Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Psalms 118:21
I will praise thee: for thou hast heard me, and art become my salvation.
21. I will give thanks unto thee, for thou hast answered me (R.V.).
and art become my salvation ] Another allusion to Exo 15:2.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
I will praise thee – Within thy courts.
For thou hast heard me, and art become my salvation – See Psa 118:14.
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
Psa 118:21-24
I will praise Thee for Thou hast heard me, and art become my salvation.
A blessed consciousness, a marvellous providence, a joyous day
I. A blessed consciousness (verse 21).
1. A grateful assurance of answered prayer. Thou hast heard me. To know that God has heard me is, of all knowledge, the most, transporting.
2. A grateful assurance of personal salvation. Art become my salvation. Not shall become, or will become, but art become. Salvation is a present blessing. This is life eternal, etc. The consciousness that I am saved is indeed a blessed consciousness.
II. A marvellous providence (verse 22, 23). What man rejects, God accepts.
1. Man rejects insignificant, means with which to accomplish his chief ends. When man has a great plan to carry out, he looks out for the most gifted, the most mighty and skilful agents. Not so with the Almighty. By whom did He deliver Israel from Egyptian bondage? By Moses, a poor Hebrew exile.
2. Man despises the very agents whom God employs. This was pre-eminently the case with Christ. He was despised and rejected of men. Yet He was employed in a work of transcendent greatness.
III. A joyous day (verse 24). Man has to create his own Sabbaths, and when they come to him, he feels the Lord hath made them, and he will rejoice and be glad in it. (Homilist.)
Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell
Verse 21. I will praise thee] He is now got within the gates, and breaks out into thanksgivings for the mercies he had received. He is become my salvation-he himself hath saved me from all mine enemies.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
I will praise thee, for thou hast heard me,…. Here the psalmist reassumes his part in this song, and determines to praise the Lord for hearing him when in distress, and when he was encompassed with his enemies, and for delivering him out of their hands;
and art become my salvation; the author of it, and therefore deserving of praise; and who is no other than the Messiah Jesus, who is described in the next verse.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
Psa 118:21-22. I will praise thee, &c. That is, “And now, being entered into the courts of thy tabernacle, O my gracious God, I pay thee my most humble thanks for having so favourably heard the prayers which I put up to thee in my grievous afflictions in Saul’s reign, and for having now fully advanced me to the royal dignity.” The stone, &c.that is, “I, whom the great men and rulers of the people rejected, (1Sa 26:19.) as the builders of a house do a stone unfit to be employed in it, am now become king over Judah and Israel; and a type of that glorious king, who shall hereafter be in like manner rejected, (Luk 19:14; Luk 20:17.) and then be exalted by God to be Lord of all the world, and the foundation of all men’s hopes and happiness.” See Act 4:11-12. The head stone of the corner, means that which joins the walls, and knits the building together; as David had now joined together the two kingdoms of Israel and Judah under his sole government, and as Christ joined together both Jews and Gentiles. The 22nd verse seems to have been a proverbial saying. The two verses may be read thus, The stone, &c. is made the head of the corner: Psa 118:23. By the Lord is it so made, and it is marvellous, &c. Mudge renders the latter, This is from the Lord; it was impossible in our eyes. “It was the Lord’s doing, they said; in their eyes it was a thing beyond all possibility of belief.” This is the force of the original.
Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke
Psa 118:21 I will praise thee: for thou hast heard me, and art become my salvation.
Ver. 21. I will praise thee, for thou hast heard me ] Luther rendereth it, because thou hast humbled and afflicted me; but with thou art become my salvation.
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
Psa 118:21-24
Psa 118:21-24
THE REJECTED ONE HAS BECOME KING
“I will give thanks unto thee; for thou has answered me,
And art become my salvation.
The stone which the builders rejected has become the head of the corner.
This is Jehovah’s doings;
It is marvelous in our eyes.
