Link to this page

https://gebible.app/messianic-prophecies/catalog/psalms-118-17-18

Messianic Prophecies

Psalms 118:17, 18

This passage comes from the wider catalog — a broader, more lightly curated list than the core set. Both readings are shown as peers; GEBible takes no side.

Show this passage in

WEB

Psalms 118:17, 18

I will not die, but live, and declare Yah’s works. Yah has punished me severely, but he has not given me over to death.

Read in context

Show the surrounding verses

They surrounded me like bees. They are quenched like the burning thorns. In Yahweh’s name I cut them off.

You pushed me back hard, to make me fall, but Yahweh helped me.

Yah is my strength and song. He has become my salvation.

The voice of rejoicing and salvation is in the tents of the righteous. “The right hand of Yahweh does valiantly.

The right hand of Yahweh is exalted! The right hand of Yahweh does valiantly!”

I will not die, but live, and declare Yah’s works.

Yah has punished me severely, but he has not given me over to death.

Open to me the gates of righteousness. I will enter into them. I will give thanks to Yah.

This is the gate of Yahweh; the righteous will enter into it.

I will give thanks to you, for you have answered me, and have become my salvation.

The stone which the builders rejected has become the cornerstone.

This is Yahweh’s doing. It is marvelous in our eyes.

The fulfillment reading

How this passage is read as pointing to the Messiah.

The fulfillment reading takes Psalm 118:17-18's declaration of living rather than dying, after severe divine testing, as anticipating the resurrection reflected in Luke 24:5-7 and 1 Corinthians 15:20. On this view the one whom God does not give over to death is ultimately preserved through and beyond death, so the psalm's confidence in vindication after suffering mirrors the crucifixion-resurrection pattern. Divine preservation of the righteous is understood to reach its fullest expression in Christ's rising.

The counter-reading

How this passage is read within its own context.

The critical reading holds that Psalm 118:17-18 is a thanksgiving for surviving a life-threatening crisis: the speaker was severely disciplined but not handed over to death. On this view the psalm describes the avoidance of death, not death followed by bodily restoration, and distinguishes survival from resurrection, a concept that emerges in later texts such as Daniel 12:2 and Isaiah 26:19. Neither Luke 24:5-7 nor 1 Corinthians 15:20 cites the psalm, so the connection is thematic rather than a fulfillment of its wording.

How the New Testament uses this passage

Each entry names how the New Testament author draws on the passage — a direct quotation, an allusion, an echo, or a typological reading. An echo or an allusion is not the same as a prediction; the label says which is which.

  • Luke 24:5-7 Not cited by the New Testament

    Neither Luke 24:5-7 nor 1 Corinthians 15:20 quotes or alludes to Psalm 118:17-18; the resurrection link is thematic only.

  • 1Cor. 15:20 Not cited by the New Testament

    Neither Luke 24:5-7 nor 1 Corinthians 15:20 quotes or alludes to Psalm 118:17-18; the resurrection link is thematic only.