says here, With what shall I appear before God? we must bear in mind, that as soon as God condescends to enter into trial with men, the cause is decided; for it is no doubtful contention. When men litigate one with another, there is no cause so good but what an opposite party can darken by sophistries. But the Prophet intimates that men lose all their labor by evasions, when God summons them to a trial. This is one thing. He also shows what deep roots hypocrisy has in the hearts of all, for they ever deceive themselves and try to deceive God. How comes it that men, proved guilty, do not immediately and in the right way retake themselves to God, but that they ever seek windings? How is this? It is not because they have any doubt about what is right except they willfully deceive themselves, but because they dissemble and willfully seek the subterfuges of error. It hence appears that men perversely go astray when ever they repent not as they ought, and bring not to God a real integrity of heart. And hence it also appears that the whole world which continues in its superstitions is without excuse. For if we scrutinize the intentions of men, it will at length come to this, — that men carefully and anxiously seek various superstitions, because they are unwilling to come before God and to devote themselves to him, without some dissembling and hypocrisy. Since it is so, certain it is, that all who desire to pacify God with their own ceremonies and other trifles cannot by any pretext escape. What is said here is at the same time strictly addressed to the Jews, who had been instructed in the teaching of the Law: and such are the Papists of this day; though they spread forth specious pretenses to excuse their ignorance, they may yet be refuted by this one fact, — that God has prescribed clearly and distinctly enough what he requires: but they wish to be ignorant of this; hence their error is at all times wilful. We ought especially to notice this in the words of the Prophet; but I cannot proceed farther now.
John Calvin's Commentaries (1540-1563) — public domain. Text from the Calvin Translation Society English edition (1840s-50s) via the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (ccel.org). Calvin's coverage is partial (roughly two-thirds of the Bible); uncommented books and verses are honest gaps, never fabricated. The 19th-century editor's footnotes and remarks are omitted so the notes are faithfully Calvin's own voice.
Geneva Bible translators 1599 · Public Domain On vv6–8 Thus the people by hypocrisy ask how to please…
Thus the people by hypocrisy ask how to please God and are content to offer sacrifices, but will not change their lives.
Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain.
John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain On vv6–8 Mic 6:6 Wherewith shall I come before the LORD,…
Mic 6:6 Wherewith shall I come before the LORD, [and] bow myself before the high God? shall I come before him with burnt offerings, with calves of a year old?
Ver. 6. Wherewith shall I come before the Lord?] This is vox populi, the voice of the people now convinced in part; or at least of some one for them. Praestat herbam dare quam turpiter pugnare: Better yield than disgracefully hold out the contest. God, say they, hath the better of us; neither need he now call upon heaven and earth to arbitrate, nor on the mountains and strong foundations to hear the quarrel, for we are self-condemned, Tit 3:11. Our own consciences read the sentence against us, we have deserved to be destroyed; but O, what may we do to avert and avoid his wrath? "what shall we do that we might work the works of God?" Joh 6:28. Lo, this is the guise of graceless men; fain they would pacify God, and work themselves into his grace and favour by ceremonies and frivolous businesses; yea, they offer largely for a dispensation to live in their sins, which they had as lief be knocked on the head as part with. Interea per flexuosos circuitus fingunt se ad Deum accedere, a quo tamen semper cupiant esse remoti, saith Calvin; they fetch a compass about God, but care not to come near him. Heaven they would either steal if they could, or buy at any hand, if they might; fain would they pass e coeno ad coelum, a deliciis ad delicias, from Delilah’s lap to Abraham’s bosom; fain they would (as one saith) dance with the devil all day, and then sup with Christ at night. They seem here very inquisitive and solicitous about their soul’s health; they give the half turn, sed ad Deum usque non revertuntur, but they return not even to God; like a horse in a mill, they move much, but remove not at all; like those silly women, 2Ti 3:6-7, or as ants that run to and fro about a mole hill, but grow not greater.
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And bow myself before the high God] Or, shall I bow myself, will that, or any like bodily exercise, please him or pacify him? If cringing or crouching will do it, if sackcloth and ashes, if hanging down the head and going softly, if penances and pilgrimages, &c., hypocrites do usually herein outdo the upright. Doth the publican look with his eye on the ground? the hypocritical Jews will hang down their heads like bulrushes. Doth Timothy weaken his constitution by abstinence? the Pharisee will never give over till his complexion be wholly withered and waned. Doth Paul correct his body with milder correction, as it were a blow on the cheek? the Jesuit will martyr his sides with the severe discipline of scorpions. But although God must be glorified with our bodies also, 1Co 6:20, and external service is required (whatever the Swenkfeldians say to the contrary), yet bodily exercise of itself profiteth little, 1Ti 4:8, and let those that brag of or bind upon their outward worship of Christ consider, that the devil himself in the demoniac of Gadara fell down and worshipped him. What comfort can there be in that which is common to us with devils? who, as they believe and tremble, so they tremble and worship. The outward bowing is the body of the action; the disposition of the soul is the soul of it.
Shall I come before him with burnt offerings, &c.] Shall I prevent him, and propitiate him with burnt offerings? shall I meet him marching against me, and thus make my peace with him? The Jews were much in sacrifices, till they wearied God’s soul therewith, and all his senses, Isa 1:13-15; but they were sacrificing Sodomites, Mic 6:10, they stuck in the bark, they pleased themselves in the work done, not attending the manner, which either makes or mars every action, and is mainly eyed by God; their devotions were placed more in the massive materiality than inward purity; and hence rejected David could tell (though these questionists could not) that God desired not sacrifice further than as thereby men were led to Christ; and that the sacrifices of God are a contrite spirit, Psa 51:16-17; that no burnt offering is acceptable, nor calf of a year old, unless laid on the low altar of a broken heart, which sanctifieth the sacrifice.
John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Matthew Poole 1685 · Public Domain On vv6–8 In the foregoing part of the chapter you have…
In the foregoing part of the chapter you have God’s resolution to have a hearing, Mic 6:1,2, and his plea for himself against an ungrateful people, Mic 6:3-5. Now in this verse you have the result, which is either an unfeigned submission, and justification of God’s just proceedings, made by some of the best of this people, or else an inquiry made by men among them, who did yet retain some opinion of their own integrity; much like those Isa 58:3, they were ready to say, We have offered sacrifices as required, &c.; what would God have us do more? Or else it is an inquiry what the prophet would further direct them to do in this case, with an intimation that they were ready to offer any sacrifices God should require of them. Or else this verse is the prophet’s supposition, that some among them would be ready to inquire how they should in this case behave themselves, and so this prosopoeia fairly makes way for further direction to this people.
Wherewith? Heb. With what? what preparation shall I make for a due and right address unto God?
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Shall I, in the person of all the people, or else in the person of the most thinking among them: this I is the people of the Jews.
Come before the Lord: it is a temple phrase, and contains the solemn attendance on God in his worship; well paraphrased in the Chaldee paraphrase, With what shall I serve before the Lord?
And bow myself before: this is exegetical to the former phrase, When I come to bow myself and worship the Lord, with what shall I appear?
The high God; such was the God of Israel, heaven his throne, the earth his footstool; idols are dunghill gods, our God alone is the God who dwells on high.
Shall I come before him with burnt-offerings? shall these suffice for testimony that I owe my all to God, or appease his displeasure, which justly might devour me as the fire the sacrifice?
With calves of a year old: it is probable this repeats (as is usual in Scripture, to confirm and affect us the more) the thing before mentioned.
Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Matthew Henry 1710 · Public Domain On v6 Here is the proposal for accommodation between God and…
Here is the proposal for accommodation between God and Israel, the parties that were at variance in the beginning of the chapter. Upon the trial, judgment is given against Israel; they are convicted of injustice and ingratitude towards God, the crimes with which they stood charged. Their guilt is too plain to be denied, too great to be excused, and therefore,
I. They express their desires to be at peace with God upon any terms (Mic 6:6, Mic 6:7): Wherewith shall I come before the Lord? Being made sensible of the justice of God's controversy with them, and dreading the consequences of it, they were inquisitive what they might do to be reconciled to God and to make him their friend. They apply to a proper person, with this enquiry, to the prophet, the Lord's messenger, by whose ministry they had been convinced. Who so fit to show them their way as he that had made them sensible of their having missed it? And it is observable that each one speaks for himself: Wherewith shall I come? Knowing every one the plague of his own heart, they ask, not, What shall this man do? But, What shall I do? Note, Deep convictions of guilt and wrath will put men upon careful enquiries after peace and pardon, and then, and not till then, there begins to be some hope of them. They enquire wherewith they may come before the Lord, and bow themselves before the high God. They believe there is a God, that he is Jehovah, and that he is the high God, the Most High. Those whose consciences are convinced learn to speak very honourably of God, whom before they spoke slightly of. Now, 1. We know we must come before God; he is the God with whom we have to do; we must come as subjects, to pay our homage to him, as beggars, to ask alms from him, nay, we must come before him, as criminals, to receive our doom from him, must come before him as our Judge. 2. When we come before him we must bow before him; it is our duty to be very humble and reverent in our approaches to him; and, when we come before him, there is no remedy but we must submit; it is to no purpose to contend with him. 3. When we come and bow before him it is our great concern to find favour with him, and to be accepted of him; their enquiry is, What will the Lord be pleased with? Note, All that rightly understand their own interest cannot but be solicitous what they must do to please God, to avoid his displeasure and to obtain his good-will. 4. In order to God's being pleased with us, our care must be that the sin by which we have displeased him may be taken away, and an atonement made for it. The enquiry here is, What shall I give for my transgression, for the sin of my soul? Note, The transgression we are guilty of is the sin of our soul, for the soul acts it (without the soul's act it is not sin) and the soul suffers by it; it is the disorder, disease, and defilement of the soul, and threatens to be the death of it: What shall I give for my transgressions? What will be accepted as a satisfaction to his justice, a reparation of his honour? And what will avail to shelter me from his wrath? 5. We must therefore ask, Wherewith may we come before him? We must not appear before the Lord empty. What shall we bring with us? In what manner must we come? In whose name must we come? We have not that in ourselves which will recommend us to him, but must have it from another. What righteousness then shall we appear before him in?
