Sacrifice and oblation thou didst not desire ears hast thou prepared me. Burnt-offering and sin-offering hast thou not demanded;
The New Testament reads this psalm as the speech of Christ Himself, spoken as He came into the world. So the verse raises two questions. Why does God turn away from offerings He Himself commanded? And what does it mean that ears were dug for someone?
Commentators read verse 6 as the voice of the Son, not of David. One writer places the scene before the incarnation:
We are admitted into that solemn scene where the eternal Son presents Himself to take the position of the True Servant in Psalm 40, and to carry out the counsels of God. That scene took place before He showed the Father's name in this world in His human body... God had no desire for the sacrifices and offerings of the law, which only called sin to mind. And the eternal Son presents Himself — "Behold, I have come."
The Hebrew word behind "opened" means "dug." One writer presses the image hard:
Some Bibles print a cross-reference here to Exodus 21:6. Score that out. That reference has led many astray. Exodus 21 speaks of His death; Psalm 40 of His birth. What do you understand by the "digging" of the ears? It is perfectly simple. Suppose I go out and dig a pit — there is no pit there until I dig it. So He had no ears until they were "dug" — He had never been a listener before! He had created, commanded, governed and made laws, but had not listened.
Here commentators differ. Some link the phrase to the Hebrew slave whose ear was pierced at the doorpost:
The ear is always used as a sign of receiving commandments, and of the principle of obligation to obey... They bored the ear, fastening it to the door with an awl. This showed that the Israelite belonged to the house as a slave, to obey for ever. Now in taking a body, the Lord took the form of a servant (Philippians 2). Ears were dug for Him. That is to say, He put Himself in a position where He had to obey all His Master's will, whatever it might be.
Others keep the two apart:
At first it may look like the bored ear of the Hebrew servant, but it seems not to be that. The two come so near that there is little need to tell them apart. The bored ear was the sign of unending service, freely taken up. The ears dug are the sign of capacity and readiness to receive the word of another.
One writer treats the change as an unfolding, not a mistake:
The passage in Hebrews 10:5 reads, "Sacrifices and offerings you have not desired, but a body have you prepared for me." The quotation is from the 40th psalm, where instead of "a body have you prepared for me" we have "my ears you have opened," or "dug." This shows how freely the Spirit of God enlarges on the thought He first gave by His own inspiration. In the psalm, as fits its prophetic character, we have the opening or forming of the ears. This suggests the obedience of our Lord, since the ear is what receives the instruction to be obeyed. But in the New Testament passage His holy person stands fully revealed. There the Spirit teaches us that His body was one specially prepared for this obedience.
The four terms in the verse are not random. They match the offerings of Leviticus:
The Psalm mentions "sacrifices and offerings... burnt offerings and sin offerings." That is, offerings of four kinds. The early chapters of Leviticus name four kinds of offerings too. God took no pleasure in any of them. When the Son of God came forth to do the will of God, His coming replaced them and took them away. In the body He took, He did the whole will of God. He offered that body up in sacrifice, and so we have been set apart for God once for all.
Some read the verse to mean God never wanted sacrifice at all. One writer answers that God's lack of delight has a different reason:
It is true that the One the psalmist speaks for does present the LORD as having no delight in "sacrifice and offering." But that is because of who He has in view. Not the broken and stained obedience of an ordinary man, but the glorious One that these sacrifices pictured. He could say, as no one else could, "ears have You dug for me." And He could look forward to the time when "burnt offering and sin offering" would no longer be required.
- The ear. The Hebrew reads "ears you have dug for me." The ear is the sign of receiving commands. So the verse marks the moment the Son takes the place of one who listens.
- The listener. He had created, commanded and governed, but He had never listened. Ears were dug for Him when He took the servant's place.
- The body. Hebrews 10 gives the same words as "a body have you prepared for me." The body makes the hearing, and the obeying, possible.
- The four. Sacrifice, offering, burnt offering and sin offering cover the whole range of Israel's offerings. God set all four aside, because He found no pleasure in them.
