Hebrews 10:7Meaning & Commentary from the Church Fathers

In what preceded, the Apostle proved that the sacrifices are useless for perfect cleansing, that they were only a prefiguration, and that they are wholly insufficient.

At this point an objection presented itself to him. If they are prefigurations, then why, when the truth has been received, have they not ceased and come to an end, but are still offered by the Jews?

Here he resolves this by showing that they are no longer offered as prefigurations, and that God does not accept them.

Again he proves this not from the New Testament, but from the prophets. From antiquity he brings the strongest testimony that the sacrifices have ceased and come to an end, and that the Jews offer them wholly in vain, always resisting the Holy Spirit.

“To do Thy will, O God” (Ps 39:8-9). Do you see that the sacrifices were rejected even before the Incarnation?

For after Thou hadst rejected the sacrifices, then I, Christ, said: “Behold, I come to do Thy will.”

The will of God the Father is that the Son should be slain for the world, so that men may be justified, not through sacrifices, but through the death of His Son.

For He says, “I have proclaimed Thy righteousness in the great congregation” (Ps 39:10).

Then, among other things, He says, “In the beginning of the book it is written of Me.” The words must be connected in this way.

By “the beginning of the book” he means the scroll of the law, or the book of the Old Testament.

Thus, in this book it is written about My coming and about My need to be slain for the world.

“Therefore, when He enters the world, He says: Sacrifice and offering Thou hast not desired, but a body hast Thou prepared for Me. In burnt offerings and sacrifices for sin Thou hast likewise had no pleasure. Then I said: Behold, I come. In the scroll of the book it is written of Me, to do Thy will, O God” (Ps 39:7-9).

Blessed Paul interprets this saying of the Master Christ (Heb 10:5-9), and most justly. For He is the firstfruits of our nature.

It is fitting for Him first to say what is required of us, and in Himself to prefigure what must be accomplished by us.

Thus He first approached baptism, showing us the grace of baptism. Thus He washed the feet of the disciples, setting before us the archetype of humility.

“Then I said: Behold, I come.” “Then” means when? When Thou didst reject the sacrifices of the law. For then I said, “Father, the hour has come; glorify Thy Son” (Jn 17:1).

The expression “Behold, I come” is used instead of, “As Thou seest, I am ready.”

“In the scroll of the book it is written of Me.” The Hebrews call the writings themselves books, and the scrolls “heads,” as, for example, “Son of man, eat this scroll” (Ezek 3:1).

At that time they wrote on scrolls, on narrow and long sheets, and not in four-cornered notebooks as we do now.

Thus the Savior says: concerning Me it is written in the scroll of the book, obviously the prophetic book. That is, the prophets foretold what concerns My becoming man.

The obscure words “in the chapter of the book” have been translated into Russian as “at the beginning of the book.” Yet even this does not clarify precisely which book the psalmist indicates, in which the mission of the Messiah into the world was written. The expression of the psalm is simplified and clarified by the Hebrew original, where instead of “chapter of the book” and “beginning of the book” there stands the phrase “scroll of the book.” Thus it is evident that the psalmist means not any one book of Scripture, but the whole sacred scroll of the book. In various places within it, the mission into the world of the Messiah, the Son of God, had been written.

Thus the sacrifices of the law could not cleanse the sins of man. For this reason Christ, when entering the world, directly declared that these sacrifices are not pleasing to God.

When speaking of this, the Apostle places in the mouth of Christ the words of Psalm 39:7-9. As is clear from its content, David in Psalm 39 had chiefly in view not himself, but the Messiah.

It was necessary to offer perfect obedience to God as a sacrifice. Therefore He prepared a body for the Messiah, that is, He gave Him the possibility of offering this perfect sacrifice for men, for which they themselves had no strength.

The Messiah submitted to this determination of the divine Council, made, of course, immediately after the fall of mankind.