42Jesus said to them, “Did you never read in the Scriptures, ‘The stone which the builders rejected was made the head of the corner. This was from the Lord. It is marvelous in our eyes?’
43“Therefore I tell you, God’s Kingdom will be taken away from you, and will be given to a nation producing its fruit.44He who falls on this stone will be broken to pieces, but on whomever it will fall, it will scatter him as dust.”
42 Jesus said to them, “Did you never read in the Scriptures, ‘The stone which the builders rejected was made the head of the corner. This was from the Lord. It is marvelous in our eyes?’
43 “Therefore I tell you, God’s Kingdom will be taken away from you, and will be given to a nation producing its fruit.
44 He who falls on this stone will be broken to pieces, but on whomever it will fall, it will scatter him as dust.”
TYNDALETyndale New Testament (1534)
42 Iesus sayde vnto the: dyd ye never redde in the scriptures? The stone which the bylders refused the same is set in the principall parte of the corner: this was the lordes doinge and that is mervelous in oure eyes.
43 Therfore saye I vnto you the kyngdome of God shalbe take from you and shalbe geve to the getyls which shall brynge forth the frutes of it.
44 And whosoever shall fall on this stone he shalbe broken but on whosoever it shall fall vpon it will grynde him to powder.
Show all 3 translations
GNVGeneva Bible (1599)
42 Iesus saide vnto them, Read ye neuer in the Scriptures, The stone which the builders refused, the same is made the head of the corner? This was the Lordes doing, and it is marueilous in our eyes.
43 Therefore say I vnto you, The kingdome of God shalbe taken from you, and shalbe giuen to a nation, which shall bring foorth the fruites thereof.
44 And whosoeuer shall fall on this stone, he shalbe broken: but on whomsoeuer it shall fall, it will dash him a pieces.
Psalms 118:22-23(v42)The stone which the builders rejected has become the cornerstone. This is Yahweh’s doing. It is marvelous in our eyes.
Isaiah 28:16(v42)Therefore the Lord Yahweh says, “Behold, I lay in Zion for a foundation a stone, a tried stone, a precious cornerstone of a sure…
Acts 4:11(v42)He is ‘the stone which was regarded as worthless by you, the builders, which has become the head of the corner.’
1 Peter 2:4-8(v42)coming to him, a living stone, rejected indeed by men, but chosen by God, precious. You also, as living stones, are built up as a spiritual…
Ephesians 2:20(v42)being built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the chief cornerstone;
Show all 38 cross-references
Romans 9:33(vv42, 44)even as it is written, “Behold, I lay in Zion a stumbling stone and a rock of offense; and no one who believes in him will be disappointed.”
Matthew 21:41(v43)They told him, “He will miserably destroy those miserable men, and will lease out the vineyard to other farmers, who will give him the…
Isaiah 8:14-15(v44)He will be a sanctuary, but for both houses of Israel, he will be a stumbling stone and a rock that makes them fall. For the people of…
Mark 12:10-11(v42)Haven’t you even read this Scripture: ‘The stone which the builders rejected was made the head of the corner. This was from the Lord. It is…
Luke 20:17-18(v42)But he looked at them and said, “Then what is this that is written, ‘The stone which the builders rejected was made the chief cornerstone?’…
1 Peter 2:8(v44)and, “a stumbling stone and a rock of offense.” For they stumble at the word, being disobedient, to which also they were appointed.
Daniel 2:34-35(v44)You saw until a stone was cut out without hands, which struck the image on its feet that were of iron and clay, and broke them in pieces.…
Matthew 8:11-12(v43)I tell you that many will come from the east and the west, and will sit down with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the Kingdom of Heaven, but…
Daniel 2:44-45(v44)“In the days of those kings the God of heaven will set up a kingdom which will never be destroyed, nor will its sovereignty be left to…
1 Peter 2:9(v43)But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for God’s own possession, that you may proclaim the excellence of…
Zechariah 3:8-9(v42)Hear now, Joshua the high priest, you and your fellows who sit before you; for they are men who are a sign: for, behold, I will bring out…
Luke 20:18(v44)Everyone who falls on that stone will be broken to pieces, but it will crush whomever it falls on to dust.”
John 3:3(v43)Jesus answered him, “Most certainly, I tell you, unless one is born anew, he can’t see God’s Kingdom.”
Isaiah 26:2(v43)Open the gates, that the righteous nation may enter: the one which keeps faith.
Luke 17:20-21(v43)Being asked by the Pharisees when God’s Kingdom would come, he answered them, “God’s Kingdom doesn’t come with observation; neither will…
Matthew 27:25(v44)All the people answered, “May his blood be on us, and on our children!”
Psalms 21:8-9(v44)Your hand will find out all of your enemies. Your right hand will find out those who hate you. You will make them as a fiery furnace in the…
Psalms 110:5-6(v44)The Lord is at your right hand. He will crush kings in the day of his wrath. He will judge among the nations. He will heap up dead bodies.…
Zechariah 12:3(v44)It will happen in that day, that I will make Jerusalem a burdensome stone for all the peoples. All who burden themselves with it will be…
Matthew 26:24(v44)The Son of Man goes, even as it is written of him, but woe to that man through whom the Son of Man is betrayed! It would be better for that…
John 3:5(v43)Jesus answered, “Most certainly I tell you, unless one is born of water and spirit, he can’t enter into God’s Kingdom.
Acts 13:40-41(v42)Beware therefore, lest that come on you which is spoken in the prophets: ‘Behold, you scoffers, and wonder, and perish; for I work a work…
2 Corinthians 4:3-4(v44)Even if our Good News is veiled, it is veiled in those who are dying, in whom the god of this world has blinded the minds of the…
Isaiah 60:12(v44)For that nation and kingdom that will not serve you shall perish; yes, those nations shall be utterly wasted.