This is the day which Jehovah hath made;
We will rejoice and be glad in it.”
“I will give thanks unto thee” (Psa 118:21). Notice the pronoun “I.” It is the psalmist who speaks, and we believe that psalmist to have been David. Having been elevated to the throne, he is here in the Tabernacle to worship God with sacrifice, thanksgiving and praise.
“The stone which the builders rejected has become the head of the corner” (Psa 118:22). It is our conviction, as Jesus Christ himself said, that David spoke “In the Spirit of God”: and we hold this sentence to have been a divinely-inspired prophecy. There is no recollection here of some Jewish proverb, or tradition; this is brand new prophecy of what will be in the future. The occasion for the remark was that David, rejected and hated by the Royal House of Israel, had now become the head of the nation; and David was inspired of God to phrase it in the terminology used here.
These marvelous words were fulfilled twice in the times subsequent to those of King David.
(1) They were fulfilled in the building of the temple, either that of Solomon, or the second temple, as Dummelow thought. It makes no difference, for David wrote before either was built. That is what is so wonderful about this prophecy.
Dean Plumptre said, “The illustration seems to have been drawn from one of the stones, quarried, hewn, and marked, away from the site of the temple, which the builders, ignorant of the head architect’s plans, had put to one side, as having no place in the building, but was found afterwards to be that on which the completeness of the structure depended, as the chief corner stone”!
(2) The second fulfillment and the Great One was in Jesus Christ who applied the words to himself.
Did ye never read the scriptures? The stone which the builders rejected, The same was made the head of the corner; This was from the Lord, And it is marvelous in our eyes (Mat 21:42).
Besides the parallel accounts in the synoptic gospels, this figure of the “chief corner stone” is mentioned in Eph 2:20; Act 4:11; and 1Pe 2:4; 1Pe 2:7.
It appears to this writer as extremely improbable that Christ would have been referring in this passage to some accident like that mentioned by Plumptre (quoted above). He was referring to what the great Old Testament Type of Christ, King David, had written “in the scriptures.” McCullough’s fancy that Christ was here quoting what “may have been a proverb” is flatly denied by the words of Christ himself. The analogy is that just as the rejected David had become King, so the rejected Christ would be the head of the Kingdom of God on earth.
In the analogy of Christ as the chief cornerstone: (1) law and grace; (2) God and man; (3) time and eternity; (4) B.C. and A.D.; (5) the Mosaic Dispensation and the Christian Dispensation; (6) the letter and the spirit; and (7) judgment and mercy, both begin and end in Christ, thus forming in a metaphor a true corner in Christ.
Some have objected to understanding this prophecy as Messianic, on the basis, “The psalmist here was saved from death, but Christ died.” This is worthless as an objection. Of course, David did die, as did Christ; but both David and our Lord were the objects of many attempts to murder them. Herod tried to murder the child Jesus; the citizens of Nazareth tried to throw him off a cliff; and the Pharisees plotted to have him assassinated (Mat 26:4).
“This is Jehovah’s doing; it is marvelous in our eyes” (Psa 118:23). It was God who brought David to the throne of Israel; and it was equally true that God Himself protected and blessed Jesus of Nazareth until his “time had come” to make the Great Atonement.
“This is the day which Jehovah hath made; we will rejoice and be glad in it” (Psa 118:24). What a glorious day it was for David. The hazardous fleeing day and night from the murderous intentions of Saul was over. He was king; his followers were rejoicing all over Israel. God had indeed made it a day of great rejoicing.
But there was a great day of rejoicing of which that was only a feeble symbol. That more glorious day is the Day of Redemption in Christ Jesus. It was the day when Christ was born, and heaven itself broke into songs of praise and rejoicing. It was the day when an angel of God said, “HE IS NOT HERE; HE IS RISEN”!
E.M. Zerr:
Psa 118:21. David was ever ready to give God the praise for all blessings. Become my salvation here has special reference to his escape from the hands of his enemies.
