Context & Key Themes
Psalm 118 is the grand finale of the Egyptian Hallel, the longest of the six psalms — and almost certainly the hymn Jesus and his disciples sang after the Last Supper before going out to Gethsemane. It begins and ends with the same declaration: Oh give thanks to the Lord, for he is good; for his steadfast love endures forever. In between, it traces a journey through severe distress and divine deliverance, individual crisis and national triumph, rejection and vindication. At its center is a cornerstone — a stone the builders rejected that became the cornerstone — which the New Testament reads as nothing less than a prophecy of Christ himself.
Key Verse
“The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone. This is the Lord’s doing; it is marvelous in our eyes.”
— Psalm 118:22–23
Summary
The psalm opens with a call to Israel, the house of Aaron, and all who fear the Lord to affirm what is always true: his steadfast love endures forever. Then the psalmist tells his own story: out of his distress he called on the Lord; the Lord answered and set him free. With the Lord on his side he does not fear — what can man do to him? He was surrounded, encompassed by nations like bees, pushed hard to fall — but the Lord helped him. The Lord is his strength and his song; he has become his salvation. The voice of the congregation rises: the right hand of the Lord exalts; I shall not die, but I shall live and declare the works of the Lord.
Then the gates of righteousness swing open, and the psalmist enters to give thanks. The stone the builders rejected has become the cornerstone. This is the Lord’s doing. This is the day the Lord has made. Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord. The psalm closes where it began: give thanks, for he is good, for his steadfast love endures forever.
Reflection
Psalm 118 is a psalm of reversals — distress becomes deliverance, rejection becomes cornerstone, dying becomes living to declare. The day the Lord has made is not necessarily a comfortable day or a triumphant one by ordinary measure. It may be the day you were surrounded on all sides, the day the stone was thrown away. But what the Lord does with that day — what he builds from what was discarded — is what the psalm calls marvelous in our eyes. It is not marvelous because it was easy. It is marvelous because it was the Lord’s doing. When Jesus sang this psalm the night before he died, every word was already fulfilled and still unfolding. He was the rejected stone. He was the one coming in the name of the Lord. He was about to make the day — the one that changed everything — and it would be the Lord’s doing from beginning to end.