Translation & Sermon by Nate Wilson for Christ the Redeemer Church of Manhattan, KS, 2 Jun 2019
A couple of years ago, my family bought me a bag of licorice jelly-beans. For years they had picked out those nasty-tasting black jelly beans out of their assortments because they didn’t want them, and for years, I had eaten their cast-of jelly-beans because I couldn’t bear to throw away good candy, and besides, I didn’t mind the licorice flavor. So the opinion formed among my family members that licorice was my favorite flavor because I ate so many licorice jelly-beans. So one day they bought me a whole bag of just-licorice jelly beans, thinking I would consider it a special treat. It’s easy to understand how they had come to that conclusion without actually asking me what my favorite flavor was. I considered being polite and saying nothing to discourage them, but then I realized that, if I didn’t say something then-and-there to put a stop to it, I would be expected to eat extra licorice jelly beans for the rest of my life, so I informed them that, while I liked licorice fine, it wasn’t my favorite flavor.
Jews in the first century had come to think that animal sacrifices were what God really wanted, but that was a misunderstanding due to not seeing the bigger picture.
In the Bible, God shares the information of what His desire is and is not. He says He does not desire the atonement process per se – bloodshed is not what He delights in, but rather He wants a good relationship with persons who are right with Him – either because they don’t need atonement (like His sinless Son) or because they (like us) have been redeemed by His blood. Killing was never the goal; it was just what had to be done to satisfy the demands of justice in order to reach the goal of fellowship.
Early expressions of God’s will concerning this, however, were sketchy and shadowy until Jesus came and revealed God’s will for salvation and sanctification and fellowship with us more fully.
Around the year 400AD, Chrysostom, a Greek Church Pastor, compared the “shadows” of the law in contrast to the “shape” of Christ to the graphic arts, saying, “...as long as one [only] draws the outlines, it is a sort of ‘skia/shadow’ but when one has added the bright paints and laid in the colors, then it becomes an ‘eikwn/image.’”
Hebrews 8:4-5 “...there are those who offer these gifts according to the law, who are ministering in a copy and a shadow of the heavenly things...” (NAW)
Col. 2:17 “So let no one judge you in food or in drink, or regarding a festival or a new moon or sabbaths, which are a shadow of things to come, but the substance [σῶμα] is of Christ.” (NKJV)
What are “the coming good things” [τῶν μελλόντων ἀγαθῶν] Christ brings?1
The inheriting of salvation (Heb. 1:14) ;
The age to come in which all things are accountable beneath Christ’s feet (Heb. 2:5),
when we will see God and His angels (Heb. 6:5),
when we will possess the eternal inheritance in the new Covenant (Heb. 9:11),
when there will be no longer any enemies to bother us (Heb. 10:27),
and where we have an enduring place to live in heaven (Heb. 13:14).
All of these things and more are wrapped up in the person of Jesus Himself, the “better hope through whom we get close to God” (Hebrews 7:19).
Colossians 1:15 "He is the image[shape/εἰκὼν] of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation." (NKJ)
Those who “drew near” [to worship God] through the Old Testament Levitical priests got only a “shadow,” but those who draw near to worship God through Jesus and His sacrifice get the real “shape” of things:
Leviticus 9:7 “And to Aaron, Moses said, ‘Come near to the altar and make your sin-offering and your whole-burnt-offering and so make atonement with regard to yourself and with regard to the people, and then make the people's offering and so make atonement with regard to them just as Yahweh commanded.’" (NAW)
Heb. 7:19a “Now, the Law perfected nothing... 9:9 Up to the present time this has been a parable in which both donations and sacrifices are being offered that are not able to perfect in conscience... and that are only being imposed until a time of rectification, in regards to foods and drinks and various baptisms and regulations concerning the flesh… 13 For, if the blood of bulls and goats and the sprinkling of a heifer's ashes sanctifies those who had been rendered unclean to the purification of their flesh, how much more will the blood of the Anointed One (who, through the eternal Spirit offered His faultless self to God) purify y'all's conscience from dead works for devotion to the Living God? ...10:14 for by means of one offering, He has in perpetuity perfected those who are being sanctified.” (NAW)
As the Apostle John put it: Because “God... loved us and commissioned His Son [to be] appeasement concerning our sins... God is staying in us, and His love in us is perfected.” (1 John 4:10-12, NAW) The Law perfected no one, but Jesus does perfect His people!
Hebrews 4:16 "Let us therefore keep approaching the throne of grace with openness in order that we may receive mercy and find grace for the purpose of a timely rescue… 7:25 In view of which He is also able to save in any eventuality those who approach God through Him, since He is always living for the purpose of interceding on their behalf…. 10:22 "Let us approach with a heart of sincerity in full-assurance, our hearts having been sprinkled [clean] from a guilty conscience and our bodies having been washed with pure water." (NAW)
The difference might be compared to eating. You eat a meal, but you get hungry again. Therefore eating food is not the ultimate solution to having a body that gets weak and hungry without food. You eat the food because that’s God’s design for you for now, but we look forward to a time when real, eternal food will satisfy us and we won’t keep getting hungry again.
The “they” which “would stop being offered” in v.2 is feminine plural in Greek, referring to the feminine plural “sacrifices” in verse 1.