- The result. What replaces them is not a better animal but a will fully done. By that will we are set apart for God, once for all.
Then said I, Behold, I come, in the volume of the book it is written of me --
Psalm 40 moves from a cry out of the pit to a voice that no ordinary sufferer could own. In verse 7 the speaker says that a book already written has Him as its subject. The New Testament takes these words as Christ's own.
The psalm lets us listen in on a scene from before Christ appeared in this world: the Son offering Himself for a service no one else could give.
There is something precious beyond words in the servant character which the Lord Jesus has taken up towards His people, and for them. It is a character that serves not only their need, but the Father's glory, as none but He could serve. We are let into that solemn scene of the eternal Son presenting Himself to take the position of the True Servant in Psalm 40, to carry out the counsels of God. That scene took place before He made the Father's name known in this world in His human body.
Every creature owes God service. The point of "I have come" is that the One saying it owed none, and chose it anyway.
He came as a man truly, but also as the Incarnate Servant of Jehovah, which no man besides Him was or could be. For every living creature, service to God is not a matter of choice but of duty. On the Son there was no obligation to serve. He chose to take on Himself "the form of a servant." He purposed to do this before the world was, and the prophetic Spirit made this known through the psalmist.
Verse 7 answers verse 6. There God does not ask for sacrifice; He gives an open ear instead. The New Testament quotes that line as "a body have you prepared for me." Commentators explain why the wording shifts.
This shows how freely the Spirit of God enlarges on the thought He first gave by inspiration. In the psalm, fitting its prophetic character, we have the opening or forming of the ears. That suggests the obedience of our Lord, since the ear receives the instruction to be obeyed. But in the New Testament passage, His holy person stands fully revealed. There the Spirit teaches us that His body was one specially prepared for this obedience.
The writers below say "volume" where the ESV says "scroll." Commentators differ on which book is meant. Some take it to be God's own record of purpose, set before the world began.
There is great depth and power in those words of the eternal Son, "In the volume of the book it is written of me." What "volume" does He mean here? Is it Old Testament scripture? Surely not; the apostle is quoting from the Old Testament. What then is the volume? It is nothing less than the roll of God's eternal counsels. There God laid the vast plan. According to that plan, at the appointed time, the eternal Son was to come forth and appear on the scene.
Others look instead to the Old Testament, where every sacrifice becomes a portrait of Him.
Is it not, after all, the volume of the Old Testament — the book of Leviticus, for instance, the book of all those sacrificial rules? Once you get this thought, you can go back to Leviticus. Read there of the burnt offering and the sin offering, and say: in the volume of the book it is written, not of the offering, but of Christ Himself. So whenever you come to what speaks of the blood, you say the same. From the time of Abel right through the whole Old Testament record, in the volume of the book it is written of Him.
Why were those offerings not wanted, and who answered instead?
God had no desire for the sacrifices and offerings of the law, which only called to mind that sin was there. There had to be One whose ability to do His will was beyond question. And the eternal Son presents Himself — "Behold, I have come."
Because He came, that whole system of offerings lost its place.
These are all put aside. "He takes away the first to establish the second." Christ came to do God's will. Everything centres in the Son. All blessing is connected with relationship to Him... The Levitical system fades away, as it met neither God's desires nor man's need. Christ, who says "Behold, I have come to do your will," is everything. Then He "preached righteousness in the great congregation." This cost Him His life.
- Written — before He came, the book already had Him as its subject. Commentators read it either as God's eternal counsels or as the Old Testament sacrifices that all point to Him.
- Willing — no obligation rested on the Son to serve; "Behold, I have come" is a choice, not a duty discharged.
- Bodied — the opened ears of the psalm become "a body prepared" in the New Testament: obedience needed a body to carry it out.
- Replacing — His coming takes away the old system of offerings and sets God's will in its place.
- Costly — the One who came to do that will preached righteousness in the great congregation, and it cost Him His life.
To do thy good pleasure, my God, is my delight, and thy law is within my heart.