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II. They make proposals, such as they are, in order to it. Their enquiry was very good and right, and what we are all concerned to make, but their proposals betray their ignorance, though they show their zeal; let us examine them: -
1. They bid high. They offer, (1.) That which is very rich and costly - thousands of rams. God required one ram for a sin-offering; they proffer flocks of them, their whole stock, will be content to make themselves beggars, so that they may but be at peace with God. They will bring the best they have, the rams, and the most of them, till it comes to thousands. (2.) That which is very dear to them, and which they would be most loth to part with. They could be content to part with their first-born for their transgressions, if that would be accepted as an atonement, and the fruit of their body for the sin of their soul. To those that had become vain in their imaginations this seemed a probable expedient of making satisfaction for sin, because our children are pieces of ourselves; and therefore the heathen sacrificed their children, to appease their offended deities. Note, Those that are thoroughly convinced of sin, of the malignity of it, and of their misery and danger by reason of it, would give all the world, if they had it, for peace and pardon.
2. Yet they do not bid right. It is true some of these things were instituted by the ceremonial law, as the bringing of burnt-offerings to God's altar, and calves of a year old, rams for sin-offerings, and oil for the meat-offerings; but these alone would not recommend them to God. God had often declared that to obey is better than sacrifice, and to hearken than the fat of rams, that sacrifice and offering he would not; the legal sacrifices had their virtue and value from the institution, and the reference they had to Christ the great propitiation; but otherwise, of themselves, it was impossible that the blood of bulls and goats should take away sin. And as to the other things here mentioned, (1.) Some of them are impracticable things, as rivers of oil, which nature has not provided to feed men's luxury, but rivers of water to supply men's necessity. All the proposals of peace but those that are according to the gospel are absurd. One stream of the blood of Christ is worth ten thousand rivers of oil. (2.) Some of them are wicked things, as to give our first-born and the fruit of our body to death, which would but add to the transgression and the sin of the soul. He that hates robbery for burnt-offerings much more hates murder, such murder. What right have we to our first born and the fruit of our body? Do they not belong to God? Are they not his already, and born to him? Are they not sinners by nature, and their lives forfeited upon their own account? How then can they be a ransom for ours? (3.) They are all external things, parts of that bodily exercise which profiteth little, and which could not make the comers thereunto perfect. (4.) They are all insignificant, and insufficient to attain the end proposed; they could not answer the demands of divine justice, nor satisfy the wrong done to God in his honour by sin, nor would they serve in lieu of the sanctification of the heart and the reformation of the life. Men will part with any thing rather than their sins, but they part with nothing to God's acceptance unless they part with them.
III. God tells them plainly what he demands, and insists upon, from those that would be accepted of him, Mic 6:8. Let their money perish with them that think the pardon of sin and the favour of God may be so purchased; no, God has shown thee, O man! what is good. Here we are told,
1. That God has made a discovery of his mind and will to us, for the rectifying of our mistakes and the direction of our practice. (1.) It is God himself that has shown us what we must do. We need not trouble ourselves to make proposals, the terms are already settled and laid down. He whom we have offended, and to whom we are accountable, has told us upon what conditions he will be reconciled to us. (2.) It is to man that he has shown it, not only to thee, O Israel! but to thee, O man! Gentiles as well as Jews - to men, who are rational creatures, and capable of receiving the discovery, and not to brutes, - to men, for whom a remedy is provided, not to devils, whose case is desperate. What is spoken to all men every where in general, must by faith be applied to ourselves in particular, as if it were spoken to thee, O man! by name, and to no other. (3.) It is a discovery of that which is good, and which the Lord requires of us. He has shown us our end, which we should aim at, in showing us what is good, wherein our true happiness does consist; he has shown us our way in which we must walk towards that end in showing us what he requires of us. There is something which God requires we should do for him and devote to him; and it is good. It is good in itself; there is an innate goodness in moral duties, antecedent to the command; they are not, as ceremonial observances, good because they are commanded, but commanded because they are good, consonant to the eternal rule and reason of good and evil, which are unalterable. It has likewise a direct tendency to our good; our conformity to it is not only the condition of our future happiness, but is a great expedient of our present happiness; in keeping God's commandments there is great reward, as well as after keeping them. (4.) It is shown us. God has not only made it known, but made it plain; he has discovered it to us with such convincing evidence as amounts to a demonstration. Lo this, we have searched it, so it is.
2. What that discovery is. The good which God requires of us is not the paying of a price for the pardon of sin and acceptance with God, but doing the duty which is the condition of our interest in the pardon purchased. (1.) We must do justly, must render to all their due, according as our relation and obligation to them are; we must do wrong to none, but do right to all, in their bodies, goods, and good name. (2.) We must love mercy; we must delight in it, as our God does, must be glad of an opportunity to do good, and do it cheerfully. Justice is put before mercy, for we must not give that in alms which is wrongfully got, or with which our debts should be paid. God hates robbery for a burnt-offering. (3.) We must walk humbly with our God. This includes all the duties of the first table, as the two former include all the duties of the second table. We must take the Lord for our God in covenant, must attend on him and adhere to him as ours, and must make it our constant care and business to please him. Enoch's walking with God is interpreted (Heb 11:5) his pleasing God. We must, in the whole course of our conversation, conform ourselves to the will of God, keep up our communion with God, and study to approve ourselves to him in our integrity; and this we must do humbly (submitting our understandings to the truths of God and our will to his precepts and providences); we must humble ourselves to walk with God (so the margin reads it); every thought within us must be brought down, to be brought into obedience to God, if we would walk comfortably with him. This is that which God requires, and without which the most costly services are vain oblations; this is more than all burnt-offerings and sacrifices.
Matthew Henry's Commentary on the Whole Bible (1708–1710) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Gill 1763 · Public Domain On vv6–8 Wherewith shall I come before the Lord,.... These are…
Wherewith shall I come before the Lord,.... These are not the words of the people of Israel God had a controversy with, and now made sensible of their sin, and humbled for it; and willing to appease the Lord, and make it up with him at any rate; for there are such things proposed by them as do by no means suit with persons of such a character, nay, even suppose them to be hypocritical; and much less are they what were put into their mouths by the prophet to say, as some suggest; but they are the words of Balak king of Moab, which, and what follow, are questions he put to Balaam, who had told him that he could do nothing without the Lord, nor anything contrary to his word: now he asks what he must do to get the good will of this Lord; in what manner, and with what he must appear before him, serve and worship him, as the Targum; that so he might have an interest in him, and get him to speak a word to Balaam in his favour, and against Israel; see Num 22:8;
and bow myself before the high God? the most high God, the God of gods, whose Shechinah or Majesty is in the high heavens, as the Targum: his meaning is, with what he should come, or bring with him, when he paid his homage and obeisance to him, by bowing his body or his knee before him; being willing to do it in the most acceptable manner he could:
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shall I come before him with burnt offerings, with calves of a year old? such as he had been used to offer on the high places of Baal to that deity. Sacrifices of this kind prevailed among the Heathens, which they had received by tradition from the times of Adam and Noah; see Num 22:41.
John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Wesley 1765 · Public Domain On vv6–8 Wherewith - One whose heart was touched by the…
Wherewith - One whose heart was touched by the preceeding expostulation, may be supposed to make this enquiry.
John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.
Adam Clarke 1810 · Public Domain On vv6–8 Verse 6. Wherewith shall I come before the Lord]…
Verse 6. Wherewith shall I come before the Lord] Now the people, as defendants, appear; but instead of vindicating themselves, or attempting to dispute what has been alleged against them, they seem at once to plead guilty; and now anxiously inquire how they shall appease the wrath of the Judge, how they shall make atonement for the sins already committed.
Bow myself before the high God] They wish to pray, and to make supplication to their Judge; but how shall they come before him? They have no right to come into his presence. Some offering must be brought; but of what kind, or of what value? Their sin is unprecedented, and usual methods of access will not avail. They are distracted in their minds, and make a variety of proposals to themselves, some rational, some absurd and impossible, and some even sinful.
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Shall I come before him with burnt-offerings] This is reasonable, and according to the law; but this will be insufficient.
Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Joseph Benson 1811 · Public Domain On vv6, 8 Mic 6:6-7. Wherewith shall I come before the Lord…
Mic 6:6-7. Wherewith shall I come before the Lord — After the preceding reproof of the people’s ingratitude, they are here introduced as anxiously inquiring how they may propitiate God’s displeasure, and avert his judgments. They intimate that they are ready to offer any expiatory sacrifices, though never so costly, for that purpose. Shall I come before him with burnt-offerings, &c. — Will God accept of the ordinary sacrifices, such as we have offered on other occasions, as an atonement for sin? Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams, &c. — With a prodigious number; or ten thousands of rivers of oil — Were it possible to give them? Doth he expect more costly sacrifices than ordinary? We are ready, if that will appease him, to offer up to him multitudes of rams, and to add meat-offerings, prepared with oil, in proportion, though it should cost us an immeasurable quantity of that article. Shall I give my firstborn, &c. — The dearest of my offspring, or any other of my children, to Jehovah, by way of atonement for my transgression? It is well known that the Phenicians, and their descendants the Carthaginians, sacrificed their children to Saturn or Molech, and in their great dangers they were wont to offer the dearest of them. And some of the idolatrous Jews and Israelites imitated this horrid practice: see note on Lev 18:21, where God in a solemn manner prohibits it, as he frequently does elsewhere. These two verses give us an exact description of the character of hypocrites and habitual sinners, who hope to obtain God’s favour by performing certain external ceremonies; and are willing to purchase their own pardon upon any terms, except that of reforming their lives.
Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Albert Barnes 1834 · Public Domain On vv6, 8 Wherewith shall I come before the Lord? - The…
Wherewith shall I come before the Lord? - The people, thus arraigned, bursts in, as men do, with professions that they would be no more ungrateful; that they will do anything, everything - but what they ought. With them it shall be but “Ask and have.” They wish only to know, with what they shall come? They would be beforehand with Him, anticipating His wishes; they would, with all the submission of a creature, bow, prostrate themselves before God; they acknowledge His High Majesty, who dwelleth on high, the most High God, and would abase themselves before His lofty greatness, if they but knew, “how” or “wherewith.”
They would give of their best; sacrifices the choicest of their kind, which should be wholly His, whole-burnt-offerings, offered exactly according to the law, “bullocks of a year old” Lev 9:2-3; then too, the next choice offering, the rams; and these, as they were offered for the whole people on very solemn occasions, in vast multitudes, thousands or ten thousands ; the oil which accompanied the burnt sacrifice, should flow in rivers ; nay, more still; they would not withhold their sons, their first born sons, from God, part, as they were, of themselves, or any fruit of their own body.
