Psalm 40:6–10

40:6 Receiving sacrifices and offerings are not your primary concern.16

You make that quite clear to me!17

You do not ask for burnt sacrifices and sin offerings.

40:7 Then I say,

“Look! I come!

What is written in the scroll pertains to me.18

40:8 I want to do what pleases you,19 my God.

Your law dominates my thoughts.”20

40:9 I have told the great assembly21 about your justice.22

Look! I spare no words!23

O Lord, you know this is true.

40:10 I have not failed to tell about your justice;24

I spoke about your reliability and deliverance;

I have not neglected to tell the great assembly about your loyal love and faithfulness.25

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16	tn Heb “sacrifice and offering you do not desire.” The statement is exaggerated for the sake of emphasis (see Ps 51:16 as well). God is pleased with sacrifices, but his first priority is obedience and loyalty (see 1 Sam 15:22). Sacrifices and offerings apart from genuine allegiance are meaningless (see Isa 1:11–20).
17	tn Heb “ears you hollowed out for me.” The meaning of this odd expression is debated (this is the only collocation of “hollowed out” and “ears” in the OT). It may have been an idiomatic expression referring to making a point clear to a listener. The LXX has “but a body you have prepared for me,” a reading which is followed in Heb 10:5.
18	tn Heb “in the roll of the scroll it is written concerning me.” Apparently the psalmist refers to the law of God (see v. 8), which contains the commandments God desires him to obey. If this is a distinctly royal psalm, then the psalmist/king may be referring specifically to the regulations of kingship prescribed in Deut 17:14–20. See P. C. Craigie, Psalms 1–50 (WBC), 315.
19	tn Or “your will.”
20	tn Heb “your law [is] in the midst of my inner parts.” The “inner parts” are viewed here as the seat of the psalmist’s thought life and moral decision making.
21	sn The great assembly is also mentioned in Pss 22:25 and 35:18.
22	tn Heb “I proclaim justice in the great assembly.” Though “justice” appears without a pronoun here, the Lord’s just acts are in view (see v. 10). His “justice” (צֶדֶק, tsedeq) is here the deliverance that originates in his justice; he protects and vindicates the one whose cause is just.
23	tn Heb “Look! My lips I do not restrain.”
24	tn Heb “your justice I have not hidden in the midst of my heart.”
25	tn Heb “I have not hidden your loyal love and reliability.”