John 19:11(v44)Jesus answered, “You would have no power at all against me, unless it were given to you from above. Therefore he who delivered me to you…
Ephesians 3:3-9(v42)how that by revelation the mystery was made known to me, as I wrote before in few words, by which, when you read, you can perceive my…
1 Thessalonians 2:16(v44)forbidding us to speak to the Gentiles that they may be saved, to fill up their sins always. But wrath has come on them to the uttermost.
Hebrews 2:2-3(v44)For if the word spoken through angels proved steadfast, and every transgression and disobedience received a just penalty, how will we…
Psalms 2:9(v44)You shall break them with a rod of iron. You shall dash them in pieces like a potter’s vessel.”
Psalms 2:12(v44)Give sincere homage to the Son, lest he be angry, and you perish on the way, for his wrath will soon be kindled. Blessed are all those who…
Habakkuk 1:5(v42)“Look among the nations, watch, and wonder marvelously; for I am working a work in your days, which you will not believe though it is told…
Exodus 19:6(v43)and you shall be to me a kingdom of priests, and a holy nation.’ These are the words which you shall speak to the children of Israel.”
Isaiah 28:2(v43)Behold, the Lord has a mighty and strong one. Like a storm of hail, a destroying storm, and like a storm of mighty waters overflowing, he…
38 distinct cross-references across this passage (39 total citations).
Cross-references from openbible.info (CC BY 4.0)
Explain this passage (21 sources)
Historical commentary, presented as a primary source — not an endorsement.
Geneva Bible translators1599 · Public DomainOn vv42–44Began to be.
Began to be.
Master builders, which are chief builders of the house, that is, of the Church.
Read full note →
That matter (in that the stone which was cast away, is made the head) is the Lord’s doing, which we behold and greatly marvel at.
The chiefest stone in the corner is called the head of the corner, which beareth up the couplings or joints of the whole building.
Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain.
John Trapp1656 · Public DomainOn vv42–4442 Jesus saith unto them, Did ye never read…
42 Jesus saith unto them, Did ye never read in the scriptures, The stone which the builders rejected, the same is become the head of the corner: this is the Lord’s doing, and it is marvellous in our eyes?
Ver. 42. Did ye never read in the Scriptures] Yes, full often, but never applied such a place as this to themselves. A godly man reads the Scriptures as he doth the statute book: he holds himself concerned in all that he reads; he finds his own name written in every passage, and lays it to heart, as spoken to him. The wicked, on the other side, put off all they like not, and dispose of it to others, as if themselves were none such. God forbid, said these to our Saviour, Luk 20:16. But he convinceth them out of their own reading, to be the men he meant. Men may make some sorry shift, and shuffle for a while from side to side, as Balaam’s ass did, but there is no averting or avoiding the dint of God’s displeasure, otherwise than by falling down, as the ass did, and afterwards her master, being rebuked for his iniquity, "The dumb ass speaking with man’s voice, forbad the madness of the prophet," 2Pe 2:16.
John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Matthew Poole1685 · Public DomainOn v42Mark saith, Mar 12:10,11, And have ye not read…
Mark saith, Mar 12:10,11, And have ye not read this scripture, The stone which the builders rejected is become the head of the corner: this was the Lord’s doing, and it is marvellous in our eyes. Luke saith, Luk 20:17,18, And he beheld them, and said, What is this then that is written, The stone which the builders rejected, the same is become the head of the corner? Whosoever shall fall upon that stone shall be broken; but on whomsoever it shall fall, it will grind him to powder. It is more than probable that our Saviour had more words with them upon this argument than are left us upon sacred record; for John hath let us know, that we are not to expect that all he did or spake should be written, Joh 21:25; and as not every discourse or action, so not all words in the same discourse, nor all circumstances relating to the same action. Knowing themselves and their masters to be the husbandmen with whom the Lord had entrusted this vineyard the house of Israel, it is not reasonable to think they should be very patient to hear that God would miserably destroy them as wicked men, and commit his vineyard to the trust of others. We cannot therefore in reason imagine but that they should reply something to that, as thinking it a strange thing that he should assert, that for the rejection of him, God would reject his ancient people, and cast off the church of the Jews. To show this was nothing which ought to seem strange to them, he asks them, Did ye never read in the Scriptures, The stone, & c. Luke saith, he beheld them, and said, What is this then, &c.? As if the Pharisees had charged him with speaking without any warrant from the word of God, there was no such thing in the law or prophets. To convince them of their mistake, or at least that there was nothing in that he said which needed to appear strange to them, he saith, Did ye never read? or, Have ye not read the scripture? (so Mark relates it); or, What is this then? As Luke hath it. The text he quotes is Psa 118:22,23. It is manifest that the Jews understood that Psalm to be a prophecy of Christ, by the people’s acclamations of Hosanna; for the substance of those acclamations are in Psa 118:25,26; Save now, I beseech thee, O Lord: O Lord, I beseech thee, send now prosperity. Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord. Hoshiah na, hn he eyvwh Save, I beseech thee. This they understood of the Messiah. This they had heard cried unto our Saviour. Saith our Saviour, In that very Psalm you may read, The stone which the builders rejected is become the head of the corner. Before he had compared the church to a vineyard, to show their obligation to bring forth fruit; here to a building, to denote God’s dwelling in it. The builders here intended were the heads of the Jewish church, who not only by their own pretences, but by their calling, were builders, and ought to have been builders; though indeed they proved destroyers and pullers down, instead of builders. The church is elsewhere compared to a building, 1Co 3:9; Eph 2:21; and the teachers in it to builders, Rom 15:20; Gal 2:18. Our Lord is here compared to a stone, because he is the only firm foundation, the chief cornerstone; in whom all the building fitly framed together groweth unto an holy temple in the Lord: in whom ye also are builded together for an habitation of God through the Spirit, Eph 2:20-22; called by the prophet Isaiah, Isa 28:16, a stone laid in Zion for a foundation, a tried stone, a precious cornerstone, a sure foundation; which is applied to Christ, Act 4:11; Rom 9:33; 1Pe 2:6-8. He is become the head of the corner, that is, the chief, the principal stone in the building. Lest they should be startled at this, he addeth, this is the Lord’s doing, and it is marvellous in our eyes. This may seem strange to you, that those who seemed to be builders and pillars should be rejected and thrown away; and no wonder, for it is the Lord’s doing. In the reformations of churches from gross corruptions, God doth always some extraordinary things, which we are not at present able to reconcile to other reasons. Mat 21:43, (which some think should have been put after the next verse), our Lord tells them plainly, that God was removing his church from them to the Gentiles, which he calleth a people that should bring forth the fruits thereof.