That carries on down to v.3, which also speaks of “these” same sacrifices being a “memorial of sins” -
and to verse 4, which describes them as “blood from bulls and from goats.”
The ideal result is that the priestly service of offering blood-sacrifices would get rid of people’s sin and its consequences, but these verses emphasize the inability of the Old Testament animal sacrifices to achieve that end, saying in three parallel statements:
v.2 that “no one having consciousness of sins/guilty-conscience anymore” was not the result,
v.3 “remembrance of sins” instead was the result, because it was
v.4 “impossible for [those animal sacrifices] to take away sins.”
“The Old Testament era was one of expectancy rather than arrival, and, as chapter 11 will declare, the godly of that era embraced the promises without seeing their fulfillment. They were not, however, at a disadvantage compared with us, who look back to the completion of the promises in Christ (2 Cor. 1:20), for we and they are made perfect together (Heb. 11:13, 39).” ~P.E. Hughes
The Greek words for “remembrance (ἀνάμνησιν) of sin” in v.3 are used in the Greek Old Testament to describe burning grain and incense to God to deal with sin nature2, but in the New Testament this word occurs in only one other context, and that is the Lord’s Supper: 1 Cor. 11:23-26 “...the Lord Jesus in the night in which He was being betrayed took bread; and when He had given thanks, He broke it and said, ‘This is My body, which is for you; do this for the purpose of the remembrance [ἀνάμνησιν] of Me.’ In the same way He took the cup also after the supper, saying, ‘This cup is the new covenant in My blood; do this, as often as you drink it, for the purpose of the remembrance of Me.’ For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until He comes.” (NAW)
The Old Testament sacrifices would have ceased being offered if they had been able to provide a once-for-all absolution from the guilt of sin. Instead, the sacrificial ceremonies merely reminded God’s people that sin was a problem that needed to be dealt with. It was never possible for their animal sacrifices to actually atone for their sins. The offering of Jesus on the cross, on the other hand, could provide a conclusive end to guilty consciences before God. For this reason, we, in the New Testament church, remember His once-for-all cleansing for our sins by partaking of the Lord’s Supper. We do it, as He commanded, “in remembrance3 of me,” remembering Jesus, not remembering our sins!
Jer. 31:33-34 But this is the [new] covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the LORD... they all shall know Me, from the least of them to the greatest of them, says the LORD. For I will forgive their iniquity, and their sin I will remember no more." (NKJV)
“Sins remembered by God are sins for which propitiation has not been made. Sins no longer remembered by God are sins for which full atonement has been freely provided and gratefully received.” ~P.E. Hughes
He even brings a stop to sin: 1 Peter 4:1 “Therefore, since Christ suffered for y'all in flesh, y'all also must start arming yourselves with the same resolution, because the one who has suffered in the flesh has been stopped from sin..." (NAW)
The phrase in v.5 “When he entered/came into the world”
parallels the statement in v.7, where the Son says, “Behold I come/have arrived.”5
The root of this verb [ερχόμενος] is often used of Christ, describing him as “the coming one/the one who is to come.6” Coming into our world physically has been His specialty, from the Old Testament theophanies, to the New Testament incarnation, to the second coming in the age to come.
Hebrews 10:5 is talking about the incarnation of the Son of God. Jesus entered our world physically, clothed in a flesh-and-blood body created for Him by God and nourished by Mary. This was the starting point for our Anno Domini dating system.
He said, “I came down from heaven… to do the will of Him who sent me.” (John 6:38)
That first coming of Christ was in order to resolve the impossibility of the blood of bulls and goats taking away sin. “Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners” 1 Tim. 1:15.
Verses 5-7 contain a quote from the Septuagint Greek translation of Psalm 40:6-7 (or Psalm 39:7-8 in the Septuagint reference system). This scripture proves what Jesus came to do.
Now, if you’ve memorized Psalm 40, you might notice a variant in the Hebrews 10 quote of it. I don’t have time to explain it in depth, but it has a lot to do with the Hebrew vs. the Greek Bible. If you want to get the full explanation, you can read the appendix to the online version of this sermon.
Even though it is not the slaughter of animals that pleases God, “nevertheless” (“but even so”) it took the preparation of a body for Jesus to dwell in, the body of a human servant (whose “ear was pierced” according to Psalm 40), and it was in that “Son” that God found “pleasure.”7
“[A] brute beast is by its very nature unqualified to serve as a substitute for man… Lacking both volition and rationality, it is passive and inarticulate and therefore incapable of the spontaneous declaration, ‘Lo, I have come to do thy will, O God’ … Only man, who is a rational, volitional, articulate, and responsible being, can serve as a proper equivalent and substitute for man: hence the incarnation, whereby the Son of God assumed our humanity, so that as man he might offer himself in the place of our fallen humanity (2:9, 14).” ~P.E. Hughes
The writer of Hebrews takes an interesting angle on his exegesis of Psalm 40. He picks up on the three volitional words “desired… taken pleasure… and doing your will” and explains that Jesus’ self-sacrifice for our salvation was an act of His will in fulfillment of God’s will, which was, all along, the divine plan for our salvation.
