Psalm 40:6, ears you have dug, or a body you have prepared?
The New Testament says “a body you have prepared” because it quotes the Greek Septuagint; Psalm 40:6 has “ears you have dug” in the Hebrew. The two wordings use different bodily images.
The APB text at this verse
The manuscripts, editions, and versions
The committee record at this verse
The APB is translated by a committee of language models that works blind. The translators are never told they are translating the Bible, never given a book name or a verse number, and never shown the witnesses listed above. Where the manuscripts disagree, the choice between readings is made before translation by the same kind of translator working the same way: it sees the competing readings and the witnesses by age and class, but never a reference or a manuscript name. There are 14,877 such places. For APB 4.0 every one was decided again in October 2026. GPT-6.1 Sol decided every one first. Claude Fable 5.1, from another model family, decided 2,483 of them second, including every place where the first translator left the base text. A departure from the base text needs both translators to agree and the first to be at least 0.8 confident. There is no third translator, so the base text stands when the two disagree. APB 4.0 is translated over those decisions. Whatever was done at this verse was done on the language and the evidence alone, and the record is public.
The committee's printed text follows the ears reading: “You did not delight in sacrifice and offering; you dug ears for me.” The APB places this wording in Psalm 40:7 under its source numbering. The printed verse retains the image of dug ears between the statements about offerings.
The argument for each reading
If the Greek's “body”
The Septuagint reads “but a body you have prepared for me.” Its wording presents a prepared body where the Hebrew presents dug ears. The Greek phrase is a smooth paraphrase of the Hebrew's startling image, and the New Testament quotes the Greek wording. That connection explains why the body reading matters for comparison with Psalm 40:6. The Septuagint gives the quotation its wording, which the New Testament places on the Messiah's lips. The difference changes the image through which the speaker describes what God has done for him.
If the Hebrew's “ears”
The Masoretic Text reads “ears you have dug for me.” Its image pictures obedience through an opened ear. The case for retaining ears in Psalm 40:6 rests on that Hebrew wording and the concrete image it preserves. The verse places the phrase between statements that God did not desire sacrifice and offering and did not ask for burnt offering and sin offering. In that setting, the opened ear gives obedience a bodily image of its own. Translating the phrase with ears preserves the Hebrew's startling expression and makes its difference from the Greek visible.
The difference between the Hebrew and Greek wording is clear. The precise path from dug ears to a prepared body remains uncertain. Both expressions describe something God has done for the speaker. The variant changes that bodily image; it does not by itself settle a doctrine about the Messiah or obedience.
Related entries
Witness readings for critical editions are quoted from the SBLGNT apparatus (CC BY 4.0); Hebrew text from the Westminster Leningrad Codex (Open Scriptures Hebrew Bible). Readings of ancient manuscripts and versions are cited from the sources linked above.