Psa 118:22-23. I have put these verses into one paragraph because it requires both to complete the quotation of Jesus in Mat 21:42 and Mar 12:10. Since our Saviour made the application to himself we know we are correct in considering this passage as a prophecy of Christ and his work on earth. It had special application to the action of the Jewish people in rejecting Christ, whom God afterward exalted to be the head piece in the great edifice of salvation, the church. This is the Lord’s doing means that it would be the Lord of Heaven who would reverse the work of the Jews and exalt him whom they had tried to debase. No wonder that it was such a marvelous thing in their eyes, for they were completely baffled in their wicked designs.
Psa 118:24. Day is from YOM, and a part of Strong’s definition is, “figuratively a space of time defined by an associated term.” In the King James version it has been rendered by day, time, age, season, space, year, and many others. Thus we need not just think of a 24-hour period, but of an age or epoch. The context shows the Psalmist was making a prediction of the Christian Dispensation, which was ushered into being by the exaltation of this head stone over all things to the church. Made is from a Hebrew word that has been rendered by such English words as accomplish, appoint, bring forth, fashion, grant and prepare. Hence the verse means that God ordained the day or age or period of Christ’s reign, and all of us should rejoice in it.
Fuente: Old and New Testaments Restoration Commentary
Psa 22:23, Psa 22:24, Psa 69:33, Psa 69:34, Psa 116:1
and art: Psa 118:14, Exo 15:2, Isa 12:2, Isa 49:8
Reciprocal: Job 13:16 – my salvation Psa 27:1 – salvation Psa 69:30 – I will Psa 118:20 – This gate Luk 1:13 – thy prayer
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
Psa 118:21-22. I will praise thee, for thou hast heard me That is, And now, being entered into the courts of thy tabernacle, O my gracious God, I pay thee my most humble thanks, for having so favourably heard the prayers which I put up to thee in my grievous afflictions in Sauls reign, and for having now fully advanced me to the royal dignity. The stone which the builders rejected, &c. That is, I, (for they are the words of David,) whom the great men and rulers of the people rejected, (1Sa 26:19,) as the builders of a house do a stone, which they judge unfit to be employed in it: am now become king over Judah and Israel, and a type of that glorious king, who shall hereafter be in like manner rejected,
(Luk 19:14; Luk 20:17,) and then exalted by God, to be Lord of all the world, and the foundation of all mens hopes and happiness. The reader will observe, the commonwealth of Israel, and the church of God, are here, and elsewhere in the Scriptures, compared to a building, wherein, as the people were the stones, so the princes and rulers were the builders. And as these master-builders, here first referred to, rejected David, as an obscure and rebellious person, that ought not only to be refused as a governor in their state, but crushed and destroyed; so their successors rejected Jesus of Nazareth, as too poor and mean to be acknowledged for their expected Messiah; as an enemy to Moses, a friend to sinners, and a blasphemer against God, and therefore deserving death and everlasting destruction. The head stone of the corner, means that which joins the walls, and knits the building together; as David had now joined together the two kingdoms of Israel and Judah under his sole government, and as Christ joined together both Jews and Gentiles, as is beautifully set forth Eph 2:14-22. So that we have here an illustrious prophecy of the humiliation and exaltation of our Lord Jesus, of his sufferings, and the glory that should follow. And although David, in this noted prophecy, first alluded to himself, and his own condition, yet it is not to be doubted but that, having the prophetical Spirit, he foresaw the coming of Christ, and the ill usage he should meet with from the Jews, of which he speaks very particularly Psalms 22. and elsewhere; and that, having his thoughts much taken up with Christ, and the events of his kingdom, he had him principally in his eye, in these and the following words. And therefore this place is justly expounded of Christ in the New Testament, as Mar 12:10; Act 4:11; Rom 9:32; Eph 2:20; 1Pe 2:6, compared with Isa 28:16. And to him, indeed, the words agree much more properly and fully than to David.