There are few – if any – positive statements about God’s “will” or “desire” recorded in the Law, but such statements are frequent in the Psalms and in the New Testament. Let me share with you the way that these three volitional words are used throughout scripture:
Desire ἠθέλησας – this is what the will does, or, in the case of v.5, what God doesn’t want: “You did not desire a sacrifice”
God never says in the Bible that it is His “will/desire” to get sacrifices. What He says is that His “will/desire” is to save and enjoy fellowship with people. For instance:
Psalm 18:19 ...he will deliver me, because he has pleasure in [ἠθέλησέν/wanted/willed/desired] me...”
Psalm 22:8 "... let him save him, because he takes pleasure in [θέλει/wants/wills/desires] him.” (cf. Psalm 36:23)
Psalm 41:11 "...I know that thou hast delighted [τεθέληκάς] in me…" (Brenton)
Psalm 51:16-17 For if thou desiredst [ἠθέλησας] sacrifice, I would have given it: thou wilt not take pleasure in [εὐδοκήσεις] whole-burnt-offerings. Sacrifice to God is a broken spirit: a broken and humbled heart God will not despise.”
You see, the object of God’s desire and what He takes pleasure in is a person like me who has a humble heart toward Him!
God is a spirit, so naturally He’s not all that interested in material gifts sacrificed to Him. He doesn’t need money or food, so I can see why they would not be what “delights” Him.
The second volitional word is...
Delight/take pleasure in/ εὐδόκησας– this is what a person enjoys, or in the case of v.6, what God doesn’t enjoy: “You did not delight in offerings ...”
Wherever statements are made in the Bible to the effect that God “delights” in something, animal sacrifices are never the object, but always redeemed people. Here are all the instances from Brenton’s English translation of the Septuagint (so chapter numbers may be a little different):
Psalm 40:13 “Be pleased [εὐδόκησον], O Lord, to deliver me; O Lord, draw nigh to help me.”
Psalm 44:3 “...thy right hand, and thine arm, and the light of thy countenance [delivered them], because thou wert well pleased [εὐδόκησας] in them.”
Psalm 85:1 "O Lord, thou has taken pleasure in [εὐδόκησας] thy land: thou hast turned back the captivity of Jacob.”
Psalm 119:108 “Accept [εὐδόκησον], I pray thee, O Lord, the freewill-offerings of my mouth...” (My heartfelt praise, not my dead goat!)
Psalm 147:11 “The Lord takes pleasure in [εὐδοκεῖ ] them that fear him, and in all that hope in his mercy.”
Psalm 149:4 “For the Lord takes pleasure in [εὐδοκεῖ ] his people; and will exalt the meek with salvation.”
Conversely, God says He doesn’t take pleasure in the wicked – those in rebellion against Him (Hab. 2:4, Jer. 2:19, 14:10-12, Mal. 1:10, 1 Cor. 10:5, Heb. 10:38).
Now, when we get to the New Testament, it is Jesus in whom God delights (Matthew 3:17 "...This is my beloved Son in whom I delight [εὐδόκησα].” ~NAW),
and that delight extends to those He redeems:
Luke 12:32 "Do not fear, little flock, for it is your Father's good pleasure [εὐδόκησεν] to give you the kingdom.” (NKJV),
1 Corinthians 1:21 "...God was pleased [εὐδόκησεν] though the foolishness of what was preached to save those who believe." (NAW),
Galatians 1:15-16 "...it pleased [εὐδόκησεν] God... to reveal His Son in me, that I might preach Him among the Gentiles..." (NKJV)
The third and final volitional word is...
“to do God’s will/θέλημα” (v.7) This was the motivating force behind Jesus’ priestly service:
This is the same as the “will” of God for our sanctification in v.10, and it is the noun form of the Greek verb translated “desired” in v.5.
I don’t have to do any cherry-picking to show you that God’s “will” and “desire” and “pleasure” are all toward the same end: the salvation of His people:
Psalm 16:3 “On behalf of the saints that are in his land, he has magnified all his pleasure [θελήματα] in them.”
Psalm 30:5 "For anger is in his wrath, but life in his favour [θελήματι]…" (His will is life, not blood!)
Psalm 103:7-8 “He made known his ways to Moses, his will [θελήματα] to the children of Israel. [And what is His will?] The Lord is compassionate and pitiful, long-suffering, and full of mercy." (cf. Ps. 111:2, Jer. 9:24)
Isaiah 62:4 "And thou shalt no more be called Forsaken... for thou shalt be called My Pleasure [θέλημα]…" (Brenton)
John 1:12-13 "...children of God... who believe in His name.. who were born, not of.. the will [θελήματος] of man, but of [the will of] God." (NKJV)
John 6:40 "And this is the will [θέλημα] of Him who sent Me, that everyone who sees the Son and believes in Him may have everlasting life; and I will raise him up at the last day." (NKJV)
Galatians 1:4 “who gave Himself for our sins, that He might deliver us from this present evil age, according to the will [θέλημα] of our God and Father" (NKJV)
Ephesians 1:5 "having predestined us to adoption as sons by Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will [εὐδοκίαν τοῦ θελήματος]"(NKJV)
1 Thess. 4:3 “For this is the will [θέλημα] of God, your sanctification…" (NKJV)
God delights in personal relationships – what He has had eternally in His intertrinitarian fellowship of Father, Son, and Spirit, and what He has opened up to us when He created mankind, and what we broke by our selfishness and rebellion. And that’s why God required whole burnt offerings and sin offerings as a covenantal way to restore fellowship with errant humans. Modern liberals complain about us fundamentalists preaching a God of wrath and say that Jesus’ substitutionary atonement on the cross is abhorrent theology - akin to child abuse. They say we should preach a God who has no will and so accepts everybody. They are off-the-rails and don’t realize how horrifying the result of Humanism is. They are not smart enough to see the result of a world in which there is no God who has a will, a world in which it is every-man-for-himself to decide what is right and wrong, what is true and false. The horrible end is that the strongest life forms will bend the weaker ones to their will and do whatever they want – including every cruelty imaginable without any moral restraint.
