Psalm 40 Jan. 22 For the Chief Musician. A Psalm by David.  1I waited patiently for Yahweh. He turned to me, and heard my cry. 2He brought me up also out of a horrible pit, out of the miry clay. He set my feet on a rock, and gave me a firm place to stand. 3He has put a new song in my mouth, even praise to our God. Many shall see it, and fear, and shall trust in Yahweh. 4Blessed is the man who makes Yahweh his trust and doesn’t respect the proud, nor such as turn aside to lies. 5Many, Yahweh my God, are the wonderful works which You have done, and Your thoughts which are toward us. They can’t be declared back to You. If I would declare and speak of them, they are more than can be numbered. 6Sacrifice and offering You didn’t desire. You have digged my ears. You have not required burnt offering and sin offering. 7Then I said, Behold, I have come. It is written about me throughout the book in the scroll. 8I delight to do Your will, my God. Yes, Your law is within my heart. 9I have proclaimed glad news of righteousness in the great assembly. Behold, I will not seal my lips, Yahweh, You know. 10I have not hidden Your righteousness within my heart. I have declared Your faithfulness and Your salvation. I have not concealed Your grace and Your truth from the great assembly. 11Don’t withhold Your tender mercies from me, Yahweh; let Your grace and Your truth continually preserve me. 12For innumerable evils have surrounded me. My iniquities have overtaken me, so that I am not able to look up. They are more than the hairs of my head. My heart has failed me. 13Be pleased, Yahweh, to deliver me. Hurry to help me, Yahweh. 14Let them be disappointed and confounded together who seek after my soul to destroy it. Let them be turned backward and brought to dishonour who delight in my hurt. 15Let them be desolate by reason of their shame that tell me, Aha! Aha! 16Let all those who seek You rejoice and be glad in You. Let such as love Your salvation say continually, Let Yahweh be exalted! 17But I am poor and needy. May the Lord think about me. You are my help and my deliverer. Don’t delay, my God.   

Commentary

40:3 Many shall see it- David perceived the influence his spiritual victory or failure would influence others. Without encouraging posturing and posing, we should also be aware of this dimension to life and be motivated by it in our spiritual battles.
40:6 You have digged my ears- An allusion to the Law’s provision for a servant to decide to permanently remain in his master’s household and be adopted into the family- see Ex. 21:5,6.
40:6-8 Quoted in Heb. 10:5-8 about the sacrifice of Jesus on the cross. Notice how Jesus addressed God as “my God”- another difficulty for Trinitarian theology. Yet the initial context was David reflecting that his sin with Bathsheba and Uriah couldn’t be atoned for by any sacrifice; for there was none prescribed for what he had done. He simply vowed to give himself completely to God and declare God’s grace to all men (:9,10). Yet this was fulfilled by Jesus in the death of the cross, which ended the need for animal sacrifices. Indeed many of the Bathsheba Psalms are applied to Jesus in His time of dying on the cross. He there knew fully the feelings of David and every desperate sinner; not that He sinned, but so identified was He with us there that He entered into the feelings of every sinner.