Psalm 40

Today I was kind of blown away by the consistency of God's story. Back in the summer, a friend and I were reading Psalm 40 and we stopped at verse 6. We re-read it. And then read it a third time. We were baffled by the words,

"Sacrifice and offering you did not desire, but my ears you have pierced; burnt offerings and sin offerings you did not require."

I don't remember the exact conversation that we had, but I remember my thoughts going something like this: "This is the Old Testament. What do you mean you didn't require burnt offerings and sin offerings? I mean, HELLO GOD! Have you read Leviticus lately? The ENTIRE BOOK is about how you require offerings for sin!"

So just this weekend, I turned back to Psalm 40 and read it again. And I thought and thought. Finally, about 48 hours later, I realize once again how amazing God is. It's so unbelievable that in the culture of the Israelites in 1000 BC, where their entire way of life was sin, sacrifice, sin, sacrifice, on and on and on, God was already preparing them to understand that it's not about their stupid goats. (Not that goats are stupid. I actually sort of like goats.) 1,000 years before Jesus became the full and complete sacrifice, God was already cluing them in to his ultimate redemptive plan. Jesus even quotes it in Hebrews 10:5-7, when he says that it's impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins. Instead the sacrifices were just an annual reminder of sins.

The whole "my ears you have pierced" thing seemed sort of out of place in there though so I looked up some commentary on it. There was a custom that if you bought a Hebrew slave, you could have the slave for six years but you had to let him go free on the seventh year. If he declared his love for his master and wished to stay instead of being free, the master would pierce his ear and he would stay with his master forever. So then it makes me think that maybe it has to do with us. That by declaring our love for God and desiring to stay with him forever (when he has given us the option to turn away), he has "pierced our ears" as a symbol of our belonging to him forever.

So then the verse puts our eternal belonging to God in the middle of explaining that sacrifices and burnt offerings are not necessary.

I'm so glad that God doesn't require offerings anymore cuz I sure do like a goat. :)