What a mercy it is to live in a world where there is a God who has a will, a will which is dead-set against evil and totally committed to redemption from evil of a people for Himself. That is what our God delights in! Hallelujah!
Verses 8 & 9 review highlights from the Psalm 40 passage to drive home the contrast between BC (according to the law) and AD (in Christ):
This is strong language – 20 out of the 22 times that the verb describing the “taking away/annihilation of the first” order of things occurs in the N.T., it is used to describe putting it to death.
If you’re following a King James version, you’ll see in v.8 that the first two items on the list of sacrifices are singular and that the vocative (“O God”) is kept at the end of the quote in v.9. These variants follow the majority of Greek manuscripts copied after the 9th century, but all known manuscripts copied before the 9th Century make those first two items plural and omit the vocative at the end of the quote, so that seems to be the original. Neither changes the meaning really, although switching to plural “sacrifices” and “offerings” has the effect of more vividly painting the picture of a vast and never-ending number of sacrifices of every type offered throughout the Israelite era, from whole-burnt-offerings to grain offerings to sin/guilt offerings to fellowship offerings. And I think that is our author’s intent – the many sacrifices vs. the one.
The final verb in verse 9 is yet another volitional statement, spelled in the subjunctive mood in Greek, and translated correctly by the King James versions as “that He may establish” connoting planning and intentionality in this whole process of our sanctification.
ILLUSTRATION: Back in the year 2008, a tornado ripped through my neighborhood and messed up the roof of my house, so we and the Linville guys and some other men in the church put new (and better) shingles on my roof, but we didn’t just nail the new shingles down on top of the old ones. That would have created an unstable situation. We first had to remove the old shingles and nails and replace the rotten underlayment wood. Only after stripping off the old could we safely nail on the new. That is a picture of what God did with the Old and New Covenants. Although, that analogy breaks down, in that, the New Covenant was part of God’s plan from the start, and the Old Covenant wasn’t actually broken due to a design flaw – it was intentional, just intended for a season.
When Jesus arrived on the scene in Bethlehem, he moved God’s will forward in history.
“‘Sanctified,’ here, as in ch. 2:11, includes the idea of expiation; it is to be... cleansed from guilt ... the main object of the quotation afterwards… was to shew that by his death remission of sins is obtained.” ~John Owen, 1853, Editorial notes in John Calvin’s Commentaries on… Hebrews
The word “will” in v.10 is not a future tense verb, it is the Greek noun thelema, which means “willpower/desire.” “[T]he covenant of grace... is the great design upon which the heart of God was set from all eternity. The will of God centers and terminates in it; and it is not more agreeable to the will of God than it is advantageous to the souls of men...” ~Matthew Henry
Greek grammar gurus distinguish the two prepositions in this verse between:
the cause of our salvation – (“ἐν/By/because of this will”) the divine “will/plan” which set everything in motion,
and the instrumental means of our salvation – “διὰ/through the offering of Christ’s body”
God has a will, and that will is for a redeemed people to fellowship with Him. Because He was so determined to get His will done, He conquered overwhelming obstacles of sin and justice in order to get what He wanted, and the most impressive feat was the incarnation, death10, and resurrection of His Son.
Ephesians 1:3-12 “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ, 4 just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love, 5 having predestined us to adoption as sons by Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will... 7 In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of His grace 8 which He made to abound toward us... 9 having made known to us the mystery of His will, according to His good pleasure which He purposed in Himself... predestined according to the purpose of Him who works all things according to the counsel of His will, 12 that we who first trusted in Christ should be to the praise of His glory.
God’s desire was to foreshadow His will for this redemption through the Mosaic law ceremonies, then to reveal the real shape of the instrument of His salvation in the person of His Son Jesus, and then through Jesus to “perfect those who approach” Him, removing their “guilty-conscience from sins... cleans[ing them] once-for-all… [so there would be no] remembrance of sins...” So God “fixed up a body for” His Son, and Jesus “entered into the world… to do [God’s] will” and “offer [his] body once-for-all-time” on the cross to set us – His people – apart from sin as holy, and so Jesus fulfilled God’s will of having His own special people. That’s my God!
If you are not experiencing a loving relationship with God, there is hope for you that you may be saved if He says salvation is His will. Will you believe what He says and trust Jesus Christ to save you and make you all-right? That’s the very thing God wants!
For those who have taken that step, you’re not done yet. This passage tells us that not just salvation but also sanctification is God’s will. The full council of scripture tells us that there is an initial setting apart that makes us holy/sanctified, but there is also an ongoing, lifelong process of increasing in holiness, so don’t stop with the “fire-insurance” of salvation; God’s will is for you to grow more and more like Christ. Do you see evidence of this maturing in sanctification in your life? If not, what can you do to stimulate it?