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They enhance the offering by naming the tender relation to themselves Deu 28:53. They would offer everything, (even what God forbade) excepting only what alone He asked for, their heart, its love and its obedience . The form of their offer contains this; they ask zealously, “with what shall I come.” It is an outward offering only, a thing which they would bring. Hypocritical eagerness! a sin against light. For to enquire further, when God has already revealed anything, is to deny that He has revealed it. It comes from the wish that He had not revealed what lie has revealed. : “whose, after he hath found the truth, discusseth anything further, seeketh a lie.” God had told them, long before, from the time that He made them His people, what he desired of them; So Micah answers,
Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary 1859 · Public Domain On vv6–8 What shall I offer, &c. This is spoken in…
What shall I offer, &c. This is spoken in the person of the people, desiring to be informed what they are to do to please God. (Challoner) --- They can answer nothing in their own defence.
George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).
Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset & David Brown 1871 · Public Domain On vv6–8 Wherewith shall I come before the Lord?--The people, convicted…
Wherewith shall I come before the Lord?--The people, convicted by the previous appeal of Jehovah to them, ask as if they knew not (compare Mic 6:8) what Jehovah requires of them to appease Him, adding that they are ready to offer an immense heap of sacrifices, and those the most costly, even to the fruit of their own body.
burnt offerings-- (Lev. 1:1-17).
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calves of a year old--which used to be offered for a priest (Lev 9:2-3).
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges 1878 · Public Domain On vv6–8 6. Wherewith] i.e. with what present?
6. Wherewith] i.e. with what present?
bow myself] With the obeisance of a subject before his king, or of a poor man before a rich.
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with calves of a year old] These were considered the choicest (Lev_9:3).
6–8. The people, feeling its need of atonement, anxiously (note the repeated questions) inquires of the prophet how it is to propitiate Jehovah. Bishop Butler, in his Sermon on the Character of Balaam, adopts the view that Mic_6:6-7 represent the question of Balak, and Mic_6:8 the answer of Balaam. This was probably suggested by 2Ki_3:27, where it is recorded that the king of Moab offered up his eldest son as a burnt-offering. But the inference is hasty; human sacrifices were one of the abominations of Israel (see below), which most excited the reprobation of the prophets. Bishop Butler, too, had probably not realized the amount of personification which exists in the prophetic writings. It is the people personified which speaks in these two verses (6 and 7).
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers 1878 · Public Domain On vv6–8 (6) Wherewith shall I come . . .?—This has…
(6) Wherewith shall I come . . .?—This has been taken by some commentators as Balak’s question to Balaam, who gives his reply in Mic_6:8. Dean Stanley writes, after his picturesque manner, of “the short dialogue preserved, not by the Mosaic historian, but by the Prophet Micah, which at once exhibits the agony of the king and the lofty conceptions of the great Seer” (Jewish Church, Lect. 8). But it is rather in harmony with the context to understand it as the alarmed and conscience-stricken reply of the Jewish people impersonated in some earnest speaker to the pleading brought before them by the prophet in the Lord’s name.
A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Pulpit Commentary 1880 · Public Domain On vv6–8 Vers. 6-8. The people, awakened to its ingratitude and…
Vers. 6-8. The people, awakened to its ingratitude and need of atonement, asks how to please God, and is referred for answer to the moral requirements of the Law.
It is greatly doubted who is the speaker here. Bishop Butler, in his sermon "Upon the Character of Balaam," adopts the view that Balak is the speaker of vers. 6 and 7, and Balaam answers in ver. 8. Knabenbauer considers Micah himself as the interlocutor, speaking in the character of the people; which makes the apparent change of persons in ver. 8 very awkward. Most commentators, ancient and modern, take the questions in vers. 6 and 7 to be asked by the people personified, though they are not agreed as to the spirit from which they proceed, some thinking that they are uttered in self-righteousness, as if the speakers had done all that and more than could be required of them; others regarding the inquiries as representing a certain acknowledgment of sin and a desire for means of propitiation, though there is exhibited a want of appreciation of the nature of God and of the service which alone is acceptable to him. The latter view is most reasonable, and in accordance with Micah"s manner. Wherewith; i.e. with what offering? The prophet represents the congregation as asking him to tell them how to propitiate the offended Lord, and obtain his favour. Come before; go to meet, appear in the presence of the Lord. Septuagint, katalabw , "attain to." Bow myself before the high God; literally, God of the height, who has his throne on high; (Isa_33:5 Isa_57:15) Vulgate, curvabo genu Deo excelso; Septuagint, antilhqomai Yeou mou uqistou , "shall I lay hold of my God most high." Calves of a year old. Such were deemed the choicest victims. (comp. Exo_12:5 Lev_9:2, Lev_9:3)
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Vers. 6-8. Man"s spiritual need, and its supply.
These verses form one of the most striking passages in the Old Testament Scriptures. Let any one inquire as to the nature of true religion, and he may find the exposition of it expressed here with marvellous vigour and terseness of speech, and with a completeness leaving nothing to be supplied. The false conception respecting true religion as consisting in that which is external is swept clean away as with a besom, and the loftiest view concerning it is set before us in diction so simple that it cannot be misunderstood and in tone so earnest that it cannot fall to come home to the conscience and the heart.
I THERE UNDERLIES THESE WORDS THE THOUGHT OF MAN"S DEEP NEED OF GOD. To "come before the Lord" and to "bow before the most high God" is a necessity of humanity. Uncentred from God, the children of men are ever craving after seine unattained good, and which alone consists in the Divine favour and blessing. They turn to objects that are unworthy and that can never meet the wants of their higher nature. They seek satisfaction in that which is material, in cherishing attachment to the outward, the fleeting, the unreal; even as these people of Judah turned to luxury, ease, and self-indulgence; and the result is and ever must be miserable disappointment. Or they turn to objects such as are really worthy wealth, scholarship, oratory, political and civic honours; but anticipating getting more out of these than they had any right to expect, there is failure and consequent disquietude. "He hath showed thee, O man, what is good." God has declared that true heart rest can alone be found in himself. "Thou hast formed us for thyself, and our heart is disquieted till it resteth in thee" (Augustine). Consider
II THE IMPOSSIBILITY OF FINDING THE SATISFACTION OF THIS DEEP NEED OF THE SOUL IN A MERELY FORMAL AND EXTERNAL SERVICE. It is a great thing when a true reformer succeeds in making an impression. When evils have become deep-rooted, when men have become accustomed to perverted ways, there is an indifference and callousness about them which it is difficult indeed to overcome. And the distinction of this Hebrew seer is seen in the success he achieved where so many have signally failed. By the force of his own personal character, combined with the simplicity and vividness, the mingled severity, tenderness, and the intense earnestness of his language, he succeeded in rousing many to a sense of their sinfulness, and in awakening within them desires and aspirations after a truer life, and impelling them to cry, "Wherewith shall I come," etc.? (ver. 6). But mark what followed. Micah prophesied in the reign of Hezekiah, and the history shows that the people rested in outward reformation and external forms. They cried, "Shall I come before him with burnt offerings...rivers of oil?" (vers. 6, 7); i.e. shall I bring the costliest and choicest sacrifices, and cause the oil which accompanies the offerings to flow plenteously? "Shall I" (following the practice of the heathen) "give my firstborn," etc.? (ver. 7). And they acted in the spirit of these inquiries. The interest in the temple and its services became revived, the Law was read, the sacrifices renewed, the fasts and feasts once more observed, and the threatened judgments were delayed. But all this was only temporary, there was outward reformation, but unaccompanied by inward renewal; the observance of external forms and the resting in these instead of in God; so that the spiritual unrest continued, and the process of national decay went on, whilst the voice of God was heard uttering the strongest denunciations, saying, "To what purpose,". (Isa_1:11-15) Beware of cherishing a merely formal piety, of honouring God with your lips whilst your hearts are far from him, of resting in outward reformation and external worship. (Psa_51:16, 17 Joh_4:23, Joh_4:24)
III THIS NEED OF THE HEART IS MET IN THE POSSESSION OF SINCERE AND GENUINE PIETY. Such piety is described (ver. 8) as consisting in doing justly, loving mercy, and walking humbly with God. It is spiritual in its nature, and has its seat in the heart. Possessing a heart renewed, trustful, and obedient to the Divine will, God will dwell with us, will be cur chief joy, and in all places and at all seasons will manifest himself to us. So shall we at all times and under all circumstances find tranquillity and peace. So shall we sing"Without thee life and time are sadness, No fragrance breathes around; But with thee even grief is gladness, The heart its home hath found.
Vers. 6-8. The essentials of godliness.
If the questions of vers. 6 and 7 are those of Balak and the answers are Balaam"s, they remind us of how a man may know and explain clearly the path of righteousness and peace, and yet neglect it. Balsam may prophesy; Demas may preach; Judas may cast out devils; but "I never knew you; depart from me ye that work iniquity!" Or if we regard the questions as proposed, either by the nation convicted of sin (vers. 1-5), or by any one sin-stricken soul, we learn the same truths. It is the old controversy, older than Balak, between God and man, as to the grounds of man"s acceptance with God and the essential requirements from man by God. We see
I ANXIOUS QUESTIONS. (Vers. 6, 7) These questions remind us of:
1. Man"s sense of distance from God. He is not consciously walking "with God," like Enoch; "before God," like Abraham.
2. His conviction that he cannot come to God by any right or merit of his own. "Wherewith?" He cannot come just as he is, empty-handed. He has no right of entry to the court of the Divine King.
3. And that if he comes at all he must bow," as an inferior, conscious of absolute dependence. This "consciousness of absolute dependence" (Schleiermacher"s definition of religion), which is shared by all intelligent creatures, is intensified by the consciousness of sin. Sin has as its shadow guilt, and the brighter the light the clearer and darker the shadow. That shadow projects itself into the mysterious future. A sense of desert of punishment and "a certain tearful looking for of judgment" are the attendants of sin, though there may be no meltings of godly sorrow from a sense of its base ingratitude. Thus sin is the great separater; man feels it; God declares it. (Isa_59:1, Isa_59:2) Hence there follow suggestive inquiries as to the means by which acceptance with God may be obtained. Shall they be "burnt offerings"? There was a germ of truth in this thought. (cf. 2Sa_24:24) Burnt offerings were entirely devoted to God. They might be precious in quality, like "calves of a year old," or multiplied in quantity ("thousands of rams," etc.). These burnt offerings were designed to denote God"s right to our entire surrender, but could be no substitute for that surrender. They might be signs of eager desire for acceptance, though at a high price. But in themselves they could bring no sense of access to God and of peace with him. Then comes the suggestion of a sacrifice infinitely more costly ("my firstborn," etc.). To a parent a child"s life is more precious than his own. If the sinner can be forgiven and accepted only at such a price, shall it be paid? Terror-stricken, deluded consciences have answered, "Yes;" but the peace has not come. While some of these proposals are detestable to God, all of them are worthless. Unless the man himself is right with God, no sacrifice can avail. Yet many would rather sacrifice health, life, wife, child, than give up sin which is the great separator. Sinful man can ask such anxious questions as these, but he cannot answer them. His suggestions land him in deeper guilt, or at the best leave him in blank despair.
