Psalms 40: What the Passage Says

The Chapter in a Sentence

The psalm opens with thanks: the speaker waited for the LORD, was lifted out of a pit and set on solid rock, and was given a new song. He says God did not ask for sacrifices and offerings but opened his ears, and he has announced God's faithfulness and saving help in the great assembly. The second half turns to a plea, because troubles and his own sins have surrounded him: he asks God to hurry and rescue him, to shame those who want to kill him, and to give joy to those who seek him. It closes with the speaker calling himself poor and needy and asking God not to delay.

Claim by Claim

1. 40:1
   • The speaker waited for the LORD.
   • The LORD turned toward the speaker.
   • The LORD heard the speaker's cry.
2. 40:2
   • The LORD brought the speaker up out of a pit of destruction.
   • The LORD brought the speaker out of the mud and mire.
   • The LORD set the speaker's feet on a rock.
   • The LORD made the speaker's steps secure.
3. 40:3
   • The LORD put a new song in the speaker's mouth.
   • That song is praise to our God.
   • Many will see it.
   • Many will fear.
   • Many will trust in the LORD.
4. 40:4
   • Blessed is the man who makes the LORD his trust.
   • Blessed is the man who does not turn to the arrogant.
   • Blessed is the man who does not turn to those who go astray after falsehood.
5. 40:5
   • The wonders the LORD my God has done are many.
   • The LORD's thoughts toward us are many.
   • Nothing can be set in order beside the LORD, or the LORD's deeds cannot be recounted to him in order.
   • If the speaker were to declare and speak of them, they would be more than can be counted.
6. 40:6
   • The LORD did not desire sacrifice and offering.
   • The LORD dug open ears for the speaker.
   • The LORD did not require burnt offering and sin offering.
7. 40:7
   • The speaker then said, 'Behold, I have come.'
   • The speaker said that it is written about him in the scroll of the book.
8. 40:8
   • The speaker delights to do the will of his God.
   • God's law is inside the speaker's inward parts.
9. 40:9
   • The speaker has proclaimed righteousness in the great assembly.
   • The speaker has not restrained his lips.
   • The speaker says the LORD knows this.
10. 40:10
    • The speaker has not hidden God's righteousness inside his heart.
    • The speaker has declared God's faithfulness.
    • The speaker has declared God's salvation.
    • The speaker has not concealed God's steadfast love and truth from the great assembly.
11. 40:11
    • The speaker asks the LORD not to withhold his compassions from him.
    • The speaker says God's steadfast love and truth will continually guard him, or asks that they continually guard him; the wording allows either.
12. 40:12
    • Evils beyond counting have surrounded the speaker.
    • The speaker's iniquities have overtaken him.
    • The speaker is not able to see.
    • The speaker's iniquities are more numerous than the hairs of his head.
    • The speaker's heart has failed him.
13. 40:13
    • The speaker asks the LORD to be pleased to rescue him.
    • The speaker asks the LORD to hurry to help him.
14. 40:14
    • The speaker asks that those who seek his life to destroy it be put to shame and confounded together.
    • The speaker asks that those who desire his harm be turned back and disgraced.
15. 40:15
    • The speaker asks that those who say to him 'Aha, aha' be appalled as the payment of their shame.
16. 40:16
    • The speaker asks that all who seek God rejoice and be glad in him.
    • The speaker asks that those who love God's salvation say continually, 'The LORD be magnified.'
17. 40:17
    • The speaker is poor and needy.
    • The Lord thinks upon the speaker, or the speaker asks that the Lord think upon him; the wording allows either.
    • God is the speaker's help and deliverer.
    • The speaker asks his God not to delay.

Words Worth Explaining

Every language note in this chapter, gathered. These explain what a word meant, never what it means for the reader.