And, finally, if salvation and sanctification are what God wants, then He wants to use you to bring this good news to every family in every language.
What is probably most noticeable about this quote is that, in your Bible, Ps. 40:6 probably says, “but my ears you have pierced,” instead of, “but a body you have prepared for me.”
The reason is that the two oldest-known texts of this verse, namely the Septuagint from around 200BC and the book of Hebrews from around 50AD, both read “sacrifice and offering you did not desire, but a body you prepared for me,”
but there was immediate pushback from the Jewish community against such an obvious reference to a human sacrifice of the Messiah in place of animal and grain offerings, especially since this verse was being used by Christians (like the author of Hebrews) to convert people away from Judaism toward Christianity, so Jews like Aquila and Symmachus re-translated this Psalm into Greek between 100-300AD to read, “but my ears you have pierced/prepared.”
Gentile Christians, like Augustine in the 300’s, didn’t buy this Jewish edition. They used Latin versions that followed the Greek with, “a body you prepared.”
However, around the year 400AD, when Jerome made his Vulgate translation of the Bible into Latin, he, for reasons I don’t understand, temporarily abandoned his preference for the Greek Septuagint (which he said in his introduction was better than the Hebrew texts) and instead went with the reading of the Hebrew texts of his day for Psalm 40, bringing “my ears you have pierced” into the mainstream of Western Christianity for a thousand years.
Later in the 1500’s and following, when other Western Christians, started translating the Old Testament from Hebrew manuscripts instead of from the Latin Vulgate, the tradition of “my ears you have pierced” was carried into the English Bibles. But the Hebrew manuscripts they used were not very old (c. 1000AD), and they were developed by Jewish scribes who had a vested interest in avoiding the reading of “a body you prepared for me.”
(Unfortunately, the Dead Sea Hebrew manuscripts from around 0AD, are missing all but the first verse of Ps. 40, so we don’t have older Hebrew manuscripts available for comparison.)
Now, I am not trying to dismiss the “pierced ear” variant as heresy; I’m just trying to explain the history behind why Ps. 40 reads differently from Heb. 10 in most English Bibles. God appears to have allowed both variants to stand among His people. But it’s the “body prepared” variant which calls for our attention now, because that’s what’s in Hebrews 10.
LXX |
Greek NT |
NAW |
KJV |
NKJV |
NASB |
NIV |
ESV |
N/A |
1 Σκιὰν γὰρ ἔχων ὁ νόμος τῶν μελλόντων ἀγαθῶν, οὐκ αὐτὴν τὴν εἰκόνα τῶν πραγμάτων, κατ᾿ ἐνιαυτὸν ταῖς αὐταῖς θυσίαις ἃς προσφέρουσιν εἰς τὸ διηνεκὲςB, οὐδέποτε δύναται τοὺς προσερχομένους τελειῶσαι· |
1 For it is a shadow of the good things that are going to happen which the law has, not the shape itself of the matters, and [at] no time is it able to perfect those who approach with the same sacrifices which they are offering in perpetuity [year] after year. |
1
For the law having a shadow of X good things to
come,
and
not the |
1
For the law, having a shadow of the good things to
come,
and
not the |
1
For the Law, since it has only
a shadow of the good things
to come
and
not the |
1
X The law |
1
For since the law has [but] a shadow of the good things to
come
|
N/A |
2 ἐπεὶ οὐκ ἂν ἐπαύσαντο προσφερόμεναι, διὰ τὸ μηδεμίαν ἔχειν ἔτι συνείδησιν ἁμαρτιῶν τοὺς λατρεύοντας, ἅπαξ κεκαθαρ[ισ]μένουςC· |
2 Otherwise, wouldn’t they stop being offered, as a result of no one having a guilty-conscience from sins anymore, since the ministers had been cleansed once-for-all? |
2 For then would they not have ceased to be offered? because that the worshippers once purged X should have had no more conscience of sins. |
2 For then would they not have ceased to be offered? For the worshipers, once purified, X would have had no more consciousness of sins. |
2 Otherwise, would they not have ceased to be offered, because the worshipers, having once been cleansed, X would no longer have had consciousness of sins? |
2
If it could, would they not have stopped being offered? For the
worshipers would have been cleansed once for all, and would
no longer have X |
2 Otherwise, would they not have ceased to be offered, since the worshipers, having once been cleansed, would no longer have any consciousness of sins? |
N/A |
3 ἀλλ᾿ ἐν αὐταῖς ἀνάμνησις ἁμαρτιῶν κατ᾿ ἐνιαυτόν· |
3 On the contrary, by means of them, remembrance of sins is what has been happening [year] after year, |
3 But in those sacrifices there is a remembrance again made of sins every year. |
3 But in those sacrifices there is a reminder of sins every year. |