II REASSURING ANSWERS. (Ver. 8) These come from God himself. Every fragment of gospel news of good, is news from God. It was given not now for the first time. God had spoken at sundry times and in divers manners by Moses and the earlier prophets. All previous revelations of Law and grace were means of showing men "what is good." In regard to man himself, God from the beginning has testified that his only real "good" is real godliness. This was the sum of his requirements. (see Deu_10:12, Deu_10:13, etc.) He did not seek for something from themselves, but for themselves and for the fruit of his Spirit within them. There were false methods by which "that which is good" was sought, such as heathen sacrifices and austerities. There were inadequate methods, such as God"s own appointed system of sacrifices and services, when emptied of the spirit of self-surrender they were designed to foster and of the teaching they contained of the need of "better sacrifices". (Heb_9:23) These symbolical educational sacrifices were but part of a process which was to issue in man"s acceptance by God, that thus man might render to God what he required, and might know and "prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God". (cf. Heb_10:1-10, Heb_10:19-25) Looking closely at ver. 8, we see a summing up of both Law and gospel.
1. To do justly. " Elementary morality is here linked with all that is Divine. To do justly is not only to do what is just, but because it is just, and with an earnest desire to be right with God. The "righteousness" which "the righteous Lord loveth" (Psa_11:7) is more than the outward act. And yet these most elementary acts of righteousness were neglected by many then (vers. 10-12 and Mic_7:3) as well as now, who proposed anxious questions about their acceptance with God or even professed to have found satisfactory answers to them.
2. To love mercy." Mercy is more than justice, just as "a good man" is more than a merely "righteous" one. (Rom_5:7) The lack of it may arise from hardness of character, or from never having passed through the temptations by which some have fallen. To cultivate the love of mercy will bring us nearer to God, and will make it easy for us to scatter blessings around our path, even to the unthankful and the evil. (Pro_21:21 Mat_5:7 Luk_6:32-36) Such a disposition is incompatible with spiritual pride. But lest a just and benevolent man should be tempted to pride himself and to rely on his outward conduct, we are reminded of God"s last requirement.
3. To walk humbly with thy God." Here the first table of the Decalogue and the law of the gospel are combined. "Walk with God." How can the sinner, except he be reconciled? (Amo_3:3) Hence the need of peace in God"s appointed way. This way to us is not the way of self-righteousness or the way of ceremonies and sacraments, but it is the way of faith in God"s own appointed and accepted atonement. (Rom_4:4, 5 1Jn_3:23) To "submit" to this righteousness of God requires a humbling of many a proud heart. And if we have welcomed reconciliation as God"s free gift through Christ, we shall ever after walk humbly with our God as his grateful, happy children. Such a humble walk will make justice and mercy easier to us. When Luther was asked what was the first step in religion, he replied "Humility;" and when asked what was the second and the third, answered in the same way. Therefore walk humbly, as a learner; as a pensioner; as a pardoned and joyous child, "looking for the mercy of the Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal life". E.S.P. (Tit_2:11-14)
HOMILIES BY A. ROWLAND Vers. 6-8. Man"s yearning for his Maker.
The prophet supposes that his earnest appeals have had some effect that the people are stirred from their senselessness, and are beginning to feel after God. Overwhelmed with a consciousness of sin, they dare not approach him as they are. Their hesitation and their self-communing are like those of the prodigal in the far country when he came to himself. The sense of distance between the finite and the infinite, between the sin-stained and the holy, is oppressive and painful, and it finds expression in the words of our text.
I THE ANXIOUS INQUIRY. "Wherewith shall I come before the Lord, and bow myself before the high God?" Whether men wish to do so or not, they are bound by the inexorable laws of God to appear before him. They may come as sinners, casting themselves upon his mercy, as David and the publican came; but they must come, on the last great day, as responsible creatures, to give an account of the deeds done in the body, whether they are good or bad. It is not as a race, or even as families, that judgment will be received by men, but by each in his individual capacity. Hence the wise man asks himself," Wherewith shall I come before the Lord?
1. This implies belief in a personal God. There is no conception here or elsewhere in Scripture of the world being ruled by an impersonal Power, by a tendency which makes for righteousness. Such theories are in the long run destructive of the sense of personal accountability, and therefore fatal to the basis on which moral law rests.
2. This implies conviction of sin. Else why this nameless dread, and this notion of sin offering? It matters not how it is aroused, whether by tender touches of Divine love or by fervid appeals by inspired messengers; nor is it of consequence whether the sins were those of omission or of commission; but in some form, and by some means, a sense of sin is aroused in most men by the power of the Holy Spirit, whose office it is to "convince the world of sin, of righteousness, and of a judgment to come.
3. This implies willingness to make some sacrifice. Even the heathen have had the innate consciousness that without the shedding of blood there is no remission. The Jews had a divinely ordained and most elaborate system of sacrifice, which kept this idea before their minds, in all the changeful conditions of life. But they were taught that it was not these outward and visible offerings which atoned for sin. "Thou desirest not sacrifice, else would I give it," etc. "Lebanon is not sufficient to burn" etc. "The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit: a broken and a contrite heart, O God, thou wilt not despise".
II THE SATISFACTORY ANSWER. With ever increasing fulness it came, until at last the voice of the Lord Jesus was heard saying, "I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life; no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.
1. Christ Jesus has offered an atonement for us. "Once, in the end of the world, he hath appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself," He has not repealed the morel law; he has not abolished the necessity for means of moral culture; he has not quenched the Divine wrath; but he has revealed (not created) the Divine purpose, and has commended (not purchased) the Divine love. "God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.
2. Christ Jesus has brought God near to us. In him God is manifest in the flesh. "He that hath seen me hath seen the Father.
(1) By seeing him we can understand what God is. The unseen power which pulsates through this boundless universe is too vast for our appreciation; but revealed in the Lord Jesus, we know him to be a Person, speaking to us in wisdom and love.
(2) Through Jesus we know that God is love. He inspires hope and trust in those who are alienated and afraid. A display of Divine glory would terrify us; but we are encouraged to draw near by One who appeared as the Babe of Bethlehem, as the patient Teacher of the disciples, as the gracious Friend of the sinful and distressed.
3. Christ Jesus attracts us to God. Arousing gratitude and confidence, he is the great magnet of human hearts. "And I, if I be lifted up, will draw all men unto me.
III THE DIVINE REQUIREMENT. "He hath showed thee, O man, what is good; and what doth the Lord require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God." This is not required as a means of our Justification, but as an evidence of it. It does not exclude the work of Christ, but presupposes it. But, on the other hand, it effectually refutes the notion that the elect can live as they list. They are only "predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son.
1. To do justly" involves the discharge of fairly demanded duties both towards God and towards man. We are unjust in our dealings with God when we withhold time and wealth and influence which we are able to devote to him. We are unjust as servants when we render mere eye service; unjust as employers when we look only "on our own things." Buyers and sellers, statesmen and diplomatists, need all hearken to this law.
2. To love mercy" is to go beyond the strict rights which others may claim of us in the exercise of generosity and pity. "Blessed is he that considereth the poor," etc.; "If thine enemy hunger, feed him.
3. To walk humbly with God" implies fellowship, constant and real. Reverence and seriousness in the treatment of the Divine revelation; consciousness of the infinitude of truth, and our incapacity to grasp it; lowly submission to our Father"s will, when it is contrary to our own wishes; and steadfast progress in the Christian life, as we walk hand in hand with him; are all involved in walking humbly with our God. "Walking in reverence Humbly with thee, Yet from all abject fear Lovingly free; E"en as a friend with friend, Cheered to the journey"s end, Walking with thee. A.R.
Vers. 6-8. Fellowship with God.
"Wherewith shall I come before the Lord, and bow myself before the high God? shall I come before him with burnt offerings, with calves of a year old? Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams, or with ten thousands of rivers of oil?" etc. We raise from these words three general observations
I THAT A LOVING FELLOWSHIP WITH THE GREAT GOD IS THE ONE URGENT NEED OF HUMANITY. "Wherewith shall I come before the Lord?" The language is that of a soul convinced of its sin, and roused to a sense of the importance of friendship with the Almighty. "Wherewith shall I come?" Come I must; I feel that distance from him is my great sin and misery.
1. Loving fellowship with the great God is essential to the happiness of moral intelligences. Reason suggests this. All souls are the offspring of God; and where can children find happiness but in the friendship, the intercourse, and the presence of their loving Father? Conscience indicates this. Deep in the moral souls of all men is the yearning for intercourse with the Infinite. The hearts of all "cry out for the living God." The Bible teaches this. What means such utterances as these: "Come now, and let us reason together;" "Return to the Lord;" "Come unto me," etc.? Not more impossible is it for a planet to shine when cut off from the sun, a river to flow when cut off from the fountain, a branch to grow when severed from the root, than for a soul to be happy apart from God. "In thy presence is fulness of joy;
2. Man, in his unregenerate state, is estranged and far away from God. He is represented as a lost sheep wandering in the wilderness away from the fold, as the prodigal son remote from his father"s house and in a far country. How far is the human soul, in its unregenerate state, from God? How far is selfishness from benevolence, error flora truth, pollution from holiness, wrong from right? The moral space or gulf that lies between is immeasurable.
II THAT SACRIFICES THE MOST COSTLY ARE UTTERLY INSUFFICIENT TO SECURE THIS FELLOWSHIP. "Shall I come before him with burnt offerings, with calves of a year old?" Such offerings were presented under the Law (Leviticus 1, etc.). "Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams, or with ten thousands of rivers of oil?" This also was enjoined in Leviticus. Oil was to be poured on the meat offering. "Shall I give my firstborn for my transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?" The Jews offered many human sacrifices in the valley of Hinnom. They caused their children to pass through the fire in honour of Moloch. The idea is Are there any sacrifices I can make, however costly and however painful, in order to commend me to the favour and friendship of Almighty God? The interrogatory implies a negative No. Offer the cattle upon a thousand hills: can they be a satisfaction for sin? Can they commend you to Infinite Love? All are his. How men came at first to suppose that human sacrifices could be acceptable to God is one of the greatest enigmas in history. "Though a man give his body to be burned, without charity he is nothing." Two things are here presented.