And whosoever shall fall on this stone shall be broken: there will be many that shall be offended at Christ, his person, his doctrine, his institutions, upon which account he is called a stumbling stone, Rom 9:33. But they shall be broken: if they take offence at me, so as they will not believe on me, nor receive me, it will be their ruin.
Read full note →
But on whomsoever it shall fall, it will grind him to powder: if they shall go on to persecute me and my members, so that I fall on them, they shall be ruined, irreparably and irrecoverably, with a more dreadful destruction.
Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
William Burkitt1703 · Public DomainOn vv42, 44Which words are the application that our Saviour makes…
Which words are the application that our Saviour makes of the foregoing parable concerning the vineyard; which the chief priests and Pharisees did not apprehend themselves to be concerned in, till he brought the application of it home unto them. Therfore, say I unto you, the kingdom of God shall be taken from you, &c.
Note, 1. The greatest mercy that God can bestow upon any people, is his giving his kingdom to them; that is, all gospel ordinances, and church privileges leading to the kingdom of heaven.
Read full note →
2. Observe the terms upon which God either gives or continues his kingdom to a church and nation. And that is, upon bringing forth the fruits thereof.
Learn, 3. That the greatest judgement which can befall a people, is the taking away the kingdom of God from them. The kingdom of God shall be taken from you, and given, &c.
William Burkitt's Expository Notes on the New Testament (1700–1703) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
John Gill1763 · Public DomainOn vv42–44Jesus saith unto them, did ye never read the…
Jesus saith unto them, did ye never read the Scriptures,.... The passage which stands in Psa 118:22.
The stone which the builders rejected, the same is become the head of the corner: this is the Lord's doing, and it is marvellous in our eyes. Very appropriately is this Scripture cited, and applied to the present case; which expresses the rejection of the Messiah by the Jewish builders, priests, and scribes: the whole Psalm may be understood of the Messiah. R. David Kimchi owns (z), that there is a division among their Rabbins about it: some say that the Psalm is spoken of David, and others, that it is spoken of the days of the Messiah; and these are certainly in the right; and as for this particular passage, it is applied by some of them to the Messiah: so on mentioning Hos 3:5 they (a) say,
Read full note →
"David was king in this world, and David shall be king in the time to come: wherefore it is said, the stone which the builders refused, &c.
And one of their noted commentators (b) on those words, "though thou be little among the thousands of Judah", has this note:
"It is fit thou shouldest be little among the families of Judah, because of the impurity of Ruth the Moabitess, which is in thee: out of thee shall come forth unto me, Messiah, the son of David; for so he saith, "the stone which the builders refused", &c.
Christ is often in Scripture compared to a stone, and is called the stone of Israel; is said to be a stone of stumbling to some, and a precious tried stone to others: is represented as a stone cut out of the mountain without hands, and on which are seven eyes: and is fitly compared to one, for his usefulness in the spiritual building the church, where he is as both the foundation and corner stone, and for his strength and duration. Christ is the sure, firm, and everlasting foundation, which God has laid in Zion, and the only one of any avail; nor can any other be laid to any purpose; and if he is neglected, and laid aside, in the ministration of the word, the building which men endeavour to rear, or exhort unto, will come to nothing. Whoever build on him are safe, and on nothing else: Christ is the foundation, on which the church, and every believer, are built, and therefore will abide; for the gates of hell cannot prevail against them: the covenant of grace is immoveable, being established in him; its mercies are sure, and its promises yea and amen: the salvation of immortal souls is certain, resting upon him; the faith and hope of the saints fail not, being directed to, and settled on him: the house not made with hands, which is in heaven, is an eternal one; and the city, which has foundations, is a continuing one, because of the concern that Christ has in it; and though he is of such eminent use and importance in the building, yet, as such, the "builders rejected" him: by the builders are meant, the Jewish rulers, both political and ecclesiastical, especially the latter, who pretended to instruct, and build up the people in knowledge and understanding; but in a very bad way did they do it, and upon a very sandy foundation, upon their fleshly privileges, their moral righteousness, and the observance of the ceremonial law, and the traditions of the elders. The Jews used to call their doctors and their scholars "builders" (c): says R. Jochanan,
"the disciples of the wise men are called "builders", because they study in the building of the world all their days, which is the law.
These rejected the Messiah, refused to receive, and acknowledge him as such: they disallowed and disapproved of him, as base and vile, and the most contemptible of mortals, and set him at nought, and had him in the utmost scorn and derision. And so he is rejected by some who bear the characters of builders among Christians: as when his proper deity, and eternal sonship are denied, and he is treated as a mere creature; when his satisfaction and atoning sacrifice are either wholly rejected, or little regarded, lessened, and depreciated, and repentance and good works are put in the room of them; when his imputed righteousness is opposed, and laid aside, and the righteousness of men preferred unto it, and cried up as the matter of justification in the sight of God; when his efficacious grace is represented as unnecessary to regeneration, conversion, and sanctification, and to the performance of good works; and when he is left out of public ministrations, as the way of life and salvation, as the fountain of all grace, and foundation of all happiness, and human power, free will, and moral righteousness are put in his room. But notwithstanding the former and present rejection, and ill treatment of him, he is
become the head of the corner: he is the corner stone in the building which knits and cements it together, angels and men, Jews and Gentiles; Old and New Testament saints; saints above, and saints below, and in all ages and places, all meet, and are united together in this corner stone; which also strengthens and supports the building, and holds it together, and is the ornament and beauty of it: he is the chief corner stone; he is higher than the kings of the earth; he is superior to angels, and the chiefest among ten thousands of his saints; he is exalted above all creatures, angels, and men, who, by the Jewish builders, was despised and rejected, and scarce allowed to be worthy the name of a man:
this is the Lord's doing; this stone is laid in the building by him: the rejection of him is according to his determinate counsel and foreknowledge; and the exaltation of him, above every name, is owing to him, and he is by, and at his own right hand: and
is marvellous in our eyes; in the eyes of all the saints; there being in all this such, a wonderful display of the wisdom, grace, mercy, power, and faithfulness of God,
(z) In Psal. cxviii. 1. (a) Zohar in Exod. fol. 93. 3. (b) Jarchi in Mic. v. 2. (c) T. Bab. Subbut, fol. 114. 1. Vid. En Israel, fol. 64. 3. & Juchasin, fol. 80. 2. & 81. 1.
