Commentary - Psalm 118:22-24

Bird's-eye view

Psalm 118 is the capstone of the Hallel psalms (113-118), which were sung at the great Jewish festivals, most notably the Passover. This particular psalm is intensely Messianic, and these three verses form the pinnacle of that Messianic prophecy. The passage is a tight, logical progression. It moves from the great reversal of the rejected stone, to the divine source of that reversal, and finally to the mandated response to that reversal. The New Testament writers, and our Lord Himself, leave us in no doubt as to the meaning. Jesus Christ is the stone, His crucifixion is the rejection, His resurrection is His establishment as the cornerstone, and our worship on the Lord's Day is the rejoicing this text requires.

The central theme is God's sovereign triumph over the foolish rebellion of man. The builders, the supposed experts in spiritual construction, make a catastrophic blunder. But their rejection is not the final word. God intervenes, takes up their rejected material, and makes it the very foundation of His new temple, the Church. This act is not just a clever fix; it is a "marvelous" display of divine wisdom and power that reorients all of history around a particular day, the day of resurrection.

Outline

Context In Psalms

Coming at the end of the Egyptian Hallel, this psalm is a shout of victory after deliverance from great distress. The psalmist speaks of being surrounded by enemies (vv. 10-12) and being disciplined by the Lord (v. 18), but the final word is salvation and praise. The immediate context might have been a king like David celebrating a victory and his enthronement, a victory that was not a sure thing in the eyes of men. But the ultimate fulfillment, as the New Testament makes abundantly clear (Matt. 21:42; Acts 4:11; 1 Pet. 2:7), points directly to Christ. This is not just a clever application by later writers; the psalm was written with this Messianic weight from the beginning. The triumph described is too grand, the reversal too absolute, for anyone less than the Son of God.

Verse by Verse Commentary

Psalm 118:22

The stone which the builders rejected Has become the chief corner stone.

We begin with a lesson in spiritual architecture. The "builders" are the experts, the men with the plans, the religious authorities of Israel. They are the scribes, the Pharisees, the chief priests, the whole lot of them. They are examining stones for the great temple of God, and they come across one particular stone. They look it over, they test it, they discuss it, and they conclude it is entirely unsuitable. It doesn't fit their plans. It's the wrong shape, the wrong size. They toss it onto the scrap heap. This is a picture of the earthly ministry of the Lord Jesus. He came to His own, and His own received Him not (John 1:11). The builders, the leaders of the covenant people, looked at Jesus of Nazareth and declared Him unfit. They called Him a blasphemer, a glutton, a friend of sinners. Their final verdict was delivered with nails and a cross.

But their rejection was not the end of the story. God, the master architect, had other plans. The very stone that the builders threw away, God picked up and made the "chief corner stone." The cornerstone was the essential stone in ancient construction, the one that set the lines for the entire building. It was the stone upon which the integrity of the whole structure depended. This is the resurrection and ascension of Jesus Christ. The man they executed as a criminal, God raised from the dead and seated at His own right hand, making Him the head of all things for the church (Eph. 1:22). The rejection was public, but the vindication was absolute. The foundation of God's new creation, His new temple, is the very one the world deemed worthless.

Psalm 118:23

This is from Yahweh; It is marvelous in our eyes.

This verse answers the question of how such a stunning reversal could possibly happen. How does a rejected, crucified man become the Lord of glory? The answer is simple and profound: "This is from Yahweh." This was not a committee decision. It was not a shift in public opinion. The builders had their say, and their say was "crucify Him." But God had the final say, and His say was "resurrection." This is a direct, unilateral, sovereign act of God. The entire gospel is contained in this principle. Man in his wisdom rejects God, and God in His wisdom saves man through that very rejection. The cross was man's greatest sin, and God turned it into the source of our greatest salvation. This is the Lord's doing.

And what is our proper response to this divine work? "It is marvelous in our eyes." When we see what God has done in Christ, the only sane reaction is wide-eyed wonder. It is awe. It is astonishment. If your gospel does not make you marvel, you don't have the biblical gospel. If the story of the rejected stone becoming the cornerstone has become commonplace to you, then you need to ask the Spirit to open your eyes again to the sheer wonder of it all. It is a wonder that the angels long to look into (1 Pet. 1:12). It is the central marvel of all history, and it should leave us breathless.

Psalm 118:24

This is the day which Yahweh has made; Let us rejoice and be glad in it.

The logic flows directly. Because the rejected stone has been made the cornerstone, and because this is the Lord's marvelous doing, the result is a specific day. "This is the day which Yahweh has made." What day is this? This is the day of resurrection. This is the day that vindicated the Son. This is the day that death was defeated. This is the first day of the new creation. Just as God made the first creation in six days and rested on the seventh, so God has made the new creation through the work of His Son, and He has given us a new day to mark it. This is the Lord's Day, the first day of the week, the day Christ rose from the grave (Rev. 1:10).

And how are we to treat this day that the Lord has made? The text is not a suggestion. It is a command in the form of a cohortative: "Let us rejoice and be glad in it." Christian worship is not, at its heart, a somber affair. It is a festival. It is a glad celebration. Why? Because the stone is no longer on the scrap heap. He is the cornerstone. Because our salvation is accomplished. Because our King reigns. To come to worship on the Lord's Day with a long face is to misunderstand the gospel entirely. This day is a gift, made by God Himself, for the express purpose of our rejoicing. Our joy is not based on our fluctuating circumstances or our fickle emotions. Our joy is based on the objective, historical, marvelous fact that the rejected stone is now the head of the corner.

Application

First, we must see that the world's evaluation of Christ is utterly and completely wrong. The "builders" of our age, the intellectual and cultural elites, still reject this stone. They find Him foolish, offensive, or simply irrelevant. We must not be intimidated by their credentials or their confidence. They are builders who don't know the first thing about building. Our faith must be in God's evaluation of His Son, not man's.

Second, we must recognize that our lives are built on this cornerstone. If Christ is the foundation, then everything must be aligned to Him. Our marriages, our work, our politics, our everything must find its orientation from Him. To build on any other foundation is to build on sand, and to ensure ultimate collapse.

Finally, we must take the command to rejoice seriously. Our Sunday worship should be the high point of our week. It is the day God has made for this very purpose. We should come to it with eager expectation, ready to sing, to pray, to hear the Word, and to feast at the Lord's Table with gladness. This is not a duty to be checked off a list, but a marvelous privilege. The resurrection of Jesus Christ is the central fact of history, and our gladness in it is our central testimony to a watching world that our God reigns.