Psalms 39:7

Sacrifice and oblation. Neither bloody nor unbloody sacrifices of the law will do. (Menochius) --- Pierced ears. Septuagint and St. Paul read, a body thou hast fitted to me, Hebrews x. 5. (Haydock) --- Nobilius mentions, that he found the reading of the Vulgate in one Greek manuscript in Eusebius, &c. --- The Arabic has both. "Thou hast prepared a body for me, and opened my ears." (Calmet) --- Both are, in effect, of divine authority. The version adopted by St. Paul, cannot be rejected, no more than the Hebrew confirmed by the Vulgate. James Pierce asserts, that the Hebrew is incorrect, oznaim being put for az zip, "then a body," as the letters are not unlike. The dissertation is ingenious: the author is, however, suspected of Socinianism. We know not the reason why the Vulgate here abandons the Septuagint. The sense is much the same; the prophet noticing the entire obedience of the Messias, (Berthier) and the apostle comprising his whole person. (Menochius) --- His body was miraculous, (Haydock) and the incarnation the work of God. (Calmet) --- Nothing could come up to his submission. "Thou has dug ears for me," (St. Jerome; Haydock) alluding to the custom of making slaves for ever, (Exodus xxi. 5.) or "thou hast fitted, (Calmet) opened, (Protestants) my ears," enabling me to hear, and to obey. (Haydock) --- The sacrifice of Christ was never interrupted, from the first moment of his incarnation. (Calmet) --- He was always doing the will of his Father. (Haydock) --- This sacrifice is the most essential. God rejected all such as were destitute of this condition, or were not offered by people determined to observe the whole law, 1 Kings xv. 22., Isaias i. 11., and Jeremias vii. 22. (Porphyrius, Abs. ii.) (Calmet) --- No sacrifice of the Old Testament was sufficient to satisfy God's justice for sin. Christ, by the ear of obedience, performed the redemption of man by his death, as was determined from eternity. See Hebrews x. (Worthington) --- And is omitted in the Latin version of St. Paul, holocautomata pro peccato, inadvertently, or rather to intimate, that he was speaking of the holocaust of expiation, Hebrews x. 6, 8., and xiii. 11., and Leviticus xvi. 27. (Berthier) --- St. Augustine also admits only one species of sacrifice, "holocausts likewise for sin." But others distinguish them from the victims designed to expiate the sins of individuals, (Leviticus v., &c.) of which the prophet also speaks. (Calmet)