John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Wesley1765 · Public DomainOn vv42–44The builders - The scribes and priests, whose office…
The builders - The scribes and priests, whose office it was to build up the Church. Is become the head of the corner - Or the chief corner stone: he is become the foundation of the Church, on which the whole building rests, and is the principal corner stone, for uniting the Gentiles to it, as the chief corner stone of a house supports and links its two sides together. Psalm cxviii, 22.
John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.
Adam Clarke1810 · Public DomainOn vv42–44Verse 42. The stone] R. Solom. Jarchi, on Micah…
Verse 42. The stone] R. Solom. Jarchi, on Micah 5., says, this stone means the Messiah, אכן משיח: Abarbanel is of the same opinion. This seems to have been originally spoken of David who was at first rejected by the Jewish rulers, but was afterwards chosen by the Lord to be the great ruler of his people Israel. The quotation is taken from Ps 118:22.
As the Church is represented in Scripture under the name of the temple and house of God, in allusion to the temple of Jerusalem, which was a type of it, 1Co 3:16; Heb 3:6; 1Pe 2:5; so Jesus Christ is represented as the foundation on which this edifice is laid, 1Co 3:11; Eph 2:20-21.
Read full note →
The builders] The chief priests and elders of the people, with the doctors of the law.
Rejected] An expression borrowed from masons, who, finding a stone, which being tried in a particular place, and appearing improper for it, is thrown aside, and another taken; however, at last, it may happen that the very stone which had been before rejected, may be found the most suitable as the head stone of the corner.
This passage, as applied by our Lord to himself, contains an abridgment of the whole doctrine of the Gospel.
1. The Lord's peculiar work is astonishingly manifested in the mission of Jesus Christ.
2. He, being rejected and crucified by the Jews, became an atonement for the sin of the world.
3. He was raised again from the dead, a proof of his conquest over death and sin, and a pledge of immortality to his followers.
4. He was constituted the foundation on which the salvation of mankind rests, and the corner stone which unites Jews and Gentiles, beautifies, strengthens, and completes the whole building, as the head stone, or uppermost stone in the corner does the whole edifice.
5. He is hereby rendered the object of the joy and admiration of all his followers and the glory of man. This was done by the Lord, and is marvellous in our eyes.
Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Joseph Benson1811 · Public DomainOn vv42, 44Mat 21:42-43. Jesus saith unto them — Luke says,…
Mat 21:42-43. Jesus saith unto them — Luke says, εμβλεψας αυτοις, ειπε, having looked on them, namely, with great compassion and solemnity in his countenance, he said, Did ye never read, or never reflect upon this remarkable passage in the Scriptures, The stone which the builders refused, &c.? — As if he had said, If the vineyard is not to be taken from you and given to others, what is the meaning of these words? Do they not plainly foretel that the Messiah shall be rejected by the Jewish great men, their teachers and rulers, the builders of their church and commonwealth, and that, though they put him to death, he shall become the head of the corner, or the head of the church? Now, what else is this but that he shall be believed on by the Gentiles, and unite them to the Church of God, as a head cornerstone unites the two sides of a building? This is the Lord’s doing, and it is marvellous, &c. — The rejection of the Messiah by the Jews, his reception among the Gentiles, and their admission into the church, are all very wonderful events, brought to pass by the singular providence of God. Therefore, because God himself has long ago expressly foretold that this judgment will happen to you; and because it is a most righteous and equitable judgment, I tell you plainly, the kingdom of God — Which you have thus vilely and ungratefully contemned and abused, shall be taken from you, and given to a nation, &c. — That is, the gospel of Christ shall be taken from you, and carried to the Gentiles, who will have more regard to the favour shown them, and improve it much better than you have done. It is justly observed by Dr. Campbell, “that this is one of the clearest predictions of the rejection of the Jews and of the call of the Gentiles, which we have in this history.”
Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary1859 · Public DomainOn vv42–43The head of the corner. By these words, (Psalm…
The head of the corner. By these words, (Psalm cxvii,) which the Jews themselves expounded of their Messias, Christ shewed them, that although they, who should have been the architects, had rejected him, yet he should be the chief corner-stone to unite the Jews and the Gentiles, converted into one Christian Church, militant on earth and triumphant in heaven. See Acts iv. 11. (Witham) --- St. Augustine remarks, that this parable was addressed not only to the opponents of Christ’s authority, but likewise to the people.
George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).
Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset & David Brown1871 · Public DomainOn vv42–44Jesus saith unto them. Did ye never read in…
Jesus saith unto them. Did ye never read in the scriptures-- (Psa 118:22-23).
The stone which the builders rejected, &c.--A bright Messianic prophecy, which reappears in various forms (Isa 28:16, &c.), and was made glorious use of by Peter before the Sanhedrim (Act 4:11). He recurs to it in his first epistle (Pe1 2:4-6).
