What Does Psalms 40:6 Mean?

Verse 6 is the most theologically crucial verse of Psalm 40 and is directly quoted in Hebrews 10: "In sacrifice and offering you have not delighted; but you have given me an open ear. Burnt offering and sin offering you have not required." The not-delighting-in-sacrifice (zebhach uminhah lo chafatzt, sacrifice and grain-offering you have not delighted/wanted: the chafetz/delight-want that YHWH's character most essentially wants : but sacrifice and grain-offering are not what YHWH ultimately wants; the zebhach/slaughter-offering and the minhah/meal-grain-offering together cover the two main offering categories) and the given-open ear (oznayim karita li, ears you have dug/opened for me: the kara/dig of the opened ear : possibly translating as "you have pierced my ears" in the Hebrew piercing-ear tradition of Exodus 21:6's slave-who-chooses-permanent-service, or simply "you have opened my ears to receive instruction") and the not-requiring burnt-and-sin-offering (olah vechatah lo sha'alta, burnt-offering and sin-offering you have not required: the sha'al/ask-require negative applied to olah and chatah).

Verse 6 is not anti-sacrifice but anti-sacrifice-as-substitute-for-the-heart: the LXX (Septuagint) translates "ears you have dug for me" as "a body you have prepared for me" (soma de katartiso moi), which Hebrews 10:5 quotes. The ears-dug-for-me (Hebrew) and body-prepared-for-me (LXX/Hebrews) both point to the same reality: what YHWH ultimately wants is the whole-person-in-obedience : the open-ears that receive and obey, the prepared-body that acts : not the ritual-substitutes for heart-obedience.

Hebrews 10:5-7's quotation of this verse (using the LXX): "Consequently, when Christ came into the world, he said, 'Sacrifices and offerings you have not desired, but a body have you prepared for me; in burnt offerings and sin offerings you have taken no pleasure. Then I said, "Behold, I have come to do your will, O God, as it is written of me in the scroll of the book"'" directly identifies verse 6's speaker as Christ: the entire Psalm 40 is the Messianic-voice of the Son who comes into the world saying "I will obey with my whole prepared-body rather than bring substitutionary-ritual-offerings." The ears-opened and the body-prepared for obedience is the incarnation-theology of Hebrews 10: Christ fulfills what the ritual-sacrifices could not : the whole-person-obedience that verse 6 elevates above ritual. 1 Samuel 15:22's "has YHWH as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices, as in obeying the voice of YHWH? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice" is the same prinicple of verse 6.