1. The great cry of a sin-convicted soul is for God. No sooner is conviction of sin struck into the human soul, than it turns itself away at once from the world to God: "I want God; I have lost him; God I must have; oh that I knew where I might find him!
2. Worldly possessions, in the estimation of a sin-convicted soul, are comparatively worthless. He is prepared to make any sacrifices. Holocausts, thousands of rams, ten thousands of rivers of oil; what are they? Nothing in comparison with the interests of the soul "What shall it profit a man if he gain the whole world," etc.? It feels this when convicted of sin.
III THAT MORAL EXCELLENCE IS THE ONE METHOD BY WHICH THIS FELLOWSHIP CAN BE OBTAINED. "He hath showed thee, O man Hebrew, "Adam," the whole race, Jew and Gentile alike, what is good; and what doth the Lord require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God?" This moral excellence consists of two parts, social and religious.
1. That which refers to man.
(1) "Do justly;" "Whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them?" "Render to all men their due.
(2) "Love mercy." Mere justice is not enough, there must be tender commiseration for the suffering; the poor and the distressed must be remembered. Mercy must not only be shown, but loved. To help the needy must be delight.
2. That which refers to God. "Walk humbly with thy God." Walking with God implies consciousness of the Divine presence, harmony with the Divine will, progress in Divine excellence. This is moral excellence the moral excellence that God has revealed to all men, Jew and Gentile, the entire race, and which he requires from all; and this is the condition of fellowship with him. How is this moral excellence to be attained? it may be asked. Philosophically, I know but of one way faith in him who is the Revelation, the Incarnation, the Example of all moral excellence Jesus Christ.
CONCLUSION. Learn from this what religion is how transcendent! It is the soul going away from sin and the world to God. Not merely to temples, theologies, ceremonies, but to God; and to him, not through intellectual systems or ceremonial observances, but through a true life, both in relation to man and God. D.T.
The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Biblical Illustrator 1887 · Public Domain On vv6, 8 Wherewith shall I come before the Lord
Mic_6:6-8
Wherewith shall I come before the Lord
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Pleasing God
This is a momentous question, which the world has ever been asking--How shall we approach God?
For men feel that they are separated from Him,--that there is something which prevents access, and they have sought how to remove the obstacles which intervene.
I. Three methods likely to effect the desired purpose. They are--
1. Outward acts. What must I do? This is to a certain extent natural, for we cannot obtain any substantial good in the world without work, or its equivalent, money. Some attempt one particular deed, such as self-denial, others a notably moral life; others, again, obsequious religious observances.
2. Pious gifts. With burnt offerings. This shows the innate idea of atonement or propitiation. There is a universal consciousness of innate guilt and sinfulness, and there is a universal feeling that it must be punished. There is also in the text the idea of purchase. Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams? It is not uncommon for men to think that they can bribe God by outward acts of philanthropy, by building churches or hospitals.
3. Personal suffering and self-denial. Should I give my firstborn, etc. How terrible the consequences of such an act! Yet men have thought that mortifying the natural sentiments of humanity would gratify God. Many have voluntarily submitted to mutilation, to pilgrimages; they have even sacrificed their children in the hope of obtaining eternal life.
II. The text points out the only true method of acceptance with God. The prophet rebukes these popular ideas in a quiet manner. He says,--There is no excuse for your ignorance. Then why do men ask? It is because of their want of faith, for seeing they see not. He hath showed this in His Word, in His precepts, in His examples of life. We have here as components of that way--
1. Holiness. God hath required of thee to do justly. We must not forget that justice is due to God as well as to man. Just dealing demands reverence, faith, trust towards God in Christ, as much as honesty towards our fellow creatures.
2. Mercy. This means tenderness of disposition, and an ability to receive Gods message as well as to show our mercy to others.
3. Humility. Accepting Gods method of salvation, leaving our hopes and destiny with Him, receiving the sacrifice wrought out for us at Calvary; not to think higher of himself than a man ought to think. To live justly is to live in Christ, for in Him all justice is fulfilled. To love mercy is to imbibe Christs spirit, for He is the manifestation of Divine mercy. To walk humbly is to follow Christs teaching, for He inculcates humility, self-denial, and trust. (J. J. S. Bird, B. A.)
The worlds cry concerning the method of being brought into fellowship with God
It is not that God has withdrawn from us; it is that we are alienated from Him by wicked works. Here is one of the worlds cries. Where can we get a satisfying response? There are only three answers--
1. That which has reference to the presentation of sacrifices. This is the way in which the heathen have sought to bridge the gulf between themselves and their Maker. Yes, and the old Hebrew too. Millions of victims have been slain, and oceans of blood have been shed. But is this satisfactory? To say that we are to return to God through sacrifices, however costly and abundant, is not quite sufficient. In the first place, it is repugnant to our reason to suppose that such sacrifices can be acceptable to the God of love and mercy. In the second place, it is opposed to the declarations of the Bible. For thou desirest not sacrifice; else would I give it. Thou delightest not in burnt offering (Psa_51:16). To what purpose is the multitude of your sacrifices unto Me? saith the Lord (Isa_1:11). And Lebanon is not sufficient to burn, nor the beasts thereof sufficient for a burnt offering (Isa_40:16). None of them can by any means redeem his brother, nor give to God a ransom for him: for the redemption of their soul is precious, and it ceaseth forever (Psa_49:7-8). And in the third place, such sacrifices, as a fact, have never removed from man this feeling of distance from his Maker. The gulf remains as deep and broad though the cattle upon a thousand hills were offered.
2. There is that which has reference to a right moral conduct. He hath showed thee, O man, what is good; and what doth the Lord require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God? This is just what philosophy would say. Think the true, love the good, and do the right, and you will be accepted of your Maker--you will come back into a friendly state with Him. This is satisfactory so far as it goes; for to do the right thing is reconciliation with heaven. Those who live a holy life walk with God, and are happy in His fellowship. But the question is, How to come into this morally right state? And the philosophy which presents this method has no answer to this question.
3. There is that which has reference to the intervention of Christ. This is the answer of the Bible. It teaches that Christ is mans way back to fellowship with his Maker. I am the way: no man cometh unto the Father, but by Me. Through Him we both have access by one Spirit unto the Father (Eph_2:18). But, now, in order to see the satisfactoriness of this answer, it may be necessary to ask the question, In what way does Christ bring man into fellowship with God? Negatively--First: Not by repealing any of the laws of moral obligation binding on man. Christs intervention did not render man in the slightest degree less bound to obey every precept in heavens moral code. That code is as immutable as God Himself, Secondly: Not by dispensing with any of the settled conditions of spiritual culture and improvement. Christ does not make men good in any miraculous way. Observation, reflection, study, resolution, faith, practice, these are the means by which souls must ever advance. Thirdly: Not by effecting any change in the Divine mind. The mission of Christ was the effect--not the cause--of Gods love. Christ was its messenger and minister, not its creator. Nor did He change Gods purpose. It was according to His eternal purpose that Christ came, and to work that purpose out was Christs mission. What, then, does He do? He is the Reconciler. He reconciles not God to man, but man to God. God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto Himself. In Christ, as the reconciler or remover of this felt distance between man and his Maker, we discover a twofold adaptation of the most perfect kind.
I. In Him we see a special approach of God to Man. In Christ there is a change in the Divine manifestation. He in Christ comes to man in mans own nature. God is manifest in the flesh. In man He reveals the image of His invisible self. In this manifestation two great obstructions to mans union to God are removed.
1. The obstruction of inappreciableness. God in nature is so vast as to be inappreciable by man, but in the Man Christ He comes within our horizon, and within the compass of our faculties.
2. The obstruction of guilty dread. Was there an obstruction to this union on Gods part? If so, who shall describe its nature? Men, the world over, feel that they have sinned, and are liable to a terrible punishment. This sense of guilt hangs as a portentous cloud over the soul of the world. Men, by millions, often stagger with horror under its black shadow, and anxiously seek some shelter from the threatened storm. This guilty dread first drove man from his Maker. I heard Thy voice in the garden, and I was afraid. The soul, from the laws of its nature, flees from the object of its dread. Fear is the centrifugal force of the spirit; it drives it from its Maker. This dread of God is as universal as sin, and as deep as the heart of humanity. It accounts for all the horrid views that men have of their Maker, and for all their hostility to Him in heart and life. Now, how does God in Christ remove this? He comes to man in just such a form as is adapted to expel fear, and inspire hope and trust. In what form could He come but in the form of a man to effect this? Would a revelation of Himself in all His absolute glory do it? No! this, if it could be borne by mortals, would only raise the terror to a more overwhelming degree. Would a revelation of Himself through angelic natures do it? The Eternal, to disarm man of this terrible fear, comes to him in mans own nature. Are you afraid of a Teacher, who, free from all assumption of superiority, scholastic stiffness, and pedantic utterance, mingles with the crowd, and utters truth the most lofty to the imagination, the most reasonable to the intellect, the most real to the conscience, the most inspiring and ennobling to the heart? Transport yourselves in thought to the mountains of Capernaum, and the shores of Galilee, and listen to Him who speaks as never man spake. God is in that Teacher, and through Him He says, It is I, be not afraid. Are you afraid of a Philanthropist, the most tender in heart, the most earnest in affection, the most race wide in sympathy? Follow Jesus of Nazareth during the three years of His public life, as He goes about doing good. Count the diseased that He heals, the hungry that He feeds, and the disconsolate that He comforts.
II. In Him we see a special attraction of Man to God. This is another step. He not only comes to man, but He attracts man to Himself. He does this--
1. By awakening the highest gratitude. Gratitude attracts, draws the soul into loving sympathy with its benefactor. Kindness is a magnet that draws the object to its author. God in Christ displays such infinite mercy as is adapted to inspire the soul with the strongest gratitude. Where is there mercy like this? He loved us and gave Himself for us.
2. He does this by awakening the highest love. Love attracts, love draws us into the presence of its object and makes us one with it, feel as it feels, and move as it moves. God in Christ is moral beauty in its sublimest form. All conceivable virtues centre there, and radiate thence, in infinite perfection. Holiness, as it streams directly from the Absolute One, would be too strong for our vision, would dazzle and confound us, but in Christ it comes mildly and fascinatingly, reflected through the humanities of our nature.
3. He does this by awakening the highest hope. Hope draws the heart to its object, Thus we are drawn to Him. We feel that our fellowship is with the Father, and with His Son, Jesus Christ. (Homilist.)
