Commentary - Psalm 40:6-10

Bird's-eye view

This passage is one of the clearest Messianic prophecies in the entire Psalter, a fact made indisputable by the author of Hebrews (Heb. 10:5-7). David, speaking by the Spirit, utters words that find their ultimate and perfect fulfillment only in the mouth of the Lord Jesus Christ. The central theme is the inadequacy of the Old Covenant sacrificial system to deal finally with sin, and the corresponding necessity of a perfect, willing obedience embodied in a person. This is the Messiah, who comes to do the Father's will, a will written not on tablets of stone but on the very fabric of His heart.

The psalm pivots here from a personal testimony of deliverance to a prophetic declaration of the Messiah's mission. It contrasts the external rituals of the Levitical code with the internal disposition of the Son. The sacrifices were good and necessary shadows, but they were not the substance. The substance is Christ's perfect obedience. This obedience is not a grim duty but a heartfelt desire, and it culminates in a public proclamation of God's righteousness, faithfulness, and salvation to the "great assembly." This is nothing less than a poetic summary of the incarnation and earthly ministry of Jesus.

Outline

Context In The Psalms

Psalm 40 begins with a powerful testimony of personal deliverance. The psalmist, David, recounts how he waited patiently for Yahweh, who drew him out of a "horrible pit" and set his feet upon a rock (Ps 40:1-3). This experience of salvation leads to a new song of praise in his mouth. Following this, he reflects on the blessedness of the man who trusts in God (Ps 40:4-5). It is out of this context of personal, experienced salvation that the psalm transitions into the prophetic utterance of our text. The deliverance David experienced was a type, a foreshadowing, of the ultimate deliverance from the pit of death that the Messiah would accomplish. Therefore, the Spirit of Christ speaks through David, explaining the basis of this great salvation. It is not found in the blood of bulls and goats, but in the obedient body and willing heart of the Son who was to come.

Key Issues

The Heart of the Matter

The Old Testament is filled with commands to offer sacrifices, and faithful Israelites offered them. So in what sense does God say He did not desire or require them? The prophets repeatedly addressed this very point. God never desired the sacrifices as ends in themselves. He never wanted the ritual without the reality, the gesture without the heart. Samuel told Saul that "to obey is better than sacrifice" (1 Sam. 15:22). Hosea declared that God desires "mercy, and not sacrifice" (Hos. 6:6). This was not a New Testament novelty; it was a foundational principle of the Old Covenant.

The sacrificial system was a tutor, a picture book pointing to the need for a perfect sacrifice. But the people had a tendency to worship the pictures instead of looking for the reality. They began to treat the sacrifices as a transaction, a way to buy God off while their hearts remained far from Him. This passage, put in the mouth of the Messiah, cuts through all such externalism. It declares that the entire system of animal sacrifices was a placeholder for the one thing God truly desired: the perfect, willing, heartfelt obedience of His Son. Christ's coming did not contradict the Old Testament; it fulfilled it by providing the substance that the sacrifices had only shadowed.

Verse by Verse Commentary

6 Sacrifice and meal offering You have not desired; My ears You have opened; Burnt offering and sin offering You have not required.

The Messiah, speaking through David, addresses the Father directly. He lists four principal types of offerings from the Levitical system and declares that these are not what God ultimately desired. This is a radical statement from within the Old Covenant itself. It is not a rejection of the Mosaic law, but an interpretation of its deepest meaning. God instituted these sacrifices, so He clearly "required" them in one sense. But He never required them as a substitute for a loyal heart. The phrase My ears You have opened is a rich one. Literally, it means "dug out." It points to the creation of a hearing, obedient servant. It might allude to the practice in Exodus 21 where a slave who loved his master could have his ear pierced, marking him as a servant forever by his own free will. The Septuagint, which the author of Hebrews quotes, renders this as "a body you have prepared for me." Both point to the same reality: the incarnation. The Son was given a body, with ears to hear and a will to obey, in order to become the perfect servant and the perfect sacrifice.