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
Daniel D. Whedon1874 · Public DomainOn vv42–4442. Jesus saith unto them — Our Lord now…
42. Jesus saith unto them — Our Lord now proceeds to hint to them that their first question, with which they opened this debate, was, as has just been said, completely answered. Still under a figure that of a stone rejected, he indicates how he, though by them rejected, would ultimately prove to be Lord of all, whose judgment would grind them to powder. The stone which the builders rejected — Psa_118:22. Note the rapid yet harmonious changes of our Lord’s illustration of the stone. The same stone is first a rejected stone; then, second, a head corner-stone; then, third, a stumbling-stone; and lastly, a stone hurled from a balista.
The stone which the builders reject is one which the architect or workman thinks too unshapely to be worked into the structure, and so casts it off; and this pictures Christ rejected by the Jewish rulers. The head stone of the corner is the large stone placed in the corner of a stone edifice, for the purpose of binding the two walls firmly together. And this describes Christ in his exaltation in the kingdom of God. Our Lord here interrupts the transition of the figure to declare, from Psalm cxviii, that this exaltation of himself was from God; and thus their question as to his authority is completely answered.
Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges1878 · Public DomainOn vv42, 4442. Did ye never read in the scriptures] Psa_118:22…
42. Did ye never read in the scriptures] Psa_118:22 (Mat_21:25 of the same psalm is quoted above, Mat_21:9, where see note); the psalm “was probably composed for the first celebration of the Feast of Tabernacles after the completion of the Second Temple” (Neh_8:13-18). (Canon Perowne.) The original reference was to a stone used in the erection of the second Temple. The “corner stone” is the Jewish nation rejected at first, afterwards restored from captivity. Christ transfers this image to His Church, formed of Jew and Gentile alike (see Meyer), which, though despised at first, was destined to succeed to the spiritual supremacy of Israel.
In Act_4:11, Eph_2:20, 1Pe_2:6, Christ Himself is the head-corner-stone; but the two applications are not inconsistent, for Christ was the Representative first of the Jewish Nation (ch. Mat_4:15, Mat_2:1-11 (3)), then of the Church. Cp. also Isa_28:16, “I lay in Zion for a foundation a stone, a tried stone, a precious corner stone, a sure foundation.”
Read full note →
The stone] Rather, A stone. The builders rejected many stones.
the head of the corner] The stone that connects the two walls at the top and supports the roof.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers1878 · Public DomainOn vv42, 44(42) Did ye never read. . . .?—The quotation…
(42) Did ye never read. . . .?—The quotation is remarkable as being found (Psa_118:22) in the immediate context of the verse which had supplied the “hosanna” shouts of the multitude on the preceding day. In the primary meaning of the Psalm, 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 on one side, as having no place in the building, but which was found afterwards to be that on which the completeness of the structure depended, that on which, as the chief corner-stone, the two walls met and were bonded together. The Psalmist saw in this a parable of the choice of David to be king over Israel; perhaps, also, of the choice of Israel itself out of the nations of the world. Elsewhere, as in Eph_2:20, and in the language of later ages, Christ Himself is the chief corner-stone. Here the context gives a somewhat different application, and “the stone which the builders rejected” is found in the future converts from among the Gentiles, the nation bringing forth the fruits which Israel had not brought forth—the “corner-stone” of the great edifice of the Catholic Church of Christ. This meaning was obviously not incompatible with the other. As the mind of the Psalmist included both David and Israel under the same symbolism, so here the Christ identifies Himself, more or less completely, with the Church which is His body. (Comp. Eph_1:22-23.)
A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Pulpit Commentary1880 · Public DomainOn vv42–44Did ye never read? It is as though Christ…
Did ye never read? It is as though Christ said, "Ye have answered rightly. You profess to know the Scriptures well; do you not, then, apprehend that Holy Writ foretells that concerning Messiah and his enemies which you have just announced?" The imagery is changed, but the subject is the same as in the preceding parable. The vineyard is now a building; the husbandmen are the builders; the Son is the stone. In the Scriptures. The quotation is from Psa_118:22, 23 the same psalm which was used on the day of triumph when Christ was saluted with cries of "Hosanna!" and which, as some say, was first sung by Israel at the Feast of Tabernacles on the return from Captivity. The stone. This figure was generally understood to represent Messiah, on whom depended the existence and support of the kingdom of God. Many prophecies containing this metaphor were applied to him; e.g. Isa_28:16 Dan_2:34 Zec_3:9; so that the Pharisees could be at no loss to understand the allusion, seeing that Jesus claimed to be that Stone. Rejected; as being not suitable to the building, or useless in its construction. So the husbandmen rejected the Son. The ignorance and contempt of men are overruled by the great Architect. The head of the corner. The cornerstone, which stands at the base and binds together two principal walls. (see St. Paul"s grand words, Eph_2:19-22) We learn that Christ unites Jew and Gentile in one holy house. (comp. 1Pe_2:6, 1Pe_2:7) This (auth), being feminine, is thought by some to refer to "head of the corner" (kefalhn, gwniav); but it is better to take it as used by a Hebrew idiom for the neuter, and to refer generally to what has preceded, viz. the settlement of the cornerstone in its destined position, which is effected by the Lord himself. The ultimate victory of the rejected Son is thus distinctly predicted. (comp. Act_4:11 Rom_9:33)
The history of the Cornerstone.
Read full note →
Foundations are not now laid as in olden times. Foundation stones are now mere ornaments. There is no sense in which buildings now rest on them. Memorial stones are taking the place of foundation stones. Probably the figure of the "cornerstone" is taken from the corner of Mount Moriah, which had to be built up from the valley, in order to make a square area for the temple courts. Dean Plumptre says, "In the primary meaning of the psalm, 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 on one side, as having no place in the building, but which was found afterwards to be that on which the completeness of the structure depended, that on which, as the chief cornerstone, the two walls met, and were bonded together." Take this suggestion, and consider
I CHRIST AS THE PREPARED CORNERSTONE. Describe the work done on the limestone block in order to fit it for its place as a foundation stone. The apostle permits us to think of the experiences of our Lord"s human life as fitting him to be the Saviour he became. The Captain of our salvation was made perfect through suffering, for his work as the "bringer on of souls." "Though he were a Son, yet learned he obedience by the things that he suffered." The Cornerstone was being chiselled and, bevelled for its place. Work out this figure.
