Psalms 40:6

Sacrifice and offering thou didst not desire,.... These were desired, willed, and appointed by God, and that very early, even from the times of our first parents; and, when performed aright, were

Sacrifice and offering thou didst not desire; mine ears hast thou opened: burnt offering and sin offering hast thou not required. The second half of the first part, Psalms 40:6-10.

These words may in an improper sense belong to the person and time of David; when God might be said not to desire or require legal sacrifices comparatively, as negative expressions are frequently understood, as , and in this very case of sacrifices, as ,23 Ho 6:6. So the sense is, Thou didst desire obedience more or rather than sacrifices, as was said, . But in a proper and literal and full sense they belong only to the person and times of the Messias, in whose name David uttereth these words. And so the sense of the place is, God did not desire or require them for the satisfaction of his own justice, and the expiation of men’ s sins, which could not possibly be done by the blood of bulls or goats, as is said, ; but only by the blood of Christ, which was typified by them, and which Christ came into the world to shed, in pursuance of his Father’ s will, as it here follows, ,8. So here is a prediction concerning the cessation and abolition of the legal sacrifices, and the substitution of a better instead of them. Mine ears hast thou opened, Heb. bored. The sense is either, 1. Whereas many men have no ears to hear, as is implied, ,11,17, or stop their ears, as , thou hast given me open ears to hear and obey thy precepts, as this phrase is used, , although indeed there is another verb in that text, which much alters the case. Or, 2. I have wholly devoted myself to thy perpetual service, and thou hast accepted of me as such, and signified so much by the boring of mine ears, according to the law and custom in that case, ,6 Deuteronomy 15:17. And whereas only one ear was then bored, and here it is ears, this may be either an ensilage of the plural number for the singular, whereof divers instances have been given; or else it may be so expressed emphatically, to intimate that Christ was more strictly obliged to a more universal obedience, not only active, to which the legal servants were bound, but passive also, to be obedient even unto the death, to which they were not obliged. The seventy Jewish interpreters, whom the apostle follows, , translate these words, a body hast thou prepared me; wherein though the words differ, the sense is the same; for the ears suppose a body to whom they belong, and the preparing of a body implies the preparing Or disposing of the ears, and the obligation of the person for whom a body was prepared to serve him who prepared it; which the boring of the ear signifies.

Psalms 40:6 Sacrifice and offering thou didst not desire; mine ears hast thou opened: burnt offering and sin offering hast thou not required.Ver. 6. Sacrifice and offering thou didst not desire] Comparatively to the obedience of faith, 1 Samuel 15:22, without which, when hypocrites thought to bribe God by cold ceremonies, they were rejected. Christ is the end of the law to all that believe; that Lamb of God, slain from the beginning of the world, is the only expiatory sacrifice, and the foundation of that fore-mentioned blessedness, Psalms 40:4. Now, since Christ suffered, the Levitical sacrifices being abolished, we have none to offer but such as are gratulatory, to show our thankfulness for such a Redeemer, whose perfect obedience, with the fruit of it, is here and in the following verses both described, and set forth for an absolute pattern to us of performing our duty toward God, for this inexplicable mercy. Confer Hebrews 10:5-6, &c. Here we have in Christ for our instruction, and in David also (his type) for our example, 1. A firm purpose of obedience, in a bored ear add a yielding heart. 2. A ready performance thereof, "Lo, I come." 3. A carefull observance of the word written, "In the volume of thy book it is written of me," Psalms 40:7 4. A hearty delight in that observance, Psalms 40:8 5. A public profession and communication of God’ s goodness to others, Psalms 40:9-10 (D. Ames). Now, we should labour to express Christ to the world, to walk as he walked, 1 John 2:6; our lives should be in some sense parallel with his life, as the transcript with the original. He left us a copy to write by, saith St Peter, 1 Peter 2:21 Mine ears hast thou opened] Heb. digged, bored; a hearing ear hast thou bestowed upon me, which is a singular favour; for life entereth by the ear, Isaiah 55:3, as did death at first, Genesis 3:19 Oh, pray that God would make the bore wide enough; that the inward ears being drawn up to the outward, one sound may pierce both at once.