7 Then I said, “Behold, I come; In the scroll of the book it is written of me.

In response to the inadequacy of the old system, the Son declares His own advent: Behold, I come. This is the great turning point in redemptive history. The shadows give way to the substance. He comes to do what the blood of bulls and goats could never do. His coming is not an afterthought or a plan B; it was written down, prophesied, and ordained from the beginning. In the scroll of the book it is written of me. This refers to the entire Old Testament Scriptures. From the promise of the seed of the woman in Genesis to the prophecies of Malachi, the whole book is about Him. He did not come to innovate but to fulfill. His life was a walking exegesis of the Old Testament, demonstrating that He was the one of whom Moses and all the prophets wrote.

8 I desire to do Your will, O my God; Your law is within my inner being.”

Here is the core of Christ's perfect sacrifice. It was not just what He did, but the spirit in which He did it. He came to do the Father's will, and this was not a reluctant submission but His deepest desire. The word is one of delight and pleasure. For the fallen sons of Adam, God's will often feels like a burden. For the perfect Son of God, it was His food and drink. Why? Because God's law was not an external code He had to consult; it was written within my inner being, literally, in the midst of His bowels, the seat of the deepest emotions and affections. This is the fulfillment of the new covenant promise in Jeremiah 31:33. Christ is the true Israelite, the one in whom the law of God finds its perfect home, not on stone tablets, but in a heart of flesh that beats in perfect unison with the heart of the Father.

9 I proclaim good news of righteousness in the great assembly; Behold, I do not restrain my lips, O Yahweh, You know.

This willing obedience was not performed in secret. The Messiah's mission is a public one. He is a preacher, a herald. He proclaims good news of righteousness. This is the gospel. It is the news that a righteousness acceptable to God is available, not through our flawed efforts at law-keeping, but through the perfect work of another. He proclaims this in the great assembly, which in David's context was covenantal Israel gathered for worship. In its ultimate fulfillment, it is the Church of all ages. Christ's ministry was one of open declaration. He did not whisper the truth; He proclaimed it from the hillsides and in the temple courts. He appeals to God's own omniscience as a witness: "You know I have not held back."

10 I do not conceal Your righteousness within my heart; I speak of Your faithfulness and Your salvation; I do not hide Your lovingkindness and Your truth from the great assembly.

The Messiah elaborates on the content of His preaching. He does not keep God's righteousness to Himself. He speaks of God's faithfulness, His covenant-keeping character, and His salvation, the deliverance He provides. He does not hide God's lovingkindness (hesed, or covenant loyalty) and His truth. These five terms, righteousness, faithfulness, salvation, lovingkindness, and truth, are a beautiful summary of the gospel message. It is a message about who God is and what God has done. And again, the audience is the great assembly. The truth of God is not an esoteric secret for a spiritual elite; it is a public proclamation to be made to the whole congregation of His people, and through them, to the world.

Application

First, this passage establishes forever that true Christianity is a matter of the heart. God is not interested in our external religious performances if our hearts are not in them. Going to church, tithing, saying prayers, these things are good, but only as expressions of an inward reality. The reality God desires is a heart that, like Christ's, delights in the will of God. We cannot produce this heart on our own. It is a gift of the new birth, whereby the Spirit writes God's law on our hearts, giving us a new desire to obey.

Second, we see that the whole Bible is about Jesus. We must learn to read our Old Testaments as He did, finding Him in the scroll of the book. The sacrifices, the kings, the prophets, they all point to Him. This protects us from moralism, from reading the Old Testament as a mere collection of rules and stories. It is the unfolding drama of God's plan to save the world through His Son.

Finally, we are called to imitate our Lord's public proclamation. If Christ did not restrain His lips in the great assembly, neither should we. The gospel is good news, and good news is meant to be shared. We have received God's righteousness, faithfulness, salvation, lovingkindness, and truth. We must not conceal these things within our hearts. In our own "great assemblies," in our families, churches, and communities, we are called to be heralds, speaking openly and joyfully of the God who did not desire sacrifices, but who sent His Son to be the perfect sacrifice for us all.