II CHRIST AS THE REJECTED CORNERSTONE. When our Lord spoke, the Cornerstone was almost ready; and there were the men who prided themselves on being the builders of God"s temple of religion. And they were, then and there, rejecting that "tried Stone, that precious Cornerstone." They would put nothing on it. It was not to their mind. It may lie forever in the quarry for all they care. But happily they were only like overseers, or clerks of works. The Architect himself may order this Stone to be brought, and made the "Head of the corner.
III CHRIST AS THE HONOURED CORNERSTONE. The Architect himself did interfere, brushed those petty officials aside, had the tried Stone brought out, and on it he has had built the new temple of the ages. That temple is rising into ever richer and nobler proportions, and it was never more manifest than it is today, that the "Cornerstone is Christ. R.T.
The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Biblical Illustrator1887 · Public DomainOn v42The stone which the builders rejected.
Mat_21:42
The stone which the builders rejected.
Read full note →
Redemption a marvellous work
I. It is Gods work.
1. Contrary to intentions or acts of the builders.
I remember, away up in a lonely Highland valley, where beneath a tall black cliff, all weather-worn and cracked and seamed, there lies at the foot, resting on the green sward that creeps round its base, a huge rock that has fallen from the face of the precipice. A shepherd was passing beneath it, and suddenly, when the finger of Gods will touched it, and rent it from its bed in the everlasting rock, it came down, leaping and bounding from pinnacle to pinnacle, and it fell; and the man who was beneath it is there now! It will grind him to powder.… Therefore I say to you, since all that stand against Him shall become as the chaff of the summer threshing-floor, and be swept utterly away, make Him the foundation on which you build, and when the storm sweeps away every refuge of lies you will be safe and serene, builded upon the Rock of Ages. (Dr. McLaren)
Judgment and mercy
I. The greatest judgment which can ever befall a people is taking the kingdom of God from them. The kingdom of God was taken by the Jews themselves for some peculiar and temporal blessings which those who enjoyed it had above all other people. It was taken by our Saviour for a clearer manifestation of the will of God to the world, and the consequence of that in the hearts of good men, and all the spiritual blessings which do attend it. So that the taking away the kingdom of God from them must needs be the heaviest judgment which could befall a people, since it implies in it the taking away all the greatest temporal and spiritual blessings. Jews make the kingdom of God to consist
(1) in deliverance of them from their enemies;
(2) in the flourishing of their state, or that polity which God established among them;
(3) in the solemn worship of Him at the temple.
All these were taken away. Take the kingdom of God in the sense our Saviour meant-the power of the gospel-and the judgment is yet more evident.
1. It is acknowledged by the Jews themselves that these great calamities have happened to them for some extraordinary sins.
2. The sin ought to be looked on as so much greater by how much heavier and longer this punishment hath been than any inflicted on them before.
3. The Jews have not suffered these calamities for the same sins for which they suffered before.
4. It must be some sin which their fathers committed, and which continues yet unrepented of by them to this day.
There were these remarkable forerunners of desolation in the Jewish state which I am afraid we are too much concerned in.
1. A strange degeneracy of all sorts of men from the virtues of their ancestors.
2. A general stupidity and inapprehensiveness of common danger.
3. An atheistical contempt of religion.
4. Spiritual pride.
II. The greatest mercy that can ever be vouchsafed to a nation is Gods giving His kingdom to it. (Bishop Stilligfleet.)
The head stone of the corner
The Jews were the first builders to whom God gave the privilege to build His Church. Three things the corner-stone is to the builders work-
1. The structure ranges up to the corner-stone. All else is below, that it may be high; all ministers to it. Abase yourself that Christ may be exalted.
2. The whole fabric holds up the head of the corner to the view of men that it may be admired. Take care that the aspect which your religion wears to every man is not yourself, but Christ.
3. Let Christ, as the stone does the corner, bind everything. He is the one cementing all that is true. Whatever is in Christ, though it be repugnant to your feelings, do not send it away from you. (J. Vaughan, M. A.)
The stone of stumbling
The two clauses of the text figuratively point to two different classes of operation-in the one case the stone is represented as passive, lying quiet; in the other, it has got motion. In the one case, it is a self-inflicted, remedial injury; in the other, it is total and judicial.
I. Every man has some kind of connection with Christ. The gospel must influence every man somehow; it is an element in our present civilization. Christ does something to every one of us. He is either the rock on which I build or a stone of stumbling.
II. The immediate issue of rejection of him is loss and maiming-Whosoever shall fall on this stone shall be broken. The positive harm. No man ever yet passively rejected Christ; there is always a slight struggle with right before living away. So that every man who rejects Christ wounds his own conscience, hardens his own heart, makes himself a worse man. By the natural result of his unbelief his nature shall be broken. I need not dwell on the negative evil results of unbelief; we fail to possess the great Jove of God by which only we are made what we ought to be. Not only by the act of rejection of Christ do we maim ourselves, but also all attempts of opposition to the gospel as a system stand self-convicted-Whosoever falls on this stone shall be broken.
III. The ultimate issue of unbelief is irremediable destruction when Christ begins to move. The former clause has spoken about the passive operation of unbelief whilst the gospel is being preached; this about the active agency of Christ, It shall grind him to powder. (A. McLaren, D. D.)
The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
B. W. Johnson1891 · Public DomainOn vv42–4442. The stone which the builders rejected. “The Scripture”…
42. The stone which the builders rejected. “The Scripture” that speaks of this stone is Psalm 118:22, 23—a psalm which the Jews applied to the Messiah. Peter twice applied it to him (Acts 4:11; 1 Peter 2:7). The figure represents a stone rejected by the builders as worthless, and then found to be the chief corner-stone of the building. The stone is Christ, rejected by the Jewish nation, but “the chief corner-stone,” for this is what is meant by the “head of the corner.” The “corner-stone” joined two walls. Alford thinks this is a reference to the union of Jews and Gentiles in the church. Marvellous. That the rejected stone should become the “chief corner-stone, elect and precious,” on which the whole structure of the spiritual temple rests.
