Psalm 118

Psalms 118:1-4

The psalm opens where it will close, O give thanks unto the Lord; for he is good: because his mercy endureth for ever, the refrain that frames the whole Hallel set and this psalm in particular. Three calls to say it follow in order, Israel, then the house of Aaron, the priesthood, then them that fear the Lord, a widening circle from nation to priest to every God fearing Gentile who joins the worship, so the bench reads the third group. Spurgeon calls this the marching order of the Hallel, each rank of the congregation summoned in turn to the same one word.

Psalms 118:5-7

I called upon the Lord in distress: the Lord answered me, and set me in a large place moves from a narrow trouble to open room, the Hebrew picture of confinement replaced by space to move, which Delitzsch reads as the psalm's own definition of salvation. The Lord is on my side; I will not fear: what can man do unto me is quoted by the writer of Hebrews in substance at Heb 13:6, and the bench treats the two as the same confession under pressure. The Lord taketh my part with them that help me repeats the claim a third way, the Lord numbered among the psalmist's own helpers rather than only their source.

Psalms 118:8-9

It is better to trust in the Lord than to put confidence in man is repeated in the next verse with princes in the place of man, the two together naming the whole ladder of human power, the ordinary man and the ruler alike, as equally unable to bear what only the Lord bears. Some editions of the Hebrew Bible mark this pair of verses as the Psalter's own center point by the count of verses on either side, a fact Delitzsch reports as a Masoretic tradition rather than the psalm's own claim. Henry notes that princes are named specifically because a king is the very figure this psalm's speaker turns out to be, so the confession costs him something a common worshiper does not pay.

Psalms 118:10-12

All nations compassed me about repeats three times with growing intensity, the second verse doubling it, they compassed me about, yea, they compassed me about, the third comparing the enemy to bees, quenched as the fire of thorns, a fire that flares bright and dies fast. Each round of the refrain ends the same way, but in the name of the Lord will I destroy them, the name invoked as the weapon rather than the psalmist's own strength. Barnes reads the historical setting as a national deliverance from a coalition of enemies, most naturally fitting a king's own battle report rather than a private individual's trouble.

Psalms 118:13-14

Thou hast thrust sore at me that I might fall names the danger honestly, the psalmist nearly overthrown, but the Lord helped me closes it in the same verse without delay. The Lord is my strength and song, and is become my salvation quotes Exod 15:2 almost word for word, the song Moses sang at the Red sea placed in this psalm's own mouth, and the bench reads the borrowing as deliberate, one deliverance interpreted through the memory of the first. Delitzsch notes the same line returns at Isa 12:2, the exodus song's words recurring across the canon at moments of national rescue.

Psalms 118:15-16

The voice of rejoicing and salvation is in the tabernacles of the righteous moves the scene from battlefield to home, victory celebrated in the ordinary tents of the people rather than only at the palace. The right hand of the Lord doeth valiantly is then repeated twice more in the next verse, the right hand of the Lord is exalted, the right hand of the Lord doeth valiantly, the triple repetition itself the point, Gill notes, since the psalm has no better way to say the deliverance was entirely his doing. Barnes reads tabernacles here as the temporary dwellings of a still largely rural Israel, the celebration reaching every household rather than only the city.

Psalms 118:17-18

I shall not die, but live, and declare the works of the Lord answers a danger the psalm never states outright, a brush with death close enough that the psalmist names his survival as the whole point of staying alive, to tell what happened. The Lord hath chastened me sore: but he hath not given me over unto death reads the trouble as discipline rather than punishment for its own sake, sore correction that stopped short of the grave. Henry sets this beside the fifth of the imprecatory readings elsewhere in the Psalter, chastening as a category distinct from wrath, aimed at a son rather than an enemy.

Psalms 118:19-21

Open to me the gates of righteousness: Open to me the gates of righteousness moves the psalm to the temple gate itself, a worshiper asking entrance after the danger has passed, and This gate of the Lord, into which the righteous shall enter names the gate's own condition for passing through it. I will praise thee: for thou hast heard me, and art become my salvation closes the approach with the same claim as verse 14, salvation named twice by the same word, the psalmist's whole case for entering the gate being that the Lord already answered him outside it. Spurgeon reads the gate language as processional, a temple liturgy in which a returning king or a delivered worshiper is questioned at the threshold before he is let in.

Psalms 118:22

The stone which the builders refused is become the head stone of the corner is quoted by the Lord himself at Matt 21:42, Mark 12:10 and Luke 20:17 against the chief priests who rejected him, and again at 1 Pet 2:7, with Acts 4:11 stating the same charge in Peter's own words, the rejected stone become the corner. The image began as a builder's rejected block turned out to be the one the whole structure needed, and the New Testament reads the original rejection as Israel's leaders and the exaltation as the resurrection, the Lord's own doing named in the next verse. Delitzsch and Barnes both trace the verse's original setting to the psalm's returning king, likely rejected once and now vindicated, the pattern the Gospel writers saw fulfilled at a depth the psalm's first singers could not have known.

Psalms 118:23-24

This is the Lord's doing; it is marvellous in our eyes reads the stone's reversal as an act too surprising for the builders themselves to have engineered, wonder rather than credit their own. This is the day which the Lord hath made; we will rejoice and be glad in it has become a common Christian refrain of ordinary praise, though the bench reads its first sense as a specific day of deliverance and celebration rather than every day generically, the definite article pointing at one day the psalm is marking. Henry notes the verse works either way without contradiction, the specific day of an ancient victory and the standing pattern of thanksgiving both true at once.

Psalms 118:25-26

Save now, I beseech thee, O Lord is the Hebrew hoshia na, Hosanna, the very word the crowds shouted at the Lord's entry into Jerusalem at Matt 21:9 and Mark 11:9, quoting this psalm knowingly at the feast where the Hallel was sung. Blessed BE he that cometh in the name of the Lord uses be, a blessing pronounced, where the Gospel writers render it is, a fact fulfilled, and the crowd met him with it at the entry while the Lord himself quotes the same line forward at Matt 23:39, that Jerusalem will not see him again till she says it. We have blessed you out of the house of the Lord is the priests' answering word to the pilgrim entering the gate, spoken from within the temple to the worshiper without.

Psalms 118:27-29

God is the Lord, which hath shewed us light gathers the whole psalm's deliverance into one claim of illumination, and bind the sacrifice with cords, even unto the horns of the altar pictures the thank offering itself, an animal secured for slaughter at the altar's projecting corners. Thou art my God, and I will praise thee: thou art my God, I will exalt thee doubles the confession the way the psalm has doubled its claims throughout, twice trust, twice praise, twice compassed about. The psalm ends exactly where it began, O give thanks unto the Lord; for he is good: for his mercy endureth for ever, and the tradition that this Hallel set, Psalms 113 to 118, was the hymn the Lord and his disciples sang before going out to the Mount of Olives at Matt 26:30 is named here as the tradition it is, resting on the ordinary Passover custom rather than on any statement of the Gospels naming this psalm.