3 But in those sacrifices there is a reminder of sins [year] by year. |
3 But X those [sacrifices] are an annual reminder of sins, |
3 But in these [sacrifices] there is a reminder of sins every year. |
N/A |
4 ἀδύνατον γὰρ αἷμα ταύρων καὶ τράγων ἀφαιρεῖν ἁμαρτίας. |
4 for it is impossible for blood from bulls and from goats to take away sins. |
4 For it is not possible that [the] blood of bulls and of goats [should] take away sins. |
4 For it is not possible that [the] blood of bulls and X goats [could] take away sins. |
4 For it is impossible for [the] blood of bulls and X goats to take away sins. |
4 because it is impossible for [the] blood of bulls and X goats to take away sins. |
4 For it is impossible for [the] blood of bulls and X goats to take away sins. |
|
5 Διὸ εἰσερχόμενος εἰς τὸν κόσμον λέγει· θυσίαν καὶ προσφορὰν οὐκ ἠθέλησας, σῶμα δὲ κατηρτίσω μοι· |
5 On account of this, when he entered into the world, He said, “You did not desire a sacrifice or an offering, but you fixed up a body for me. |
5 Wherefore when he cometh into the world, he saith, Sacrifice and offering thou wouldest not, but a body hast thou prepared me: |
5 Therefore, when He came into the world, He said: "SACRIFICE AND OFFERING YOU DID NOT DESIRE, BUT A BODY YOU HAVE PREPARED FOR ME. |
5 Therefore, when He comes into the world, He says, "SACRIFICE AND OFFERING YOU HAVE NOT DESIRED, BUT A BODY YOU HAVE PREPARED FOR ME; |
5 Therefore, when [Christ] came into the world, he said: "Sacrifice and offering you did not desire, but a body you prepared for me; |
5 Consequently, when [Christ] came into the world, he said, "Sacrifice[s] and offering[s] you have not desired, but a body have you prepared for me; |
LXX |
Greek NT |
NAW |
KJV |
NKJV |
NASB |
NIV |
ESV |
Psalm
39:7 ὁλοκαύτωμα
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6 You did not delight in whole-burnt-offerings and [offerings] for sin. |
6 [In] burnt offerings and sacrifices for sin thou hast had no pleasure. |
6 [IN] BURNT OFFERINGS AND [SACRIFICES] FOR SIN YOU HAD NO PLEASURE. |
6 [IN] WHOLE BURNT OFFERINGS & sacrifices FOR SIN YOU HAVE TAKEN NO PLEASURE. |
6 [with] burnt offerings and X sin [offerings] you were not pleased. |
6 [in] burnt offerings and X sin [offerings]you have taken no pleasure. |
8 τότε εἶπον Ἰδοὺ ἥκω, ἐν κεφαλίδιF βιβλίου γέγραπται περὶ ἐμοῦ·9 τοῦ ποιῆσαι τὸ θέλημά σου, ὁ θεός μου, ἐβουλήθην... |
7 τότε εἶπον· ἰδοὺ ἥκω, ἐν κεφαλίδι βιβλίου γέγραπται περὶ ἐμοῦ, τοῦ ποιῆσαι, ὁ Θεός, τὸ θέλημά σουG. |
7 Then I said, ‘Look, I have arrived! In the volume of the book it has been written concerning me… to do Your will, my God.’” |
7 Then said I, Lo, I come (in the volume of the book it is written of me,) to do thy will, O God. |
7 THEN I SAID, 'BEHOLD, I HAVE COME — IN THE VOLUME OF THE BOOK IT IS WRITTEN OF ME— TO DO YOUR WILL, O GOD.' " |
7 "THEN I SAID, 'BEHOLD, I HAVE COME (IN THE SCROLL OF THE BOOK IT IS WRITTEN OF ME) TO DO YOUR WILL, O GOD.'" |
7 Then I said, 'Here [I am]—it is written about me in the scroll X X— I have come to do your will, O God.'" |
7 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.'" |
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8 ἀνώτερον λέγων ὅτι Θυσίας καὶ προσφορὰςH καὶ ὁλοκαυτώματα καὶ περὶ ἁμαρτίας οὐκ ἠθέλησας οὐδὲ εὐδόκησας, αἵτινες κατὰ [τὸνI] νόμον προσφέρονται, |
8 He said above that “you neither desired nor delighted in sacrifices and offerings and whole-burnt-offerings and those concerning sins,” which are being offered according to the Law. |
8 Above when he said, Sacrifice and offering and burnt offerings and offering for sin thou wouldest not, neither hadst pleasure therein; which are offered by the law; |
8 Previously saying, "SACRIFICE AND OFFERING X, BURNT OFFERINGS, AND [OFFERINGS] FOR SIN YOU DID NOT DESIRE, NOR HAD PLEASURE IN THEM" (which are offered according to the law), |
8
|
8
First
he said, "Sacrifices and offerings X, burnt offerings and X
sin [offerings] you did not desire,
nor were you pleased
with
them" ( |
8 When he said above, "You [have] neither desired nor taken pleasure in sacrifices and offerings and burnt offerings and X sin [offerings]" (these are offered according to the law), |
|
9 τότε εἴρηκεν· ἰδοὺ ἥκω... τοῦ ποιῆσαι τὸ θέλημά σουJ. ἀναιρεῖ τὸ πρῶτον ἵνα τὸ δεύτερον στήσῃK. |
9 Then He said, “Look, I have arrived… to accomplish your desire.” He is annihilating the first in order that He may establish the second! |
9 Then said he, Lo, I come to do thy will, O God. He taketh away the first, that he may establish the second. |
9 then He said, "BEHOLD, I HAVE COME TO DO YOUR WILL, O GOD." He takes away the first that He may establish the second. |
9
then He said, "BEHOLD,
I HAVE COME TO DO YOUR WILL."
