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Messianic Prophecies

Psalms 118:22, 23

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.

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Psalms 118:22, 23

The stone which the builders rejected has become the cornerstone. This is Yahweh’s doing. It is marvelous in our eyes.

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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.

This is the day that Yahweh has made. We will rejoice and be glad in it!

Save us now, we beg you, Yahweh! Yahweh, we beg you, send prosperity now.

Blessed is he who comes in Yahweh’s name! We have blessed you out of Yahweh’s house.

Yahweh is God, and he has given us light. Bind the sacrifice with cords, even to the horns of the altar.

You are my God, and I will give thanks to you. You are my God, I will exalt you.

The counter-reading

How this passage is read within its own context.

The critical reading holds that Psalm 118:22-23 is a thanksgiving in which a rejected party, variously identified as the king, Israel among the nations, or a restored leader after exile, is vindicated and elevated to honor, its original referent debated. It acknowledges the rejection-to-vindication pattern maps onto the crucifixion-resurrection narrative and counts among the stronger thematic correspondences. Whether this amounts to prediction depends on whether the psalmist intended a future referent or was describing a present vindication that early Christians found fitting for their own experience. On this view the pattern is real but its predictive status is a matter of interpretive judgment.

The fulfillment reading

How this passage is read as pointing to the Messiah.

The fulfillment reading applies Psalm 118:22-23's image of the builders' rejected stone becoming the cornerstone to Jesus' rejection and vindication, a metaphor Jesus applies to himself in Matthew 21:42-43 and that recurs across the NT (Acts 4:11; 1 Peter 2:4-7). On this view the specificity of the image, something rejected by the builders (the religious authorities) becoming the foundation, corresponds to Jesus' rejection by the leadership and his establishment as the church's foundation. Linked with Isaiah 28:16 and Daniel 2:34-35, it forms a convergent stone tradition the NT identifies with Christ.

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.

  • Matthew 21:42 Direct quotation

    Matthew 21:42 introduces Psalm 118:22-23 with an explicit scripture-citation formula and quotes it verbatim.

  • 43 Direct quotation

    Matthew 21:42 introduces Psalm 118:22-23 with an explicit scripture-citation formula and quotes it verbatim.