Psalms 40:5-15

5 How much you have done, ADONAI my God! Your wonders and your thoughts toward us -none can compare with you! I would proclaim them, I would speak about them; but there's too much to tell!
6 Sacrifices and grain offerings you don't want; burnt offerings and sin offerings you don't demand. Instead, you have given me open ears;
7 so then I said, "Here I am! I'm coming! In the scroll of a book it is written about me.
8 Doing your will, my God, is my joy; your Torah is in my inmost being.
9 I have proclaimed what is right in the great assembly; I did not restrain my lips, ADONAI, as you know.
10 I did not hide your righteousness in my heart but declared your faithfulness and salvation; I did not conceal your grace and truth from the great assembly."
11 ADONAI, don't withhold your mercy from me. Let your grace and truth preserve me always.
12 For numberless evils surround me; my iniquities engulf me - I can't even see; there are more of them than hairs on my head, so that my courage fails me.
13 Be pleased, ADONAI, to rescue me! ADONAI, hurry and help me!
14 May those who seek to sweep me away be disgraced and humiliated together. May those who take pleasure in doing me harm be turned back and put to confusion.
15 May those who jeer at me, "Aha! Aha!" be aghast because of their shame.

Psalms 40:5-15 Meaning and Commentary

To the chief Musician, a Psalm of David. Jarchi interprets this psalm of the Israelites, and of their deliverance and song at the Red sea. The title of it, in the Syriac version, is, "A psalm of David according to the letter, when Shemaiah brought the names of those who minister in the house of the Lord;" see 1 Chronicles 24:6; according to Kimchi, the subject of this psalm is the same with that of the two preceding; and R. Obadiah thinks it was composed by David, when he was recovered of a leprosy; but though it might be written by David, it was not written concerning himself, or on his own account, but of another. The title of this psalm is somewhat different from others in the order of the words; whereas it is usually put "a psalm of," or "for David"; here it is, "for David, a psalm"; and may be rendered, as Ainsworth observes, "a psalm concerning David"; not literally, but typically understood; not concerning David himself, but concerning his antitype and son, who is called by his name, Ezekiel 37:24; and that it is to be interpreted of him is evident from the application of Psalm 39:6, unto him by the apostle in Hebrews 10:5; and the whole of it is applicable to him; some apply it to Jeremiah in the dungeon, and others to Daniel in the den, as Theodoret observes.
Complete Jewish Bible Copyright 1998 by David H. Stern. Published by Jewish New Testament Publications, Inc. All rights reserved. Used by permission.