Psalm 40

Psalms 40:1-3

waited patiently for the Lord: I waited patiently for the Lord opens on completed rescue rather than present crisis, the horrible pit and miry clay of verse 2 pictured as a place with no foothold until God set his feet upon a rock and established his goings. A new song in his mouth is not chosen but put there, even praise unto our God, and the purpose is public: many shall see it, and fear, and shall trust in the Lord, one man's deliverance meant to move other men's faith.

Psalms 40:4-5

Blessed is that man that maketh the Lord his trust draws the general rule out of the psalmist's own case, trust in the Lord set against the proud and such as turn aside to lies. Verse 5 answers with a claim too large to finish, thy wonderful works... they cannot be reckoned up in order unto thee: if I would declare and speak of them, they are more than can be numbered, the psalmist breaking off his own attempt at a list. Gill reads the unfinished catalogue as itself an argument, that no single psalm or lifetime could hold what God has done.

Psalms 40:6-8

Sacrifice and offering thou didst not desire; mine ears hast thou opened: burnt offering and sin offering hast thou not required sets obedience above the sacrificial system on its own terms, this floor's Hebrew text picturing an opened ear, the mark of a servant who has heard and will obey. Hebrews 10:5 quotes this verse but reads with the Septuagint, a body hast thou prepared me, in place of mine ears hast thou opened, and the difference between the two readings is a real textual fact rather than a translator's simple choice; Delitzsch and Barnes carry the discussion of how the Greek text came to read body where the Hebrew reads ear. Verse 7's lo, I come: in the volume of the book it is written of me and verse 8's I delight to do thy will, O my God: yea, thy law is within my heart continue into the same quotation at Hebrews 10:7, applied there to Christ's own obedience offered in place of the sacrifices just named.

Psalms 40:9-10

I have preached righteousness in the great congregation moves the psalm from private deliverance to public testimony, the same congregation named again at the end of verse 10. I have not hid thy righteousness within my heart; I have declared thy faithfulness and thy salvation: I have not concealed thy lovingkindness and thy truth piles up near-synonyms, righteousness, faithfulness, salvation, lovingkindness, truth, as if one word could not carry what has been received. Henry reads the fourfold denial, not hid, not refrained, not concealed, as the psalmist answering his own resolve of Psalm 39 to keep silence, obedience here taking the opposite shape.

Psalms 40:11-13

Withhold not thou thy tender mercies from me turns the psalm from testimony back to present need, the same trust already proved now asked for again. Innumerable evils have compassed me about names both trouble and guilt in one breath, mine iniquities have taken hold upon me, so that I am not able to look up, sin and suffering not separated from each other. Be pleased, O Lord, to deliver me: O Lord, make haste to help me repeats the urgent short petition that closes several of David's psalms, the same words repeated nearly verbatim at the opening of Psalm 70.

Psalms 40:14-15

Let them be ashamed and confounded together that seek after my soul to destroy it turns to imprecation against those doing active harm, language the site carries honestly as prayer rather than softening. Let them be desolate for a reward of their shame that say unto me, Aha, aha targets mockery specifically, the taunting sound written into the Hebrew text itself. The gracious reading, held across the imprecatory psalms, treats this as a plea handing vengeance to God rather than a wish carried out by the psalmist's own hand.

Psalms 40:16-17

Let all those that seek thee rejoice and be glad in thee turns the imprecation of the previous verses into its opposite, a blessing on everyone who loves God's salvation rather than mocks it. But I am poor and needy closes the psalm exactly where it opened, in need rather than resolved strength, yet the Lord thinketh upon me answers the need without removing it. Make no tarrying, O my God is the psalm's last word, an urgency left standing rather than a settled peace, which the older writers read as honest to a life of ongoing dependence rather than one finished deliverance.