Dig Out Your Ears! Hebrews, the LXX and Psalm 40
In celebration of “International Septuagint Day” Tyler Williams presents us with some Reasons to Study the Septuagint (in Honour of International Septuagint Day). I had also recently listened to D. A Carson’s sermon/lecture at UCCF Staff Training Conference on Psalm 40 where he talks about his understanding of how the LXX translates verse 40:7 and how Hebrews uses this psalm. Then Michael Heiser blogs about Hebrews’ quotation of Psalm 40:6-8 in The Naked Bible. He links to an article by Karen Jobes The Function of Paronomasia in Hebrews 10:5-7 where she contends that the author was using paronomasia for rhetorical effect.
So I thought it would be interesting to talk about Hebrews’ use of Psalm 40:7 by looking at Carson’s exposition and raising some questions. The reason why I think Carson’s treatment is useful is because he is not trying to get into technical stuff but wants to make Psalm 40 understood as a whole. I also thought it was a worthwhile exercise to see how he dealt with Hebrews’ use of Psalm 40.
Here is the passage in Psalm 40:7 (LXX 39:7):
Sacrifice and offering you did not desire, but my ears you have pierced; burnt offerings and sin offerings you did not require. (NIV)
* The LXX has “my ears you have prepared”
And Hebrews 10:5:
Therefore, when Christ came into the world, he said: “Sacrifice and offering you did not desire, but a body you prepared for me; (NIV)
D. A Carson prefers to understand אזנים כרית לי (“my ears you have dug”) as “my ears you have opened.” He says his mother often used unusual cockney expressions and that one of them was “dig out your ears!” whenever she wanted to get her children’s attention. Carson suspects that something similar is happening with the expression “my ears you have dug out.” Although he acknowledges the possibility that “my ears you have dug” could refer to a ceremony where someone would become a permanent slave to his master, there are enough problems (like “ears” instead of “ear”) that he thinks we are better off using a different explanation.
The way he deals with Hebrews’ quotation of this verse in chapter 10 is to say that 1) it is relying on the LXX and 2) when the LXX translator tried to translate “my ears you have dug,” he knew it would not make any sense in Greek and opted for a paraphrase. Here is what he says,
“In fact that is the way ['a body have you prepared for me'] is found in the LXX…So somebody made this change in moving from Hebrew to Greek even before the NT era. Why? There is not a lot of evidence to be sure – one should not be too cynical too fast when there is not a lot of evidence…
My guess is that when the LXX translator came to this line ‘my ears you’ve dug out,’ he thought, ‘if I put that literally nobody will understand that one — that is so weird!’ So he put down a paraphrase ‘I am yours,’ ‘my body is yours.’”
This was a bit confusing because if this is what the LXX is doing, it would make more sense that the background behind the Hebrew text is one of a slave giving himself permanently to his master (I’m permanently yours). The paraphrase “a body you have prepared” would be very strange if the original meaning was “my ears would have opened” (itself a paraphrase) which is the one Carson prefers. However, Carson makes a connection between “my ears you’ve dug out” (you have opened) in Psalm 40:7 with the Servant Song in Isaiah 50:1ff (whose Hebrew is different but he thinks the same thought applies):
The Lord GOD has given me the tongue of those who are taught, that I may know how to sustain with a word him who is weary. Morning by morning he awakens; he awakens my ear to hear as those who are taught.
“It is precisely because the Suffering Servant has had his ears open to the will of God that he submits to all this abuse manifested perfectly in the Lord Jesus who says ‘not my will but yours be done’ because his ears were opened to hear and do his Father’s will.”
When we go back to Hebrews, Carson says that because Christ’s perfect obedience was in line with the Suffering Servant song which turns on the Suffering Servant having an open ear to listen to the demand of his heavenly Father, he suffered the abuse. Jesus presents his whole body, his whole being before God.
So here is how he deals with Hebrews’ use of Psalm 40:
| 1) “My ears you have dug out” is probably best understood as “my ears you have opened.”
2) This same “thought” is expressed in Isaiah 50:1ff with the Suffering Servant having an open ear to listen. 3) The LXX translated/paraphrased “my ears you have dug out” as “a body have you prepared for me” which essentially means “I am yours.” 4) Hebrews uses the LXX’s translation to highlight Christ’s perfect obedience in presenting his whole body before the Father. 5) This is in line with the Suffering Servant whose ears are opened as David’s were in Psalm 40. |
One thing that Carson does not mention is the fact that the LXX actually does not translates Psalm 40:7 the same way as the Hebrew:
Sacrifice and offering you have not desired; but ears have you prepared for me: whole-burnt-offering and sacrifice for sin you did not require. (Psalm 39:7, LXX)
Of course, Carson is relying on some manuscripts that contain soma (body). Here is what George H. Guthrie says,
Although it is true that LXX B S A have soma, these probably should be read as corrections by scribes wishing to bring the manuscripts in line with Hebrews’ quotation (Commentary on the NT Use of the OT, 2007, 977)
I think this is a significant piece of information even if Carson thinks there is reason to believe soma was in the original. If soma was not in the LXX (which seems to be the consensus opinion) then one has to deal with why Hebrews makes the changes it does. This is where Karen Jobes’ article comes in which is also used by Guthrie who believes it may explain the variations.
Even if Hebrews quotes the LXX with soma, I was surprised at the line of reasoning that Carson used to explain the link between Psalm 40 and Hebrews 10. To me, it raises more question in terms of methodology than it gives answers. I do appreciate the way Carson tries to draw broad theological connections between Hebrews and Psalm 40 in order to read it holistically. I just question if the connections he makes are the ones that should be drawn.
Although Jobes’ article is very helpful and may be right in drawing our attention to the phonetic assonances in the way Hebrews quotes Psalm 40 (although the lack of assonance in the last part is curious), it still doesn’t grapple with an important question that was asked in Three Views on the NT Use of the OT: can we today replicate the NT writers use of the OT? Or more specifically: can we today, in light of the Christ event, use rhetorical techniques in order to emphasize the “continuity and discontinuity” of texts in the OT? If yes, how? If no, why?
I may be reading too much into Carson’s exposition, but I get the feeling that by his attributing the translation to the LXX as a “paraphrase,” he has managed to avoid all these questions so that he could concentrate on broader theological contours in biblical theology.
I think this shows us why it is important to study the LXX because the way we read it may influence our reading of other parts of the Bible. In that sense the LXX does not just serve as “a theological lexicon for the writers of the NT” (see Tyler Williams’ post) but it also helps us see what it is that the NT writers were doing when they read the Law, the Prophets and the Psalms.
