Commentary on Harmony of the Law Volume 2 Complete John Calvin (continued)
HARMONY OF THE LAW · VOLUME 2
31. Whether he have gored a son, or have gored a daughter, according to this judgment shall it be done unto him.
31. Sive filium cornu petierit, sive filiam, secundum judicium hoc fiet ei.
32. If the ox shall push a manservant, or maid-servant; he shall give unto their master thirty shekels of silver, and the ox shall he stoned.
32. Si servum bos cornu petierit, vel ancillam, argenti triginta siclos dabit domino ejus, et bos the lapidabitur.
12. He that smiteth a man, so that he die. This passage, as I have said, more clearly explains the details, and first makes a distinction between voluntary and accidental homicide; for, if a stone or an axe (Deuteronomy 19:5.) may have slipped from a man unintentionally, and struck anybody, He would not have it accounted a capital crime. And for this purpose the cities of refuge were given, of which brief mention is here made, and whose rights will be presently more fully spoken of, and where also the mode of distinguishing between design and ignorance will be laid down. But it must be remarked, that Moses declares that accidental homicide, as it is commonly called, does not happen by chance or accident, but according to the will of God, as if He himself led out the person, who is killed, to death. By whatever kind of death, therefore, men are taken away, it is certain that we live or die only at His pleasure; and surely, if not even a sparrow can fall to the ground except by His will, (Matthew 10:29,) it would be very absurd that men created in His image should be abandoned to the blind impulses of fortune. Wherefore it must be concluded, as Scripture elsewhere teaches, that the term of each man's life is appointed, 29 with which another passage corresponds, "Thou turnest man to destruction, and savest, Return, ye children of men." (Psalm 90:3.)
It is true, indeed, that whatever has no apparent cause or necessity seems to us to be fortuitous; and thus, whatever, according to nature, might happen otherwise we call accidents, (contingentia;) yet in the meantime it must be remembered, that what might else incline either way is governed by God's secret counsel, so that nothing is done without His arrangement and decree. In this way we do not suppose a fate 30 such as the Stoics
No reference is here given, but it is probably to Job 14:5, — "Thou hast appointed his bounds that he cannot pass."
"Une necessite fatale." — Fr.