Wherefore, when he cometh into the world, he saith, Sacrifice and offering thou wouldest not, but a body didst thou prepare me: In whole burnt offering and offerings for sin thou hadst no pleasure: Then said I, Lo, I am come (in the volume (i.
e. roll) of the book it is written of me) to do thy will, O God. The quotation is from Psalms 40:6, Psalms 40:7, Psalms 40:8. It is entitled "a psalm of David," nor is there anything in the psalm itself incompatible with his authorship.
The question of authorship is, however, unimportant; all that is required for the purpose of the quotation being that it should have been the utterance of an inspired psalmist. The primary import of the passage quoted is that the psalmist, after deliverance from great affliction, for which he gives thanks, expresses his desire to act on the lesson learnt in his trouble by giving himself entirely to God's service.
And the service in which God delights he declares to be, not sacrifices of slain beasts, but the doing of his will, the ears being opened to his Worst, and his Law being within the heart. Now, bearing in mind what was said under Hebrews 1:5, of the principle on which words used in the Old Testament with a primary human reference are applied in the New Testament directly to Christ, we shall have no difficulty in understanding such application here.
The psalmist, it may be allowed, spoke in his own person, and as expressing his own feelings and desires; but, writing under inspiration, he aspired to an ideal beyond his own attainment, the true ideal for humanity, to be realized only in Christ.
The ideal is such perfect self-oblation of the human will to God's as to supersede and render needless the existing sacrifices, which are acknowledged to be, in their own nature, valueless. That the psalmist did not really contemplate the fulfillment of this ideal in himself is evident from the penitential confessions of the latter verses of the psalm.
It is but the yearning of inspired humanity for what was really needed for reconciliation with God, such yearning being in itself a prophecy. Hence what was thus spoken in the Spirit is adduced as expressing the mind and work of him who fulfilled all those prophetic yearnings, and effected, as Man and for man, what the holy men of old longed to do but could not.
The expression, "when he cometh into the world," reminds us of Hebrews 1:6. The word εἰσερχόμενος, here used, is connected in thought with the ἤκω ("I am come") in the quotation. Idle are the inquiries of some commentators as to the precise time, either before or after the Incarnation, at which our Lord is to be conceived as so speaking.
Enough to say that his purpose in coming into the world is in these significant words expressed. It is noteworthy, in regard to the attribution of this utterance to him, how frequently he is recorded to have spoken of having come into the world for the accomplishment of a purpose "Venio, vel potius, veni, symbolum quasi Domini Jesu fuit" (Bengel).
The psalm is quoted from the LXX., with slight variation, not worth considering, as it does not affect the sense of the passage. But the variation of the LXX. from the Hebrew text requires notice.