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Journey of a Passage

Psalm 40:6

"Mine ears hast thou opened" or "a body"

Hebrew: "ears you have dug for me." The library's Greek (Giguet) and Latin read "ears" too. But Hebrews 10:5 quotes the psalm as "a body hast thou prepared me," and so do the three great Greek codices. The difference arose within the Greek tradition.

Manuscript variant: witnesses differ in wording

The family tree

Each row is a language or text tradition. Witnesses in the same row may share ancestry, revise one another, or have an uncertain relationship; the line under each box says which. A solid arrow appears only where direct copying or a documented revised edition is established. Order by date never implies copying. Scroll sideways on a phone.

✓ contains it · ✕ does not · ❝ quotes part of it · ⓘ reports on manuscripts · ▢ pages lost · – no copy survives

  • Same line, through lost copies
  • Translation
Hebrew
  1. The psalm as first composedPsalms composed over centuries (c. 10th–4th century BC; debated)
  2. Masoretic Text (Leningrad Codex)AD 1008Descends, through lost copies, from The psalm as first composed
Greek
  1. Greek Psalter (library: Giguet's French)Old Greek c. 2nd century BC; French 1872Translated from the Old Greek Psalter
Latin
  1. Jerome's Gallican Psalter (Clementine Vulgate)c. AD 386–392, revised from the GreekTranslated from the Greek Psalter (Origen's Hexapla)
English
  1. King James Bible1611Translated from printed Masoretic Hebrew

Every witness, in order

  1. Psalms composed over centuries (c. 10th–4th century BC; debated)

    The psalm as first composed

    – No copy survives

    No original survives. About forty Psalms manuscripts from Qumran, Masada and Nahal Hever (c. 2nd century BC – 1st century AD) are the oldest copies.

  2. c. AD 386–392, revised from the Greek

    Jerome's Gallican Psalter (Clementine Vulgate)

    ✓ Contains this passageTranslated from the Greek Psalter (Origen's Hexapla)

    How the site knows this: Read in the site's library text: Clementine Vulgate (1592 edition).

    Sacrificium et oblationem noluisti; aures autem perfecisti mihi. Holocaustum et pro peccato non postulasti;

    Latin numbering: Psalm 39:7. Jerome revised this Latin Psalter from the Greek, so it is a witness to the Greek, not to the Hebrew.

  3. AD 1008

    Masoretic Text (Leningrad Codex)

    ✓ Contains this passageDescends, through lost copies, from The psalm as first composed

    How the site knows this: Read in the site's library text: Westminster Leningrad Codex, a digital transcription of the Leningrad Codex.

    זֶ֤בַח וּמִנְחָ֨ה ׀ לֹֽא־חָפַ֗צְתָּ אָ֭זְנַיִם כָּרִ֣יתָ לִּ֑י עוֹלָ֥ה וַ֝חֲטָאָ֗ה לֹ֣א שָׁאָֽלְתָּ׃

    Sacrifice and offering you did not desire; ears you have dug for me; burnt offering and sin offering you did not ask

    Hebrew numbering: Psalm 40:7. Hebrew counts the title as verse 1.

  4. 1611

    King James Bible

    ✓ Contains this passageTranslated from printed Masoretic Hebrew

    How the site knows this: Read in the site's library text: King James Version (1769 text).

    Sacrifice and offering thou didst not desire; mine ears hast thou opened: burnt offering and sin offering hast thou not required.

  5. Old Greek c. 2nd century BC; French 1872

    Greek Psalter (library: Giguet's French)

    ✓ Contains this passageTranslated from the Old Greek Psalter

    How the site knows this: Known here only through a translation.

    Vous n’avez voulu ni offrandes ni victimes; mais vous m’avez donné des oreilles; vous n’avez demandé ni holocaustes ni oblations pour le péché.

    Greek numbering: Psalm 39:6. Giguet's 1872 French of a printed Greek text; not checked against Rahlfs' critical edition.

What changed, and why

Rahlfs' critical edition prints ōtia, "ears," as the Old Greek and lists sōma, "body," as a variant. "Body" is the reading of the three great Greek codices (Vaticanus, Sinaiticus, Alexandrinus); "ears" is supported by the Old Latin, the Gallican Psalter and the Syriac Peshitta (M. Graves, Vulgata in Dialogue 9, 2025). The leading explanation is that the Old Greek had "ears" and the codices were later brought into line with Hebrews. Other proposals: a copying slip in Greek capitals (ĒTHELĒSAS ŌTIA read as ĒTHELĒSAS SŌMA), or a deliberate rendering of the part (ears) by the whole (body). The site has not yet checked the Göttingen apparatus itself; this remains an open research check.

The Hebrew "dug ears" means God has opened the speaker's ears to hear and obey. The Vulgate here is the Gallican Psalter (from the Greek): "aures autem perfecisti mihi." Jerome's later translation from the Hebrew reads "aures fodisti mihi," "you dug ears for me."

What the evidence shows

  • Independently documentedThe Hebrew reads "ears you have dug for me."
  • Independently documentedHebrews 10:5 quotes "a body hast thou prepared me."
  • Strongly supportedRahlfs prints "ears" as the Old Greek. Reported by Graves (2025) and others; apparatus not yet checked by the site.
  • Strongly supportedThe great Greek codices read "body." Reported in scholarship; codices not examined by the site.
  • Plausible, not confirmedThe "body" reading arose by a copying slip.

Sources

    Related lessons

    • Psalm 40: I Waited Patiently →"I waited patiently for the LORD; and he inclined unto me, and heard my cry. He brought me up also out of an horrible pit, out of the miry clay, and set my feet upon a rock… And he hath put a new song in my mouth." "Sacrifice and offering thou didst not desire; mine ears hast thou opened… Then said I, Lo, I come: in the volume of the book it is written of me, I delight to do thy will." Then the psalm turns to urgent lament; its last five verses reappear as Psalm 70.