The religion of man, and the religion of God
I. The religion of man. Wherewith shall I come before the Lord? etc.
1. This is simply the voice of mans religious instinct seeking after God. In Popes universal prayer, there is truth, as well as error. There are, says the late Dr. Vaughan, tendencies in man which make religion, in some form, a necessity of his nature; but it is no less certain that there are tendencies in him which ensure that the religion chosen by him will not be a spiritual one, etc.
2. Consciousness, history, the Bible, prove that this inward light has become darkness. Mans religious faculty has become impaired, and reveals its degeneracy in superstition and cruelty. God must be propitiated, but by thousands of rams, and ten thousands of rivers of oil, and by the sacrifice of their own offspring. Where there is no vision, etc.
3. The ignorance in which man has involved himself is rectified by Gods revealed will. He hath showed thee, O man, etc. Reason has failed to discover a resting place for the soul. The course of ages witnessed the trial, and in the most favourable circumstances.
II. Gods religion. He hath showed thee, O man. Notwithstanding their gorgeous economy of symbol and sacrifice, they were taught that the symbol could not save, that God desired truth in the inward parts. The religion of God is summed up under three heads--
1. Do justly. Love to God ensures love and justice to man.
2. Love mercy. This strikes at the selfishness of our nature.
3. Walk humbly with thy God. The soul of religion is here; reconciliation--communion--reverent, constant converse with God. (John Lewis.)
The ancient question
A question which has troubled mankind in every age. For the religious feeling is natural to man. All nations have had some idea of God, and have worshipped Him according to their notion of His nature and attributes. Consequently, strange answers have been given to this inquiry, which have led to cruelty and human sacrifices. Men have mistaken the character of God.
1. The question which the heathen tried to answer is still waiting for our individual answer. In the minds of all thinking and earnest persons the question will sometimes arise, Am I living as God intended me to live? Am I at peace with God? There are times when we are brought face to face with the living realities of life, and of death, and of eternity.
2. To this question many and different answers have been given. The old Jews thought the best way to approach God was by the sacrifices of the Levitical law. Will God be pleased with outward observances and external show? Can we gain Gods favour by bribing Him with flattery and gifts? Not Jews only, many Christians have had such fancies. What does Isaiah say to such religionists? God wants no gifts and offerings. Can Gods favour be obtained by suffering? Shall I lacerate my tenderest affection? Shall I give up everything that is pleasant? Hundreds have asked themselves this question. But they have utterly mistaken the character of God. They thought He was pleased with torture and self-sacrifice. But He is a God of love, our Father, and not a hard taskmaster.
3. To this question the prophet gives us the true answer. God would have us live justly, and mercifully, and humbly before our God. Our Fathers will is that we do our duty where He has placed us, to God, and to our fellows, and to ourselves; that we be just, with a justice that hates oppression, and will not tolerate wrong; that scorns petty vices and despicable meannesses; merciful, with a mercy that condescends to the helpless, the fallen, and the despised; and humble, with an honest reverence towards God, the Author and Giver of all good things. This is what God requires, goodness, and justice, and sincerity, and love. (John Vaughan, M. A.)
The awakened sinner
Here the purport, though not the express words, of a conversation between Balak and Balaam is introduced, in order strongly to describe the slate of a mind harassed with guilt, and clearly to point out the only way in which relief can be obtained.
I. Show what is implied in the anxious inquiries of the awakened sinner.
1. Such inquiries imply the existence of a sense of sin. Sin is the transgression of the Divine law--an infraction of the immutable rule of righteousness which God hath given to His creatures--a state and course of rebellion against His rightful authority; and an opposition to His character, and the interests of His holy dominion. Every child of Adam is the subject of moral failure, chargeable with moral delinquency, and exposed to all the evils of moral ruin. The great bulk of mankind are totally insensible to their real condition. Sooner or later the spell on them will be broken. The idea of God presents itself. The character of God is seen as infinitely pure and inflexibly just. The sinner finds he has broken His law in innumerable instances, in thought, word, and deed. There is often some particular transgression to which the sinner is addicted.
2. The questions before us imply a conviction of the indispensable necessity of expiation. The awakened sinner is convinced, not only that God has a right to demand satisfaction for the injury done to His moral character, in the view of intelligent beings, but that reparation of one kind or other must be made, else it is absolutely impossible for the offender to escape. Under the influence of such views, the sinner asks, Wherewith shall I come before the Lord, etc. His concern is, to get the obstacle removed which intervenes between him and the favour of the Almighty. Something, he conceives, must be done: some sacrifice must be presented; a suitable expiation must be made.
3. The words imply a willingness to go any length, and to be at any expense, if only expiation can thereby be made, and the desired pardon be obtained. It is to this natural principle of the carnal mind that we are to ascribe the numerous austerities and works of supererogation practised by the members of the Church of Rome.
4. All these anxious inquiries, with all the self-righteous efforts to which they give rise, discover an awful and lamentable ignorance of the only way of salvation. How can a creature that is bound by the laws of his moral constitution to yield a perfect, uninterrupted, and perpetual obedience to the reasonable demands of his Maker, throughout every period of his being, make compensation by any subsequent conduct for former omissions and transgressions?
II. the cheering import of the prophets reply. Revelation alone solves the difficulty. In the Bible, and in the Bible alone. Of this Divinely authenticated communication the substance is this: that the whole human race, having, by transgression and rebellion, forfeited the Divine favour, and become obnoxious to the everlasting infliction of the Divine wrath, and being utterly destitute of all aid from themselves and from all creatures, the Infinite Jehovah, whose laws they had broken, and whose authority they had rejected and contemned, Loved with amazing pity, sent His own equal Son into the world to suffer, the just for the unjust: that by the infliction of the punishment upon Him as the substitute of the guilty, a sufficient manifestation might be afforded of the Divine opposition to sin, while mercy is extended to every sinner that betakes himself by faith to the Lord Jesus Christ as his Saviour, his Righteousness, and his Strength. Whoever, of all the guilty sons or daughters of Adam, believes in the all-sufficiency of the atonement which the Son of God made with His infinitely precious blood upon the Cross, is freed from his obligation to punishment, and obtains a right to all the privileges and all the blessedness of the kingdom of heaven. The atonement is that good which we individually require. Nothing else can satisfy the mind, remove its fears, or inspire it with a good hope towards God.
III. A description is here given of evangelical holiness. There are two rocks on which men are ever disposed to make shipwreck of their souls: the one is self-righteousness; the other is, turning the grace of God into lasciviousness. Multitudes go down to the grave with part of the concluding words of the text as a lie in their right hand. Piqueing themselves on the probity of their character before men, the charity which they distribute to the poor, and their going regularly through the outward forms of religion, they imagine that they have Divine authority itself for believing that all will be well with them at last. But the words admit of no such construction. They do not, in fact, apply at all to unconverted and unbelieving sinners; but to such only as have found the good which the maintain good works. (E. Henderson.)
The good way of coming before the Lord
The question of an awakened soul. Wherewith shall I come before the Lord? An unawakened man never puts that question. He does not like to think of God, or the claims of God.
I. The piercing question of every awakened soul.
1. An awakened soul feels that his chief happiness is in coming before God. This was unfallen Adams happiness. This is the joy of holy angels. This is the true happiness of a believer.
2. An awakened soul feels difficulties in the way. Two great difficulties. The nature of the sinner. When God really awakens a soul, He shows him the vileness and hatefulness of himself. He directs the eye within. The nature of God. The High God. When God really awakens a soul, He generally reveals to him something of His own holiness and majesty. See the cases of Isaiah and Job. The anxiety of the awakened soul leads to the question, Wherewith? It is the question of one who has been made to feel that one thing is needful. Anything he has he would give up to get peace with God.
II. The answer of peace to the awakened soul. He hath showed thee, O man, what is good. Nothing that man can bring with him will justify him before God. There is nothing a man would not do--nothing he would not suffer--if he might only cover himself before God. Tears, prayers, duties, reformations, devotions--the heart will do anything to be righteous before God. But all this righteousness is filthy rags. For--
1. The heart remains an awful depth of corruption.
2. Supposing the righteousness were perfect, it cannot cover the past. Old sins, and the sins of youth still remain uncovered. Christ is the good way. The good way to the Father--
(1) Because He is so suitable.
(2) Because He is so free.
(3) Because He is so God-glorifying.
All other ways of salvation are man-glorifying; but this way is God-glorifying.
III. Gods requirement of the justified.
1. God requires His redeemed ones to be holy.
(1) He requires you to do justly; to be just in your dealings between man and man.
(2) To love mercy. This is the brightest feature in the character of Christ. If you are in Christ, drink deep of His Spirit.
(3) To walk humbly with your God.
2. Remember that this is Gods end in justifying you. He loved the Church, and gave Himself for it, that He might sanctify and cleanse it. If you are not made holy, Christ died for you in vain.
3. Whatever He requires, He gives grace to perform. Christ is not only good as our way to the Father, but He is our fountain of living waters. Be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus. Look as much to Him for sanctification as for justification. (R. M. MCheyne.)
On the atonement
The first rites of all religions but one are rites of propitiation. Men everywhere, feeling themselves sinners, justly conceive it necessary that, in order to obey God acceptably, they must first be reconciled to Him, and obtain indemnity for past offences. Among the pro fessors of idolatry, ancient and modern, the principle of self-atonement has taken up its residence. Even we may think that our sufferings ought to be accepted as a partial atonement for our offences. The mistake is not mans conviction of the necessity of an atonement, but the way in which that atonement is sought. The mistake is mans making his conviction a foundation for his pride to erect its fancied claims on the Divine justice, and his self-righteousness to flatter itself with the hopes of meritorious exertion. God has provided the necessary burnt-offering. He has provided it in a way at once the most suitable to His own glory, the most congenial to the harmony of the Divine attributes, and adapted, with unspeakable wisdom and felicity, to the lost and hopeless state of His guilty creatures. Being justified by His grace, through the atonement which He has accepted, we have a ground of confidence before God. And being reconciled to God through the death of His Son, we should walk acceptably before Him, in newness of life. (C. R. Maturin.)
How to come before God
Assuming the fall of our first parents, human reason brings us to the conclusion that we are all naturally the worthy objects of Gods wrath and punishment. Scripture seems to teach this, and our experience confirms it. How then can we be delivered out of this state? Wherewith shall we come before the Lord?
1. Shall we come with repentance and amendment of life? No. These may be indispensable conditions of salvation, they can, in no sense, be its meritorious and procuring cause.