He takes away the first in order |
9
Then he said, "Here [I am], I have come to do your will."
He |
9
then he |
N/A |
10 ἐνL ᾧ θελήματι ἡγιασμένοι ἐσμὲνM διὰ τῆς προσφορᾶς τοῦ σώματος [τοῦN] ᾿Ιησοῦ Χριστοῦ ἐφάπαξ. |
10 Because of His desire we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ singularly. |
10 By the which will we are sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all. |
10 By that will we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all. |
10 By this will we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all. |
10
[And] by that will,
we have been made holy through the |
10 [And] by that will we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all. |
1Instances of mellw- in Hebrews: 1:14 “Don't they all exist to be attending spirits commissioned into service on behalf of those who are about to inherit salvation? … 2:5 For it was not to angels that He made accountable the world that is about to be... though now we're not yet seeing all things having been made accountable to Him… 6:5 and having tasted the good word of God and also of the powers of the impending eon... 9:11 But Christ, the high priest of the good things which are about to happen… 15 is the mediator of a new covenant, so that the ones who have been called may receive the promise of the eternal inheritance. 10:27 fiery zeal that is about to devour our adversaries… 13:14 for we are not possessing here a city that remains but rather it is the one that is impending that we are eagerly-seeking...” (NAW)
2 Leviticus 24:7 “Then you must put clarified frankincense on top of each arrangement, and instead of the bread it will be [used] for a memorial [LXX ἀνάμνησιν] burnt-offering for Yahweh." (NAW) The only other instances in the LXX are Num. 10:10, the blowing of trumpets to remind the people of holidays, and Num. 5:15 “then shall the man bring his wife to the priest, and shall bring his gift for her, the tenth part of an ephah of barley-meal… it is a sacrifice of jealousy, a sacrifice of memorial, recalling sin to remembrance.” (Brenton)
3Chrysostom took this occasion to preach of the Lord’s Supper as “a remembrance of a Sacrifice” - so not the sacrifice itself, and John Calvin’s commentary gives further proofs against the Roman Catholic doctrine of the Eucharist being an actual repetition of the sacrifice of Christ. Chrysostom’s application was to “draw near” in Communion with a true heart more frequently.
4“[I] consider him as saying, that he deemed himself to be in the catalogue of those who render themselves obedient to God.” ~J.Calvin
5The Greek word in the Psalm (39:8 in LXX numbering) is different (ἥκω instead of εἰσερχόμενος), but the Hebrew בָ֑אתִי underlying both could accurately be translated either way, and the author of Hebrews needed to put the verb into a present participial form to express this idea as a temporal clause. Liddell & Scott commented in their Greek lexicon that “...ἔρχομαι to come or go serves as pres[ent tense] to… ἥκω...”
6John 6:14; 11:27; Revelation 1:4,8; 4:8; 11:17
7Matt. 3:17 “...a voice out of the heavens saying, ‘This is my beloved Son in whom I delight.’” (NAW, cf. Mt. 17:5; Mark 1:11; Luke 3:22; 2 Peter 1:17)
8Hebrews 7:15-16 “...a new priest of the order of Melchizedek 6 who came to be, not according to a law [κατὰ νόμον] of a command from flesh, but rather according to power from an indestructible life," … [but] 8:4 “...He'd never be a priest as long as there were those who offer these gifts according to the law [κατὰ νόμον], … [but] 10:8 ‘you neither desired nor delighted in sacrifices and offerings and whole-burnt-offerings and those concerning sins,’ which are being offered according to the Law [κατὰ νόμον]...” (NAW)
9Hebrews 8:6-8 “But actually He [Jesus] has turned out to have a more distinguished ministry, inasmuch as He is also the mediator of a better covenant which has been legally-instituted upon better promises. 7 For if that first one were problem-free, no occasion would have been sought for a second one, 8 yet when He identifies the problem He says to them, ‘Look, days are coming, the Lord says, when I will complete with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah a new covenant...’” (NAW)
10Unlike the animal sacrifices in the Old Testament era, this only had to happen once: Heb. 7:26 “For such a high priest was appropriate to us, one who is godly, innocent, undefiled, having been set-apart from sinners and having been instated higher than the skies, 27 who does not have a need to offer up sacrifices [day] after day like those high priests, first for their own sins, then for those of the people, for He did this singularly, when he offered up Himself! ... 9:11 Christ, the high priest of the good things which are about to happen, having come along through the greater and more perfect tabernacle... 12 singularly entered into the holy places, and not by means of the blood of goats or calves but by means of His own blood, after having obtained eternal redemption." (NAW)
AThe
Greek is the Majority text, edited by myself to follow the majority
of the earliest-known manuscripts only when the early manuscript
evidence is practically unanimous. My original document includes
notes on the NKJV, NASB, NIV, & ESV English translations, but
since they are all copyrighted, I cannot include them in my online
document. Underlined
words in English versions indicate a standalone difference from all
other English translations of a certain word. Strikeout
usually indicates that the English translation is, in my opinion,
too far outside the range of meaning of the original Greek word. The
addition of an X indicates a Greek word left untranslated – or
a plural Greek word translated as an English singular. [Brackets]
indicate words added in English not in the Greek. Key words are
colored consistently across the chart to show correlations.
