Psalm 118

Speaks with:Psalms 18×4 Exodus 15×3 Psalms 22×2 Psalms 54×2 Psalms 146×2 Psalms 20×2

Summary

Chapter summary

The Hallel's climax, the last song before Gethsemane. 'Oh give thanks unto Jehovah; for he is good; for his lovingkindness endureth for ever.' Out of my distress I called; 'Jehovah is on my side; I will not fear: what can man do unto me?' All nations compassed me about; in the name of Jehovah I will cut them off. 'The stone which the builders rejected is become the head of the corner' (quoted by Jesus and Peter of himself. 'This is the day which Jehovah hath made… Blessed be he that cometh in the name of Jehovah'), the Palm Sunday cry. 'Thou art my God, and I will give thanks unto thee.'

Context

Poetry · David, Asaph, Sons of Korah, others — Psalms overview

Threads

Each of these runs on past this chapter. The passage you have just read is marked.

The stone which the builders refused

Pattern

A refused building stone becomes the head of the corner. The psalm sings it, Isaiah lays a tried stone in Zion, the Lord quotes the line of himself in the temple, Peter names the builders before the council, and his epistle joins both stone texts in a single paragraph.

The image carries the gospel's whole argument about rejection: the act of refusing the stone is the very thing that sets it at the head of the corner. Peter could stand before the council and say the scripture had happened in front of them.

Psalms 118:22 you are here
The stone which the builders refused
Isaiah 28:16
A tried stone laid in Zion
A precious corner stone, a sure foundation.
Matthew 21:42
Did ye never read in the scriptures
The Lord quotes the psalm of himself in the temple.
Acts 4:11
Peter names the builders
Set at nought of you builders, said to the council itself.
1 Peter 2:6-7
Both stone texts joined in one paragraph

The world behind this chapter

Psalms 118

When

Israel's festival worship — the close of the Hallel · Author unnamed; sung at the close of the Passover meal and in the temple processions

Where

A procession climbing to the temple and asking the gatekeepers to open

Who first heard it

Israelites walking up to the sanctuary with branches in their hands

The history

This is a processional. The crowd moves toward the sanctuary, calls at the gates for them to be opened to the righteous, goes in, and ends at the altar. The back-and-forth structure — Israel answering, the house of Aaron answering, those who fear the LORD answering — is choir and congregation trading lines.

The plea in the middle, save now, is one word in Hebrew and it is the word that later came into English as hosanna. At the feast of Tabernacles the worshipers carried bundles of palm, willow, and myrtle and waved them while this psalm was sung, circling the altar once each day and seven times on the last.

Binding the festival sacrifice with cords to the horns of the altar is a physical instruction. Israelite altars had raised corners called horns, and excavated examples from Beersheba and Dan show exactly that shape. An animal was tied there before it was offered.

The rejected stone is a builder's picture. Stones were quarried, dragged to the site, and tested against the plan; one that would not fit got rolled aside. The head of the corner was the critical block that tied two walls together and set the line for everything above it. The song says the discarded stone turned out to be that one.

What it meant to them

Sung at the end of the Passover meal, this was the last thing a family said before going out into the night, and it was defiant: the nations swarmed like bees, and they were put out like a fire in thorns.

For a nation that had itself been the stone the builders rejected — a small people pushed aside by empire after empire — the line about the cornerstone was not abstract. This is the LORD's doing, they sang, and it is marvelous in our eyes.

Sources cited

The Mishnah, tractates Pesahim and Sukkah (Danby translation)
Alfred Edersheim, The Temple: Its Ministry and Services

Every work MannaFest builds on →

The text of this chapter

This page carries no textual note on Psalms 118. Where this site has examined a place the manuscripts differ, the examination is in the manuscripts room. Every place this site examines →

Connections from this chapter

v. 1 · Bookends: the same words open and close

PERICOPE. 'O give thanks unto the LORD; for he is good: for his mercy endureth for ever' - verbatim at vv. 1 and 29.

Psalms 118:29→

Give thanks to the LORD, for He is good; His loving devotion endures forever.

ASV/WEB text; Wikipedia Inclusio example list

v. 6 · Quoted here

'The Lord is my helper': Hebrews.

Hebrews 13:6→

So we say with confidence: “The Lord is my helper; I will not be afraid. What can man do to me?”