Ps. 40.7 (theological chronology)

“Then I said / “Look / I have come!” – it is written about me / in the scroll of the book.” From the ‘digging of the king’s ears’ we now come to see the king as responsive to his choosing by Yhwh. In Deuteronomy 17.15 we read that when Israel seeks to have a king they must choose the one Yhwh has chosen for them. There is clearly the sense that any ‘appointment’ by Israel must be grounded on the prior choosing of Yhwh such that when the king ascends the throne he is stepping into a role appointed, not by Israel, but by Yhwh himself; as Psalm 2 makes clear, the anointed king is the adopted son of Yhwh. This ‘theological chronology’ is embodied in this verse as it stands in relation to the previous: Yhwh ‘digs the king’s ears’ and then, in response to Yhwh’s ‘call’, the king steps forward and says, “Look I have come!”. The very ability of the king to “come” is premised on Yhwh’s prior choosing of him and making him able to respond to the call in the first place (Yhwh’s ‘digging of his ears’). One cannot help but see in these verses something reminiscent of the creation of Adam, as Yhwh ‘fashions out of the dirt’ the ‘first man’ who responds, utterly, to his voice, while here Yhwh, in a very graphic sense, ‘digs the ears of the king’ (thereby ‘creating for himself’ a ‘first man’) who then, without hesitation, responds to Yhwh’s appointment/call. As we indicated in our first reflection, when verse 1 is seen from this vantage point it becomes much deeper in its resonance: “I have waited patiently for Yhwh…”. Israel understood her king to be especially crafted by Yhwh to be able to hear his ‘wisdom’ and to rule accordingly. A second aspect of this verse that will become more important later are the king’s words, “I have come.” If the first aspect of the psalm focused on the theological chronology of choosing and response, these words will ‘reverse’ that chronology. Now, the king will say “I have come” to Yhwh and demand, in turn, that Yhwh come to him. Again, this same dynamic is seen in verse 1: “I have waited patiently for Yhwh” means “I cried out to you and you heard my cries.” So, while Yhwh has certainly fashioned for himself (for Israel) a vessel for his Torah, this vessel, simultaneously, is understood to be the voice that beckons Yhwh to come to Israel. As we saw in Psalm 2, this is the (inter)play between Yhwh and ‘his son’.