BThis phrase occurs only 4 times in the Greek Bible, all in Hebrews 7:3; 10:1, 12, 14.
CAll (5) known Greek manuscripts from before the 9th century read with the bracketed letters in the middle of the word, but the majority of those after the 9th century (and thus the Patriarchal Greek Orthodox editions and the Textus Receptus) read without the bracketed letters. The only difference appears to be whether the root word is kathairw or katharizw, which are basically synonyms sharing the same root, so there is no difference in meaning.
DThis is the reading of the Chester-Beatty Papyrus, Vaticanus, Sinaiticus, Alexandrinus, etc. The Jewish tradition of “my ear you have pierced” (preserved in the Masoretic text of this psalm) was around at least as early as the 2nd century AD (Aquila: Symmachus , Theodotian & E & some LXX manuscripts combined the two with “I will prepare my ear.”) Rahlf’s 1935 edition of the LXX reads ὠτία δὲ κατηρτίσω μοι, so perhaps there were variants even within the LXX tradition. This would still point to our author referring to the Greek rather than to the Hebrew text of this Psalm. Other uses of this verb “prepared/fixed up/renewed/perfected” are to be found in Matt. 4:21; 21:16; Mk. 1:19; Lk. 6:40; Rom. 9:22; 1 Cor. 1:10; 2 Cor. 13:11; Gal. 6:1; 1 Thess. 3:10; Heb. 11:3; 13:21; 1 Pet. 5:10, so the word is by no means foreign to Scripture, whereas “pierced” + “ears” occurs nowhere else in scripture.
ERahlf’s edition of the LXX and the Vaticanus manuscript are agreed on this verb from aitew, “ask,” which is closer to the Hebrew Masoretic text of this verse: שָׁאָֽלְתָּ. Perhaps the Apostle chose a more-volitional verb which still carries the basic idea in order to further bring out the emphasis on the will of God being served in this.
FCf. Aquila ( =upper parts?), Symmachus (=common of the boundaries???), and E ( = edge?) This range of possible interpretation of the Hebrew word in the Psalm into Greek, also points to the probability that the author of Hebrews was looking at the Septuagint Greek rather than the Masoretic Hebrew text of this Psalm.
GAlthough the same words and meanings are kept, it is curious that the Greek text here switches the order of the words for “your will” and “my God.”
HAll (5) of the oldest-known Greek manuscripts (from before the 9th Century AD) read plural, as do all the Latin manuscripts, but almost all Greek manuscripts from the 9th Century forward read singular, matching the original Psalm and the quote of it three verses previous (thus the reading Θυσίαν καὶ προσφορὰν in the Textus Receptus and Greek Patriarchal editions and the singular reading in the English KJV). A switch to the plural is curious, but the author is clearly giving a looser summary of the Psalm rather than a rigid quote here. Perhaps the switch to the plural here is part of the strategy of piling up words to convey the idea of a vast plurality of sacrifices. The idea is not essentially different, just more exaggerated with the plurals.
IAll (5) of the oldest-known Greek manuscripts (from before the 6th Century AD) – plus quite a few others through the subsequent centuries – read without the definite article, but “the” is in the majority of manuscripts as well as in the traditional Greek editions (T.R., 1904 Patriarchal, Modern Greek Orthodox). It makes no difference in meaning.
JNone of the 6 manuscripts dated before the 9th century have “O God” here. There is already an elipsis in this quote from the Psalm, the fuller quote having already just been lined out, so there is no problem in there being another elipsis here, just as there is no problem in the fuller quote being rendered in the traditional Greek editions and the KJV. The majority of the older Latin, Syriac, and Ethopian translations, go with the shorter wording.
KAlthough the subjunctive verb is the clear majority text of both the oldest Greek manuscripts and the traditional Byzantine Greek manuscripts, the modern English versions nevertheless followed a half-dozen Greek manuscripts copied between the 9th and 13th centuries which render the verb as an infinitive.
LDespite the consensus of English translators on the instrumental meaning of this preposition, Hanna supported the causal meaning, as did the SIL team which tagged the GNT in 2017 with Louw & Nida semantic domains (L&N# 89.26 “cause or reason, with focus upon instrumentality”). I think it works to separate the actual instrumentality of the offering of Christ from the divine plan of salvation which instituted the offering, and it emphasizes the sovereignty of God in salvation.
MMost of the post-8th-Century Greek manuscripts add a nominative masculine plural definite article which would effectively turn the participle “having been sanctified” into a substantive predicate nominative (“We are those who have been sanctified”). It’s in only one of the editions of the Textus Receptus and not in any of the pre-8th-Century Greek manuscripts or Greek Orthodox or UBS editions or English versions. Without the definite article, we have a perfect periphrastic, which is usually understood in the perfect tense, according to Wallace’s Greek Grammar.
NOnly two known Greek manuscripts contain this definite article, but one of them is the oldest-known (Chester-Beatty Papyrus). The traditional Greek Orthodox editions and Textus Receptus all picked up on it. Fortunately it makes no difference in meaning since Jesus Christ is already definite as a proper noun.