Chiasmus and Hebrew "Negative Understatement" - Test Case: Heb 10:5-6 (Psa 40:6 LXX)

Hebrews 10:5-6

The author cited Psalm 40:6 from the Septuagint. (In the middle of Psalm 10:6, the Hebrew text has “…My ears you have opened…” NASB). It is a chiasmus, focusing on the middle statement.

Observe the chiasmus:

A [Greek text removed] Sacrifice and offering you did not desire,

B [Greek text removed] but/and a body you prepared for me;

A [Greek text removed] with burnt offerings and sin offerings you are not pleased.

I suggest that we do injustice to the Psalmist if we translate the outer lines as negations, as if God was rejecting of the sacrificial system in the Psalmist’s time. We should not translate them as negations of reality. Neither should we translate them as complaints, as if the Psalmist felt that God was a bit capricious, that he had changed his mind. We would make such a mistake worse if we translated two negative statements, emphasizing rejection. Neither should we imply that the Psalmist was suggesting a substitution for making animal sacrifices. He intended to continue to support the Temple rituals.

We must recognize that “you did not want/you are not wanting” and “you did not delight/you are not delighting” are Hebrew negative UNDERSTATEMENTS. The Psalmist used those lines to indicate that he recognized that God truly wanted PERSONAL COMMITMENT, more than the animal sacrifices alone. The first understatement, “Sacrifice and offering you did not desire” means ‘You desire an offering more personal than killed animals and meal offerings.’ The second understatement, “with burnt offerings and sin offerings you are not pleased” means ‘You will be pleased only if we give you more than burnt animals for our sins.’ The understatements are parallel in meaning, but THEY DO NOT EMPHASIZE A MEANING THAT IS COMMON TO THEMSELVES, as if they were a doublet. Rather, they focus on the statement between them. The Psalmist stated clearly his dedication in verses 7-8. Observe:

The Psalmist explicitly volunteered himself as a living faithful servant in the next statement. With the chiasmus, he emphasized the statement, “You have prepared for me a human body”

His references to ritual sacrifices implied “…a body that I might sacrifice.” He implied that he was DEDICATING HIMSELF as a LIVING servant.

The author of Hebrews interpreted that Christ volunteered his body as a sacrifice to be KILLED.

Further, in a translation, we need a citation that will be ambiguous enough to be spoken by a person who is dedicating himself to serve as living servant but can be understood as spoken by a person who is expecting to die. I am suggesting translating the important statement up front and collapsing the statement-restatement.

"You have prepared this my body so that I might give it as sacrifice, since you have desired that I give you [to translate “offerings”] something more than meal offerings, burned animals, even more than those sacrifices for those who have sinned."

Now, I think that no one will dispute that this is a chiasmus, or that the focus in on the reference to the body that God prepared. Some are likely to dispute my suggestion that the outer lines are negative understatements that the Psalmist used to imply that God was expecting more than animal sacrifices. If “negative understatements” is not fitting, what might we call the figure of speech?

Serving Christ with you, Willis Ott

Note on brother Willis: Willis Ott became interested in Bible translation while in high school. He majored in Biblical studies in college. He and his wife joined the Summer Institute of Linguistics [Wycliffe Bible Translators] in 1954 and completed a translation project for the Ignaciano people of Bolivia. He was a translation consultant in Bolivia and has served as consultant in Botswana, Ethiopia, Guatemala, Kenya, The Democratic Republic of Congo (formerly Zaire), Peru, Mozambique and Sudan. After 44 years of service with the Summer Institute of Linguistics, he is retired and is living in Waxhaw, North Carolina.