Hebrews 10 quotes this verse and applies it to Christ. So commentators hear the Son here, speaking of His own coming into the world. Two questions follow. Who is the one delighting, and what does it mean to carry God's law inside a heart?
Verses 6 and 7 look back to what God settled before He came. In verse 8 He speaks from the earth He had reached.
Verse 6 presents the thought and counsels of God. Verse 7 presents His willing coming to do God's will according to these counsels. But we must remember that He speaks as a man. Verses 6 and 7 reveal what passed in the eternal world (wonderful thought!), and tell us how He became a man. But, as in verse 5, so again in verse 8, Christ speaks as One actually in that place on earth. "I delight to do Your will, O my God; Your law is within My heart" — that is His perfection as Man.
Most obedience we know means giving up what we would rather do. Commentators say the psalm shows a different kind of obedience.
How different from all this is the obedience of Christ, as the Word presents it! Born of a woman, born under the law, He obeyed it perfectly. He magnified the law and made it honourable by submitting to its obedience. But He did not obey as one who had to be forbidden what He wanted. "Then I said, Behold, I have come; in the scroll of the book it is written of Me: I delight to do Your will, O my God; Your law is within My heart." His obedience was also never a matter of giving up His own will before the authority of the Father's will. He says, "I have come down from heaven, not to do My own will, but the will of Him who sent Me." Coming in this way, we see One whose only will was to do God's will.
Commentators read the second half of the verse against the ark. That chest in Israel's tabernacle held the stone tablets of the law.
The tablets of the covenant were also in the ark — God's holy law kept in the only place where it could remain unbroken; that is, in the bosom of Christ Himself. "Your law is within My heart" was perfectly displayed in His outward life.
That same law had a very different effect on everyone else.
In Psalm 40 the Lord comes into view saying, "I delight to do Your will, O my God; Your law is within My heart." This is the true answer to the tablets of stone in the ark. 2 Corinthians 3 calls those same tablets a ministry of death. Remember that, and we see the infinite moral distance between Christ as man and the whole human race. What was to man, even under God's own training, a ministry of death, was in Him the delight of His heart and the very food of His being. But God's thought was to possess the heart of man. Hebrews 10 gives the end in view: "I will put my laws on their hearts, and write them on their minds." They shall take their character from Christ.
The delight is real, and so is the agony it led into. Writers do not blur the two.
Was there any law that required Him to offer Himself in sacrifice? No! He delighted to do the will of God, even though it meant suffering more dreadful than anyone else could endure. Of course, the Lord Jesus did not delight to suffer. In fact, He pleaded with the Father to spare Him that agony, but added, "nevertheless, not my will, but yours, be done" (Luke 22:42). He willingly did the Father's will, though this meant setting aside His own will.
The wording itself carries that distinction. Hebrews 10 quotes the psalm but leaves out "delight":
Notice how Psalm 40 says "I delight", while the quotation in Hebrews 10 leaves "I delight" out. The reason is that Psalm 40 has mainly the burnt offering in view, while Hebrews 10 also has the sin offering in view. The Son always delighted to do the Father's will in burnt-offering character. But it was no delight to Him to be made sin in sin-offering character. So when sin is in view, "I delight" drops away.
A willing heart alone was not enough.
But what was the object in doing this? Not only to keep the law which had been broken, but personally to be a sacrifice. To bring sinners into God's presence, He had to do more than keep the law Himself. He had to become obedient to death, even the death of the cross. He might preach righteousness in the congregation, but men hated it; He might do all kinds of good works, but they envied Him and mocked Him.
- Will — counselled. Verse 8 is the Son speaking as man on earth, carrying out what was already written in the scroll before He came.
- Will — delighted in. His obedience never began with a competing wish He had to give up; God's will was the only will He had.
- Will — kept. The law stayed unbroken in one heart alone, the true ark. What was death to everyone else was His food.
- Will — costly. He delighted in the will, not in the suffering. Still He prayed, "not my will, but yours, be done."
- Will — reproduced. God's aim runs on from Christ to His people. He writes His laws on their hearts, so they take their character from Christ.