B. W. Johnson's The People's New Testament with Notes (1889–1891) — public domain. Electronic text from the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (CCEL) ThML edition.
Alexander MacLaren1905 · Public DomainOn v44
Matthew
THE VINEYARD AND ITS KEEPERS
Read full note →
THE STONE OF STUMBLING
Mat 21:44.
As Christ’s ministry drew to its close, its severity and its gentleness both increased; its severity to the class to whom it was always severe, and its gentleness to the class from whom it never turned away. Side by side, through all His manifestation of Himself, there were the two aspects: ‘He showed Himself froward’ {if I may quote the word} to the self-righteous and the Pharisee; and He bent with more than a woman’s tenderness of yearning love over the darkness and sinfulness, which in its great darkness dimly knew itself blind, and in its sinfulness stretched out a lame hand of faith, and groped after a divine deliverer. Here, in my text, there are only words of severity and awful foreboding. Christ has been telling those Pharisees and priests that the kingdom is to be taken from them, and given to a nation that brings forth the fruits thereof. He interprets for them an Old Testament figure, often recurring, which we read in the Psa 118:1 - Psa 118:29 {and I may just say, in passing, that we get here His interpretation of that psalm, and the vindication of our application of it, and other similar ones, to Him and His office}; ‘The stone which the builders rejected,’ said He, ‘is become the head of the corner’; and then, falling back on other Old Testament uses of the same figure, He weaves into one the whole of them-that in Isaiah about the ‘sure foundation,’ and that in Daniel about ‘the stone cut out without hands, which became a great mountain,’ crushing down all opposition,-and centres them all in Himself; as fulfilled in Himself, in His person and His work.
The two clauses of my text figuratively point to two different classes of operation on the rejecters of the Gospel. What are these two classes? ‘Whosoever shall fall on this stone shall be broken: but on whomsoever it shall fall, it will grind him to powder.’ In the one case, the stone is represented as passive, lying quiet; in the other, it has acquired motion. In the one case, the man stumbles and hurts himself; a remediable injury, a self-inflicted injury, a natural injury, without the active operation of Christ to produce it at all; in the other case the injury is worse than remediable, it is utter, absolute, grinding destruction, and it comes from the active operation of the ‘stone of stumbling.’ That is to say, the one class represents the present hurts and harms which, by the natural operation of things, without the action of Christ judicially at all, every man receives in the very act of rejecting the Gospel; and the other represents the ultimate issue of that rejection, which rejection is darkened into opposition and fixed hostility, when the stone that was laid ‘for a foundation’ has got wings {if I may so say}, and comes down in judgment, crushing and destroying the antagonist utterly. ‘Whosoever falls on this stone is broken,’ here and now; and ‘on whomsoever it shall fall, it will grind him to powder,’ hereafter and yonder.
Taking, then, into account the weaving together in this passage of the three figures from the Old Testament to which I have already referred,-the rejected stone, the foundation, and the mountain-stone of Daniel, and looking in the light of these, at the twofold issues, one present and one future, which the text distinctly brings before us,-we have just three points to which I ask your attention now. First, Every man has some kind of contact with Christ. Secondly, Rejection of Him, here and now, is harm and maiming. And, lastly, Rejection of Him, hereafter and yonder, is hopeless, endless, utter destruction.
I. In the first place, every man has some kind of connection with Christ.
I am not going to enter at all now upon any question about the condition of the ‘dark places of the earth’ where the Gospel has not come as a well-known preached message; we have nothing to do with that; the principles on which they are judged is not the question before us now. I am speaking exclusively about persons who have heard the word of salvation, and are dwelling in the midst of what we call a Christian land. Christ is offered to each of us, in good faith on God’s part, as a means of salvation, a foundation on which we may build. A man is free to accept or to reject that offer. If he reject it, he has not thereby cut himself off from all contact and connection with that rejected Saviour, but he still sustains a relation to Him; and the message that he has refused to believe, is exercising an influence upon his character and his destiny.
Christ comes, I say, offered to us all in good faith on the part of God, as a foundation upon which we may build. And then comes in that strange mystery, that a man, consciously free, turns away from the offered mercy, and makes Him that was intended to be the basis of his life, the foundation of his hope, the rock on which, steadfast and serene, he should build up a temple-home for his soul to dwell in,-makes Him a stumbling-stone against which, by rejection and unbelief, he breaks himself!
My friend, will you let me lay this one thing upon your heart,-you cannot hinder the Gospel from influencing you somehow. Taking it in its lowest aspects, it is one of the forces of modern society, an element in our present civilisation. It is everywhere, it obtrudes itself on you at every turn, the air is saturated with its influence. To be unaffected by such an all-pervading phenomenon is impossible. To no individual member of the great whole of a nation is it given to isolate himself utterly from the community. Whether he oppose or whether he acquiesce in current opinions, to denude himself of the possessions which belong in common to his age and state of society is in either case impracticable. ‘That which cometh into your mind,’ said one of the prophets to the Jews who were trying to cut themselves loose from their national faith and their ancestral prerogatives, ‘That which cometh into your mind shall not be at all, that ye say, We will be as the heathen, as the families of the countries to serve wood and stone.’ Vain dream! You can no more say, I will pass the Gospel by, and it shall be nothing to me, I will simply let it alone, than you can say, I will shut myself up from other influences proper to my time and nation. You cannot go back to the old naked barbarism, and you cannot reduce the influence of Christianity, even considered merely as one of the characteristics of the times, to zero. You may fancy you are letting it alone, but it does not let you alone; it is here, and you cannot shut yourself off from it.
