In the NKJV, Psalm 40:6 reads, Sacrifice and Offering You did not desire; My ears You have opened. Burnt Offering and sin offering You did not require. All the major English translations render it in a very similar way. However, the Hebrew word (kara) translated as ‘have opened’ has a somewhat different idea. It appears 16 times in the Old Testament and twelve times is translated as dig. Isaac’s servants dug a well (Gen. 26:5). Jacob instructed Joseph to bury him in the grave he had dug for himself in the land of Canaan (Gen. 50:5). Exodus 21:33 talks about digging a pit. It would be better, I think, to translate Psalm 40:6, “My ears you have dug.” God formed or bored (as a man bores a well) ears for David so that he would be an obedient servant.
Obedient service is the main idea of the verse, and indeed of the whole psalm. Behold, I come; in the scroll of the book it is written of me. I delight to do your will, O my God (vv. 7–8). Verse 6 restates the words of God to Saul, To obey is better than sacrifice, and to heed than the fat of rams (1 Sam. 15:22).
But this is a powerfully Messianic psalm. Hebrews 10:5–10 quotes Psalm 40:6 as fulfilled in the self-sacrifice of our Lord Jesus Christ for us. God dug out ears for Christ so that he would be an obedient servant, and Christ himself said, Behold, I have come—in the volume of the book it is written of me—To do Your will, O God. He submitted himself fully to the law of God and to the curse of the law to become our righteousness before God.
But notice now the precise words of the quotation from Psalm 40:6: Sacrifice and offering You did not desire, But a body You have prepared (perfected would be a better translation) for Me. In burnt offerings and sacrifices for sin You had no pleasure (Heb. 10:5–6). A body you have prepared for Me. That’s very different from, My ears you have dug out. The Greek word here translated as prepared comes from the Septuagint, the Greek translation of the Old Testament, but the Septuagint says, ears you have prepared for me, not a body…
The word body is, therefore, interpretive rather than a simple quotation. And by it the writer of Hebrews wants to convey to us that our Lord Jesus Christ became the obedient servant of the Lord in his incarnation. He madeHimself of no reputation… coming in the likeness of men. And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself and became obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross (Phil. 2:7–8). His body, perfected for him in his incarnation, was the instrument of his obedience. In fact, he received his body as an act of obedience.
He has taken away burnt offerings and sacrifices for sin so that he may establish the will of God (Heb. 10:9). And by that will we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all (v. 10).