Psalm 40 · a question people ask
Why does Hebrews have "a body" (Hebrews 10:5) where the psalm has "You have opened my ears" (Psalm 40:6)?
In the WEB the psalm reads, "You have opened my ears" (Psalm 40:6), and Hebrews, giving the same lines, reads, "You didn’t desire sacrifice and offering, but you prepared a body for me" (Hebrews 10:5). In the Hebrew text these notes are checked against, the Westminster Leningrad Codex, Psalm 40:6 has oznayim, ears, and then karita, a form of the verb karah (tap opened). Strong's gives karah as "properly, to dig; figuratively, to plot; generally, to bore or open", and Brown-Driver-Briggs gives the entry this verse is tagged with as "dig". Hebrews doesn't say why its words differ from the psalm's, and these notes don't add an account from outside the text. What Hebrews does with its line is plain: "we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all" (Hebrews 10:10).
The verses
“Sacrifice and offering you didn’t desire. You have opened my ears. You have not required burnt offering and sin offering.”
“Therefore when he comes into the world, he says, “You didn’t desire sacrifice and offering, but you prepared a body for me.”
“by which will we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.”