Hosea 6:6 → Psalm 40:6-8

Hosea, addressing an Israel whose loyalty is "like a morning mist" (6:4), declares God's true desire: "I desire mercy [ḥesed], not sacrifice, and the knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings [ʿōlâ]" (6:6). Psalm 40:6-8 speaks the same word from the lips of Israel's king: "Sacrifice [zebaḥ] and offering You did not desire... burnt offerings [ʿōlâ] and sin offerings You did not require" — followed by his self-offering, "I delight to do Your will... Your law is within my heart." The two texts share the same diagnostic vocabulary (zebaḥ / ʿōlâ) and the same relativizing logic: the LORD does not finally desire the cult itself but the obedient, knowing, covenant-loyal heart the cult was meant to express. This is Echo, not citation — neither text quotes the other; they are sibling voices in the Old Testament's own prophetic chorus (1 Sam 15:22; Isa 1:11; Amos 5:21-24; Mic 6:6-8; Jer 7:21-23) that names the sacrificial system's provisional character from within. The connecting road to Christ is the Longitudinal Theme of sacrifice-and-atonement / heart-religion (not typology: there is no antitype or escalation between two prophetic critiques, only the unfolding of one motif; and not promise-fulfillment: neither text is a prediction the other discharges). That theme reaches its terminus where Psalm 40 points and Hosea 6 longs — in the One of whom Jesus says, quoting Hosea twice, "Go and learn what this means: 'I desire mercy, not sacrifice'" (Matt 9:13; 12:7), and who Himself comes saying "a body You have prepared for Me... I delight to do Your will" (Heb 10:5-7). The willing-obedience the prophets could only require, and the king could only pledge, the Son embodies and offers once for all. Here the deletion-test lands: strip away the foreshadowing and the heart of it remains desirable — a God who does not want our religious machinery but us, and who in Christ gives Himself the obedient heart we could never bring, so that mercy and self-giving love, not the grudging knife, become the very air of communion with Him.