Wherefore when he cometh into the world, he saith, Sacrifice and offering thou wouldest not, but a body hast thou prepared me:
Christ's voluntary self-offering, in contrast to those inefficient sacrifices, fulfils perfectly "the will of God" as to redemption, by completely stoning 'for (our) sins.'
Wherefore - seeing that a nobler than animal sacrifices was needed.
When he cometh - `coming.' The time referred to is before (or just at) His entrance into the world, when the inefficiency of animal sacrifices for expiation had been proved (Tholuck). х Eetheleesas (G2309) ... kateertisoo (G2675) are past: 'sacrifice, etc., thou didst not wish, but a body thou didst prepare for me;' but heekoo (G2240), present perfect, 'Lo, I am come:' to harmonize these times, refer 'am come' to his actual arrival in the world, or incarnation, the past tenses to God's purpose from eternity, regarded as if already fulfilled.] 'A body thou didst prepare in thy eternal counsel.' This is more likely than explaining, with Alford, 'coming into the world,' as entering on his public ministry. David in Psalms 40:1-17 (here quoted), reviews his past troubles and God's having delivered him, and his consequent desire to render willing obedience to God as more acceptable than sacrifices; but the Spirit puts into his month language finding its full realization only in the Divine Son of David. 'The more any son of man approaches the incarnate Son of God in office, or spiritual experience, the more may his holy breathings in the power of Christ's Spirit be taken as utterances of Christ himself. Of all men, the prophet-king of Israel foreshadowed him the most' (Alford).
A body hast thou prepared me - `thou didst fit for me a body.' 'In thy counsels thou didst determine to make for me a body, to be a sacrificial victim' (Wahl). In the Hebrew, Psalms 40:6, it is "mine ears heat thou opened," or 'dug.' Perhaps this alludes to boring the ear of a slave who volunteers to remain under his master when he might be free. Christ's assuming a body, in order to die the death of a slave (Hebrews 2:14), was a voluntary submission to God's service, like that of a slave suffering his ear to be bored by his master. His willing obedience to the Father's will is what gave especial virtue to his sacrifice for man (Hebrews 10:7; Hebrews 10:9-10). The fitting of a body for him is not with a view to His incarnation merely, but to His expiatory sacrifice (Hebrews 10:10), as the contrast to "sacrifice and offering" requires: cf. also Romans 7:4; Ephesians 2:16; Colossians 1:22. More probably 'opened mine ears,' means opened mine inward ear, to be obedient to what God wills me to do-namely, to assume the body He has prepared for my sacrifice. So Job, margin, Job 33:16; Job 36:10 (doubtless the boring of a slave's ear symbolized such willing obedience); Isaiah 1:5, "The Lord God hath opened mine ear" - i:e., made me obediently attentive as a slave to his master. Others, 'Mine ears hast thou digged,' or 'fashioned;' not with allusion to Exodus 21:6, but to the true office of the ear-a willing, submissive attention to God's voice. The forming of the ear implies the preparation of the body; this secondary idea, really in the Hebrew, though less prominent is the one which Paul uses for his argument. As he obediently assumed the body prepared by the Father, in which to make his self-sacrifice, so ought we present our bodies a living sacrifice (Romans 12:1).