Charles Ellicott Commentary Psalms 40:6

"Sacrifice and offering thou hast no delight in; Mine ears hast thou opened: Burnt-offering and sin-offering hast thou not required." — Psalms 40:6 (ASV)

Mine ears hast thou opened. —Literally, Ears you have dug for me, which can hardly mean anything but “You have given me the sense of hearing.”

The words are an echo of 1 Samuel 15:22. The attentive ear and obedient heart, not formal rites, constitute true worship. Compare the words so frequent on the lips of Christ, He that hath ears to hear let him hear.

The fact that the plural ears is used instead of the singular sets aside the idea of a revelation, which is expressed in Isaiah 48:8 by “open the ear” and in 1 Samuel 9:15 by “uncover the ear.” Not that the idea is altogether excluded, since the outward ears may be typical of the inward.

The same fact excludes allusion to the symbolic act by which a slave was devoted to perpetual servitude (Exodus 21:6), because then also only one ear was bored. For the well-known variation in the Septuagint, see New Testament Commentary,Hebrews 10:5. The latest commentator, Grätz, is of the opinion that the text is corrupt and emends to, “Should you desire sacrifice and offering, I would select the fattest,” a most desirable result if his arguments, which are too minute for insertion, were accepted.