40:1

LORD printed in capitals stands for the personal name of God in Hebrew (the four letters usually written YHWH), which Jewish readers did not pronounce; where the text has the ordinary word for "master, lord" (as in verse 17) it is printed "Lord" in normal type. "He bent down toward me" is a physical image, stooping and turning an ear the way you lean toward someone speaking from below.

40:2

A "pit" in this world was a real thing: a cistern or storage hole cut into rock, sometimes used as a prison, with sludge at the bottom and smooth sides no one could climb. The same word is also a common image for the grave, so the line can be heard either as rescue from danger or rescue from death.

40:3

A "new song" is a fixed expression in the Psalms for the song of thanks composed and sung publicly after a rescue, as opposed to the standing repertoire of temple songs.

40:4

The Hebrew word behind "happy" is a congratulation ("how fortunate is the person who…"), rather than a description of a mood. "Proud people" translates a rare word that some take as arrogant men and others as boastful false gods; "lies" is frequently used elsewhere of idols, so the two halves may be describing the same thing.

40:5

The middle phrase is genuinely unclear in Hebrew. It can mean "no one can be set alongside you" (so: nothing compares to you) or "they cannot be laid out in order before you" (so: the list is too long to recite). Translations split between the two.

40:6

Four kinds of temple gift are named. A "sacrifice" was an animal killed and shared as a meal, a "grain offering" a gift of flour or baked grain, a "burnt offering" an animal burned up whole so that none was eaten, and a "sin offering" the animal brought to put right a specific wrong. Naming them in pairs like this is a way of saying "the whole system." "You have opened my ears" is literally "ears you have dug for me", an odd phrase, usually understood as being given the ability to hear and obey. The ancient Greek translation read it instead as "a body you have prepared for me," and that is the form quoted in the New Testament.

40:7

Books in this period were scrolls, long sheets of papyrus or leather rolled on a rod, so "the volume of the book" simply means "the scroll." Which scroll is not stated: proposals include the written law, a royal record, or a book listing what is required of the speaker.

40:8

"Law" translates torah, which means instruction or teaching as much as legislation, the whole body of what God has directed, not only a legal code.

40:9

The "great gathering" is the crowd of worshipers assembled at the sanctuary, the normal setting for paying a vow of thanks out loud. The verb behind "announced" is the one used for a herald bringing good news.

40:10

"Steady love" renders hesed, the loyalty owed within a binding relationship, reliable commitment rather than warm feeling. The word paired with it, translated "truth," means dependability, being solid and worth relying on, more than factual accuracy.

40:11

"Tender mercy" translates a word built on the Hebrew for womb; it carries the sense of the gut-level compassion of a parent for a child.

40:12

The word rendered "sins" covers the wrong act, the guilt it leaves, and the trouble that follows from it, all in one term, which is why the sins can be pictured as chasing the speaker down. "So that I cannot see" is what the Hebrew says; some take it as literal failing eyesight from distress, others as being unable to look up or see a way out. "Heart" in Hebrew usage is the seat of thought, will and courage, not of feeling.

40:13

Verses 13 to 17 appear a second time in the Bible, almost word for word, as Psalm 70. Psalms circulated as separate songs and were collected later, so the same piece could be preserved both on its own and as the closing section of a longer psalm.

40:14

"Hunting my life" translates a phrase using nephesh, which means a person's life or self, the breathing creature, not a soul as distinct from a body. To seek someone's nephesh is to be out to kill them.

40:15

"Aha! Aha!" reproduces a Hebrew exclamation of malicious delight, the noise made by someone enjoying another's downfall.

40:16

To "magnify" someone here means to declare them great in public, not to enlarge them; it is a shout of acclamation.

40:17

"Poor and needy" is a standard pairing in the Psalms for someone with no resources and no protector, dependent on outside help; it describes a position of powerlessness and is not necessarily a statement about money. Note also that "Lord" here is the ordinary word for master, not the divine name used elsewhere in the psalm. Verses 13 to 17 appear again, with small differences, as the whole of Psalm 70.