2. Shall we come before Him with burnt offerings? etc. There is no virtue in animal sacrifices to wash out the guilty stain of our offences.
3. Shall we give our firstborn for our transgression? Would human sacrifices do, if animal sacrifices would not? No. They would be neither an adequate nor perfect sacrifice, such as God could accept.
4. Is there any created being that would suffice to redeem us? There is no creature that could meet the two required conditions, and be, at the same time, a perfect and an adequate sacrifice.
5. The apostle answers the question in Eph_2:13-18. Christ was the victim everyway adapted to the necessities of the case. He was a perfect sacrifice, and He was a sufficient sacrifice. (Ch. G. Lawson, M. A.)
The principles of the Reformation and of Protestantism
I propose to consider that peculiar element of Christianity which, though not exclusively held by the Churches of the Reformation, yet it was the glory of the Reformation to have brought fully out. The warning of the prophet Micah consists of three parts, which contain within themselves the doctrine and practice of all true Protestant religion.
I. the authority to which all religious questions must be referred. The question of authority is one by which men in these days are often perplexed. It is said that our business is not to ask what is taught, but only to know who it is that teaches us. This is not the way in which the Bible speaks of authority. We are to heed what it is that is said, and what it is that commends itself to our own consciences. The person, the office, no doubt is something; but the message, and the substance of the message is much more. The real authority which guides and ought to guide us, is that which needs no external support or credentials. Everywhere the true voices of God make themselves heard and felt, if not immediately, yet at last, not by external weight, but by their own intrinsic force. The real teachers and oracles of mankind have been those who, in every age, and in every station, and in every race of men, have been raised up by God. The Bible is the great and supreme authority, because the Bible contains the greatest of all truths in the most enduring, persuasive, and exalted form. We do not believe the Bible to be true because it is inspired; but we believe the Bible to be inspired because and in proportion as it is true. There is, therefore, no need to go to any external official source for guidance.
II. The great question which has to be settled. Wherewith shall I come before the Lord? That question is the root at once of all religion, and of all superstition. Man feels that there is a Being above him, whom he longs to propitiate and to approach. Between weak, frail, sinful man, and the great, supreme, holy God what is there in common? Many ways have been devised. In the early ages of the world it was by the offering of gifts--the gifts of the earth, the gifts of slain animals, the gift even of human life. In Christian times other modes have been adopted, also of the most various kinds. Even the wildest and the worst of them is instructive as expressive of the yearning of the human heart, even in its lowest condition, to bridge over the gulf, to express its reverence for the Most High, to be at peace with its Maker. The modes of approaching God might be wrong, but the question how we are to approach, and how we are to please the great Father of all human spirits, is the question which cannot be put aside.
III. The Divine answer to that question. This is the answer to the question how God is to be approached. There is no other answer--by justice, by mercy, by humility. Though this answer came from a heathen prophet, it was yet the Word of God, and commends itself at once to every enlightened heart and conscience. It needs no defence; it needs no explanation. It is the foundation of all true religion, because it rests on the only true idea of the character of God. This is true theology; this is a true account of what God is, and of what God requires. False religion imagines that God can be pleased by other means than by a good, merciful, and humble life. True religion teaches that whatever else may be pleasing to God, there is and there can be nothing so pleasing to Him as doing justly, loving mercy, and walking humbly. There are many other great truths in the Bible besides this; but this is the one master truth which runs through from first to last, controls and covers all the rest. And this is the teaching of the New Testament. Through that ideal of human justice, mercy, and reverence, was the Divine nature manifested in Jesus of Nazareth. And it is the end and meaning of the death of Christ. Not by the blood of bulls and goats, but by the eternal spirit of holiness and truth, He offered Himself. It is the end and meaning also of His resurrection. He rose again that we might rise above the follies and sins of the world, that we might die unto sin and live unto righteousness. (Dean Stanley.)
The true sacrifice for sin
Does any one ask, Wherewith shall I come before the Lord? Then we have a cheering answer for him. No such way of acceptance as is suggested in this passage. It is a mistake to imagine that by an increased attention to outward services, and by a devotion to specified duties, he can compensate for the violations or omissions of days gone by. God requireth another sort of service than that of mere outward ceremony. He is to be worshipped in spirit and in truth: He requireth a new heart and a right spirit. Nor can the most painful efforts or arduous instances of self-punishment or self-denial avail. We are too apt to have a low estimate of the sinfulness of sin. It requires a deep sense of the holiness and majesty of God to estimate sin in some degree aright. When we do, we may comprehend more adequately the nature of that precious and costly atone ment of Gods own providing, set forth in Scripture as a sufficient sacrifice and oblation, and satisfaction for the sins of the whole world. We are not competent, in the weakness of our present powers, to comprehend these matters fully. Should the newly awakened sinner ask what sacrifice he shall offer; what self-infliction shall he undergo? we say, No such things are required of thee. Look to the Cross of Christ as the heaven sent remedy for the disease of the soul, and as the Divinely appointed way of reconciliation with God. (J. B. Smith, D. D.)
Outward and inward religion
Does the prophet, in these words, really condemn all outward rites and sacrifices as such? All that the prophet seems to inveigh against was enjoined by the express commands of Almighty God. Neither Micah, nor Isaiah, nor any other prophet, had authority to dispense with the requirements of the Mosaic law. And our blessed Lord came not to destroy the law. The office of the prophets was clearly to prepare the way for a more spiritual religion than the law had given to Israel. Their mission was to perfect, or rather to prepare the way for perfection. And so they disparaged legal ordinances, not as useless or wrong, but because they were imperfect. The law was given for a particular use, to be a schoolmaster to bring men to Christ. But if men made it an end, instead of the way to an end, no wonder that the prophets lifted up their voices in warning against it. You are not necessarily arguing for the total disuse of a thing, because you maintain its proper use against its abuse. Christianity grafted a higher state of things upon what was already in existence. What the prophets say is, in effect, this,--Your sacrifices are nothing in themselves, but connected with the truth they typify and shadow forth, they have a value and dignity. But while you practise injustice, cruelty, and pride, they are utterly valueless in the sight of God. You cannot please God with these alone, unless you are pleasing Him by the discharge of your social and moral duties. The truth for us is, that no attention to the externals of religion can satisfy the demands of our Creator and Redeemer if it be not accompanied with a holy and virtuous life. (J. C. Chambers, M. A.)
God requires what He does
Taking the text as a revelation of the character of the Speaker Himself, we may say that God does in His own economy and sphere what He asks us to do in ours. What does this revelation do?
1. It does away with all ostentatious piety. Many of us would be glad to buy ourselves off from judgment. We may not put the question into words; it is not, therefore, less a question of the soul. What can I buy my liberty for? No amount of oil shall stand between me and release; no number of calves and rams shall for a moment deter me from paying the fine, if so be I can have the arrow drawn out of my heart, the poison withdrawn from my blood. But the Lord will not have all this. He does not want your gaiety but your simplicity; He does not want you to drive up to His door in chariot of gold and with steeds of fire, that he may receive your patronage; He sends word down to you by the first and humblest servant He lights upon,--Go and say all I want is that thou shalt do justly, love mercy, and walk humbly with thy God. This will take all the paint off our religion; this will deplete our decoration; this will leave us in ruins as to external appearance; but there are ruins that are true palaces. It will do away with all our ostentation of another kind than that which is merely physical, ornamental, or decorative; it will do away with all our intellectual contributions and displays of patronage in reference to the Cross. The Cross does not want your intellectual homage.
2. This revelation vindicates God from the charge of delighting in animal sacrifices. Does He love to see the smoking hecatomb? No; when He has required blood of the merely animal kind, it has always been symbolically, typically, or prefiguratively; it was a necessary part of the alphabet of spiritual lessons. He must begin His lessons where the scholar can begin. Everything the Lord did require of a physical and external kind was only in a temporary sense, the whole thought of God leading up to spirituality. God is a Spirit: and they that worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth.
3. This revelation destroys the notion of piety by proxy. My firstborn for my transgressions. We are always willing to make away with other people; we are exceedingly liberal with the lives of others. We philosophise and theorise with admirable serenity, as if we had abundance of leisure in which to contemplate the tragedy of mankind, and we say, If a thousand perish, and ten thousand be saved, the gain is on the side of salvation. No! That is false; that is a misuse of the principle of majorities. There ought to be no man lost. And no man will be lost but the son of perdition. If after the Lord has dealt with a man by His providence and by His Spirit, and by all the mystery of the Cross, there is found in that man nothing but devil, he must go to his own place, and to his own company. But the Lord will do the handling upon a scale we cannot comprehend, and if the Lord gives up any human soul we may well say sadly, Amen. (Joseph Parker, D. D.)
The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Alexander MacLaren 1905 · Public Domain On v8
Micah
GOD’S REQUIREMENTS AND GOD’S GIFT
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Mic 6:8.
This is the Prophet’s answer to a question which he puts into the mouth of his hearers. They had the superstitious estimate of the worth of sacrifice, which conceives that the external offering is pleasing to God, and can satisfy for sin. Micah, like his great contemporary Isaiah, and the most of the prophets, wages war against that misconception of sacrifice, but does not thereby protest against its use. To suppose that he does so is to misunderstand his whole argument. Another misuse of the words of my text is by no means uncommon to-day. One has heard people say, ‘We are plain men; we do not understand your theological subtleties; we do not quite see what you mean by “Repentance toward God, and faith in Jesus Christ.” “To do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with my God,” that is my religion, and I leave all the rest to you.’ That is our religion too, but notice that word ‘require.’ It is a harsh word, and if it is the last word to be said about God’s relation to men, then a great shadow has fallen upon life.
But there is another word which Micah but dimly caught uttered amidst the thunders of Sinai, and which you and I have heard far more clearly. The Prophet read off rightly God’s requirements, but he had not anything to say about God’s gifts. So his word is a half-truth, and the more clearly it is seen, and the more earnestly a man tries to live up to the standard of the requirements laid down here, the more will he feel that there is something else needed, and the more will he see that the great central peculiarity and glory of Christianity is not that it reiterates or alters God’s requirements, but that it brings into view God’s gifts. ‘To do justly, to love mercy, to walk humbly with our God,’ is possible only through repentance towards God, and faith in our Lord Jesus Christ. And if you suppose that these words of my text disclose the whole truth about God’s relation to men, and men’s to God, you have failed to apprehend the flaming centre of the Light that shines from heaven.