(6) Mine ears hast thou opened.—Literally, Ears hast thou dug for me, which can hardly mean anything but “Thou hast given me the sense of hearing.” The words are an echo of 1 Samuel 15:22. The attentive ear and obedient heart, not formal rites, constitute true worship. Comp. the words so frequent on the lips of Christ, “He that hath ears to hear let him hear.” The fact that the plural ears is used instead of the singular, sets aside the idea of a revelation, which is expressed in Isaiah 48:8 by “open the ear” and 1 Samuel 9:15 “uncover the ear.” Not that the idea is altogether excluded, since the outward ears maybe typical of the inward. The same fact excludes allusion to the symbolic act by which a slave was devoted to perpetual servitude (Exodus 21:6), because then also only one ear was bored. For the well-known variation in the LXX. see New Testament Commentary, Hebrews 10:5. The latest commentator, Grätz, is of opinion that the text is corrupt, and emends (comp. Psalms 51:16) to, “Shouldest thou desire sacrifice and offering I would select the fattest,” a most desirable result if his arguments, which are too minute for insertion, were accepted.

Verse 6. Sacrifice and offering] The apostle, Hebrews 10:5, c., quoting this and the two following verses, says, When he (the Messiah) cometh into the world-was about to be incarnated, He saith-to God the Father, Sacrifice and offering thou wouldst not-it was never thy will and design that the sacrifices under thy own law should be considered as making atonement for sin they were only designed to point out my incarnation and consequent sacrificial death: and therefore a body hast thou prepared me, by a miraculous conception in the womb of a virgin; according to thy word, The seed of the woman shall bruise the head of the serpent. A body hast thou prepared me. - The quotation of this and the two following verses by the apostle, Hebrews 10:5, c., is taken from the Septuagint, with scarcely any variety of reading: but, although the general meaning is the same, they are widely different in verbal expression in the Hebrew. David's words are אזנים כרית לי oznayim caritha lli, which we translate, My ears hast thou opened but they might be more properly rendered, My ears hast thou bored; that is, Thou hast made me thy servant for ever, to dwell in thine own house: for the allusion is evidently to the custom mentioned Exodus 21:2, c.: "If thou buy a Hebrew servant, six years he shall serve, and in the seventh he shall go out free: but if the servant shall positively say, I love my master, c., I will not go out free then his master shall bring him to the doorpost, and shall bore his ear through with an awl, and he shall serve him for ever." But how is it possible that the Septuagint and the apostle should take a meaning so totally different from the sense of the Hebrew? Dr. Kennicott has a very ingenious conjecture here: he supposes that the Septuagint and apostle express the meaning of the words as they stood in the copy from which the Greek translation was made and that the present Hebrew text is corrupted in the word אזנים oznayim, ears, which has been written through carelessness for אז גוה az gevah, THEN, a BODY The first syllable, אז az, THEN, is the same in both; and the latter, נים, which, joined to אז makes אזנים oznayim, might have been easily mistaken for גוה gevah, BODY; נ nun being very like ג gimel; י yod like ו vau; and ה he like final ם mem; especially if the line on which the letters were written in the MS. happened to be blacker than ordinary, which has often been a cause of mistake, it might then have been easily taken for the under-stroke of the mem, and thus give rise to a corrupt reading; add to this, the root כרה carah signifies as well to prepare, as to open, bore, c.

6–8. True service consists not in material sacrifices but in obedience to the will of God. The stanza is an answer to the implied question, How should man express his gratitude? It affirms the common prophetic doctrine that sacrifice was in itself of no value apart from the dispositions of heart which it was intended to represent. The new commandment of the Exodus was not sacrifice but obedience (Exodus 15:26). See Psalms 50:7 ff; Psalms 51:16 ff.; 1 Samuel 15:22; Hosea 6:6; Micah 6:8; Jeremiah 7:21 ff.

Sacrifice and offering - The first of the words used here - זבח zebach - means properly a bloody-offering; the other - מנחה minchāh - an offering without blood, as a thank-offering. See the notes at Isaiah 1:11.

6. According to Hebrews 10:5, Psalms 40:6-10 are the words of Christ, or of David speaking in the person of Christ.