I. So, then, the first thing that I wish to suggest is God’s requirements.
Now, I do not need to say more than just a word or two about the summing-up in my text of the plain, elementary duties of morality and religion. It covers substantially the same ground, in a condensed form, as does the Decalogue, only that Moses began with the deepest thing and worked outwards, as it were; laying the foundation in a true relation to God, which is the most important, and from which will follow the true relation to men. Micah begins at the other end, and starting with the lesser, the more external, the purely human, works his way inwards to that which is the centre and the source of all.
‘To do justly,’ that is elementary morality in two words. Whatever a man has a right to claim from you, give him; that is the sum of duty. And yet not altogether so, for we all know the difference between a righteous man and a good man, and how, if there is only rigidly righteous action, there is something wanting to the very righteousness of the action and to the completeness of the character. ‘To do’ is not enough; we must get to the heart, and so ‘love mercy.’ Justice is not all. If each man gets his deserts, as Shakespeare says, ‘who of us shall scape whipping?’ There must be the mercy as well as the justice. In a very deep sense no man renders to his fellows all that his fellows have a right to expect of him, who does not render to them mercy. And so in a very deep sense, mercy is part of justice, and you have not given any poor creature all that that poor creature has a right to look for from you, unless you have given him all the gracious and gentle charities of heart and hand. Justice and mercy do, in the deepest view, run into one.
Then Micah goes deeper. ‘And to walk humbly with thy God.’ Some people would say that this summary of the divine requirements is defective, because there is nothing in it about a man’s duty to himself, which is as much a duty as his duty to his fellows, or his duty to God. But there is a good deal of my duty to myself crowded into that one word, ‘humbly.’ For I suppose we might almost say that the basis of all our obligations to our own selves lies in this, that we shall take the right view-that is, the lowly view-of ourselves. But I pass that.
‘To walk humbly with thy God.’ ‘Can two walk together unless they be agreed?’ For walking with God there must be communion, based in love, and resulting in imitation. And that communion must be constant, and run through all the life, like a golden thread through some web. So, then, here is the minimum of the divine requirements, to give everybody what he has a right to, including the mercy to which he has a right, to have a lowly estimate of myself, and to live continually grasping the hand of God, and conscious of His overshadowing wing at all moments, and of conformity to His will at every step of the road. That is the minimum; and the people who so glibly say, ‘That is my religion,’ have little consciousness of how far-reaching and how deep-down-going the requirements of this text are. The requirements result from the very nature of God, and our relation to Him, and they are endorsed by our own consciences, for we all know that these, and nothing less than these are the duties that we owe to God. So much for God’s requirements.
II. Our failure.
There is not one of us that has come up to the standard. Man after man may be conceived of as bringing in his hands the actions of his life, and laying them in the awful scales which God’s hand holds. In the one are God’s requirements, in the other my life; and in every case down goes the weight, and ‘weighed in the balances we are altogether lighter than vanity.’ We stand before the great Master in the school, and one by one we take up our copybooks; and there is not one of them that is not black with blots and erasures and swarming with errors. The great cliff stands in front of us with the victor’s prize on its topmost ledge, and man after man tries to climb, and falls bruised and broken at the base. ‘There is none righteous, no, not one.’ Micah’s requirements come to every man that will honestly take stock of his life and his character as the statement of an unreached and unreachable ideal to which he never has climbed nor ever can climb.
Oh, brethren! if these words are all the words that are to be said about God and me, then I know not what lies before the enlightened conscience except shuddering despair, and a paralysing consciousness of inevitable failure. I beseech you, take these words, and go apart with them, and test your daily life by them. God requires me to do justly. Does there not rise before my memory many an act in which, in regard to persons and in regard to circumstances, I have fallen beneath that requirement? He requires me ‘to love mercy.’ He requires me ‘to walk humbly,’ and I have often been inflated and self-conceited and presumptuous. He requires me to walk with Himself, and I have shaken away His hand from me, and passed whole days without ever thinking of Him, and ‘the God in whose hands’ my ‘breath is, and whose are all’ my ‘ways,’ I have ‘not glorified.’ I cannot hammer this truth into your consciences. You have to do it for yourselves. But I beseech you, recognise the fact that you are implicated in the universal failure, and that God’s requirement is God’s condemnation of each of us.
If, then, that is true, that all have come short of the requirement, then there should follow a universal sense of guilt, for there is the universal fact of guilt, whether there be the sense of it or not. There must follow, too, consequences resulting from the failure of each of us to comply with these divine requirements, consequences very alarming, very fatal; and there must follow a darkening of the thought of God. ‘I knew thee that thou wert an austere man, reaping where thou didst not sow, and gathering where thou didst not straw.’ That is the God of all the people who take my text as the last word of their religion-God ‘requires of me. The blessed sun in the heavens becomes a lurid ball of fire when it is seen through the mist of such a conception of the divine character, and its relation to men. There is nothing that so drapes the sky in darkness, and hides out the great light of God, as the thought of His requirements as the last thought we cherish concerning Him.
There follows, too, upon this conception, and the failure that results to fulfil the requirements, a hopelessness as to ever accomplishing that which is demanded of us. Who amongst us is there that, looking back upon his past in so far as it has been shaped by his own effort and his own unaided strength, can look forward to a future with any hope that it will mend the past? Brethren! experience teaches us that we have not fulfilled, and cannot fulfil, what remains our plain duty, notwithstanding our inability to discharge it-viz., ‘To do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with our God.’ To think of God’s requirements, and of my own failure, is the sure way to paralyse all activity; just as that man in the parable who said, ‘Thou art an austere man,’ went away and hid his talent in the earth. To think of God’s requirements and my own failures, if heaven has nothing more to say to me than this stern ‘Thou shalt,’ is the short way to despair. And that is why most of us prefer to be immersed in the trivialities of daily life rather than to think of God, and of what He asks from us. For the only way by which some of us can keep our equanimity and our cheerfulness is by ignoring Him and forgetting what He demands, and never taking stock of our own lives.
III. Lastly, my text leads us to think of God’s gift.
I said it is a half-truth, for it only tells us of what He desires us to be, and does not tell us of how we may be it. It is meant, like the law of which it is a condensation, to be the pedagogue, to lead the child to Jesus Christ, the true Master, and the true Gift of God.
God ‘requires.’ Yes, and He requires, in order that we should say to Him, ‘Lord, Thou hast a right to ask this, and it is my blessedness to give it, but I cannot. Do Thou give me what Thou dost require, and then I can.’
The gift of God is Jesus Christ, and that gift meets all our failures. I have spoken of the sense of guilt that rises from the consciousness of failure to keep the requirements of the divine law; and the gift of God deals with that. It comes to us as we lie wounded, bruised, conscious of failure, alarmed for results, sensible of guilt, and dreading the penalties, and it says to us, ‘Thine iniquity is taken away, and thy sin purged.’ ‘God requires of thee what thou hast not done. Trust yourselves to Me, and all iniquity is passed from your souls.’
I spoke of the hopelessness of future performance, which results from experience of past failures; and the gift of God deals with that. You cannot meet the requirements. Christ will put His Spirit into your spirits, if you will trust yourselves to Him, and then you will meet them, for the things which are impossible with men are possible with God. So, if led by Micah, we pass from God’s requirements to His gifts, look at the change in the aspect which God bears to us. He is no longer standing strict to mark, and stern to judge and condemn: but bending down graciously to help. His last word to us is not ‘Thou shalt do’ but ‘I will give.’ His utterance in the Gospel is not ‘do,’ but it is ‘take’; and the vision of God, which shines out upon us from the life and from the Cross of Jesus Christ, is not that of a great Taskmaster, but that of Him who helps all our weakness, and makes it strength. A God who ‘requires’ paralyses men, shuts men out from hope and joy and fellowship; a God who gives draws men to His heart, and makes them diligent in fulfilling all His blessed requirements.
Think of the difference which the conception of God as giving makes to the spirit in which we work. No longer, like the Israelites in Egypt, do we try to make bricks without straw, and break our hearts over our failures, or desperately abandon the attempt, and live in neglect of God and His will; but joyfully, with the clear confidence that ‘our labour is not in vain in the Lord,’ we seek to keep the commandments which we have learned to be the expressions of His love. One of the Fathers puts all in one lovely sentence: ‘Give what Thou commandest, and command what Thou wilt.’
Think, too, of the difference which this conception of the giving rather than of the requiring God brings into what we have to do. We have not to begin with effort, we have to begin with faith. The fountain must be filled from the spring before it can send up its crystal pillar flashing in the sunlight; and we must receive by our trust the power to will and to do. First fill the lamp with oil, and let the Master light it, and then let its blaze beam forth. First, we have to go to the giving God, with thanks ‘unto Him for His unspeakable gift’; and then we have to say to Him, ‘Thou hast given me Thy Son. What dost Thou desire that I shall give to Thee?’ We have first to accept the gift, and then, moved by the mercy of God, to ask, ‘Lord I what wilt Thou have me to do?’
Alexander MacLaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture (1904–1910) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
unfoldingWord translationNotes 2017 · CC BY-SA 4.0 On v6 What should I bring to Yahweh ... God? Should…
What should I bring to Yahweh ... God? Should I come ... old? Will Yahweh be pleased ... oil? Should I give ... sin?
Micah speaks as if he were a person who truly wanted to know what God expects him to do. Possible meanings are 1) he asks questions and then in verse 8 answers the questions he has asked or 2) he is using questions to teach the people. AT: "I know that I do no need to bring to Yahweh ... God, or come ... old, and that Yahweh will not be pleased ... oil or if I give ... sin." (See: Rhetorical Question)
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thousands of rams ... ten thousand rivers of oil
"rams in groups of 1,000 ... 10,000 rivers of oil" (See: Rhetorical Question and Numbers)
He has told you
"Yahweh has told you"
good, and what Yahweh requires from you: Act ... God
Many versions read, "good. And what does Yahweh require from you? He wants you to act ... God." or "good. And what does Yahweh require from you but to act ... God?"
love kindness
The abstract noun "kindness" can be translated using the adjective "kind." AT: "love being kind to people" (See: Abstract Nouns)
translationWords
Yahweh
bow
God
burnt offering
cow
ewe
oil
firstborn
transgress
fruit
sin
good
just
walk
humble
unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.
Tyndale Open Study Notes 2022 · CC BY-SA 4.0 On vv6, 8 6:6-7 Israel’s case was hopeless, but they queried the…
6:6-7 Israel’s case was hopeless, but they queried the Lord as to how they could placate or please him. The proffered items are listed in a crescendo of significance, from calves to rams and olive oil to firstborn children. None of this was sufficient or acceptable to God, who judges the heart (1 Sam 15:22; 16:7; Jer 17:9).
Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.