But it is not merely as a subtle and diffused influence that the Gospel exercises a permanent effect upon us. It is presented to each of us here individually, in the definite form of an actual offer of salvation for each, and of an actual demand of trust from each. The words pass into our souls, and thenceforward we can never be the same as if they had not been there. The smallest ray of light falling on a sensitive plate produces a chemical change that can never be undone again, and the light of Christ’s love, once brought to the knowledge and presented for the acceptance of a soul, stamps on it an ineffaceable sign of its having been there. The Gospel once heard, is always the Gospel which has been heard. Nothing can alter that. Once heard, it is henceforward a perpetual element in the whole condition, character, and destiny of the hearer.
Christ does something to every one of us. His Gospel will tell upon you, it is telling upon you. If you disbelieve it, you are not the same as if you had never heard it. Never is the box of ointment opened without some savour from it abiding in every nostril to which its odour is wafted. Only the alternative, the awful ‘either, or,’ is open for each-the ‘savour of life unto life, or the savour of death unto death.’ To come back to the illustration of the text, Christ is something, and does something to every one of us. He is either the rock on which I build, poor, weak, sinful creature as I am, getting security, and sanctity, and strength from Him, I being a living stone’ built upon ‘the living stone,’ and partaking of the vitality of the foundation; or else He is the other thing, ‘a stone of stumbling and a rock of offence to them which stumble at the word.’ Christ stands for ever in some kind of relation to, and exercises for ever some kind of influence on, every man who has heard the Gospel.
II. The immediate issue of rejection of Him is loss and maiming.
‘Whosoever shall fall on this stone shall be broken.’ Just think for a moment, by way of illustrating this principle, first of all, of the positive harm which you do to yourself in the act of turning away from the mercy offered you in Christ; and then think for a moment of the negative loss which you sustain by the same act.
Note the positive harm. Am I uncharitable when I say that no man ever yet passively neglected the message of love in God’s Son; but that always this is the rude outline of the experience of people who know what it is to have a Saviour offered to them, and know what it is to put Him away,-that there is a feeble and transitory movement of heart and will; that Conscience says, ‘Thou oughtest’; that Will says, ‘I would’; that the heart is touched by some sense of that great and gentle vision of light and love which passes before the eye; that the man, as it were, like some fever-ridden patient, lifts himself up for an instant from the bed on which he is lying, and puts out a hand, and then falls back again, the vacillating, fevered, paralysed will recoiling from the resolution, and the conscience having power to say, ‘Thou oughtest,’ but no power to enforce the execution of its decrees, and the heart turning away from the salvation that it would have found in the love of love, to the loss that it finds in the love of self and earth? Or in other words, is it not true that every man who rejects Christ does in simple verity reject Him, and not merely neglect Him; that there is always an effort, that there is a struggle, feeble, perhaps, but real, which ends in the turning away? It is not that you stand there, and simply let Him go past. That were bad enough; but the fact is worse than that. It is that you turn your back upon Him. It is not that His hand is laid on yours, and yours remains dead and cold, and does not open to clasp it; but it is that His hand being laid on yours, you clench yours the tighter, and will not have it. And so every man {I believe} who rejects Christ does these things thereby-wounds his own conscience, hardens his own heart, makes himself a worse man, just because he has had a glimpse, and has willingly, and almost consciously, ‘loved darkness rather than light.’ Oh, brethren, the message of love can never come into a human soul, and pass away from it unreceived, without leaving that spirit worse, with all its lowest characteristics strengthened, and all its best ones depressed, by the fact of rejection. I have nothing to do now with pursuing that process to its end; but the natural result-if there were no future Judgment at all, if there were no movement ever given to the stone that you ought to build on-the natural result of the simple rejection of the Gospel is that, bit by bit, all the lingering remains of nobleness that hover about the man, like scent about a broken vase, pass away; and that, step by step, through the simple process of saying, ‘I will not have Christ to rule over me,’ the whole being degenerates, until manhood becomes devil-hood, and the soul is lost by its own want of faith. Unbelief is its own judgment; unbelief is its own condemnation; unbelief, as sin, is punished, like all other sins, by the perpetuation of deeper and darker forms of itself. Every time that you stifle a conviction, fight down a conviction, or drive away a conviction; and every time that you feebly move towards the decision, ‘I will trust Him, and love Him, and be His,’ yet fail to realise it, you have harmed your soul, you have made yourself a worse man, you have lowered the tone of your conscience, you have enfeebled your will, you have made your heart harder against love, you have drawn another horny scale over the eye, that will prevent you from seeing the light that is yonder; you have, as much as in you is, withdrawn from God, and approximated to the other pole of the universe {if I may say that}, to the dark and deadly antagonist of mercy, and goodness, and truth, and grace. ‘Whosoever falls on this stone,’ by the natural result of his unbelief, ‘shall be broken’ and maimed, and shall mar his own nature.
I need not dwell on the negative evil results of unbelief; the loss of that which is the only guide for a man, the taking away, or rather the failing to possess, that great love above us, that divine Spirit in us, by which only we are ever made what we ought to be. This only I would leave with you, in this part of my subject, Whoever is not in Christ is maimed. Only he that is ‘a man in Christ’ has come ‘to the measure of the stature of a perfect man.’ There, and there alone, do we get the power which will make us full-grown. There alone is the soul planted in that good soil in which, growing, it becomes as a rounded, perfect tree, with leaves and fruits in their season. All other men are half-men, quarter-men, fragments of men, parts of humanity exaggerated and contorted and distorted from the reconciling whole which the Christian ought to be, and in proportion to his Christianity is on the road to be, and one day will assuredly and actually be, a ‘complete and entire man, wanting nothing’; nothing maimed, nothing broken, the realisation of the ideal of humanity, the renewed copy ‘of the second Adam, the Lord from heaven.’
There is another consideration closely connected with this second part of my subject, that I just mention and pass on. Not only by the act of rejection of Christ do we harm and maim ourselves, but also all attempts at opposition-formal opposition-to the Gospel as a system, stand self-convicted and self-condemned to speedy decay. What a commentary upon that word, ‘Whosoever falls on this stone shall be broken,’ is the whole history of the heresies of the Church and the assaults of unbelief! Man after man, rich in gifts, endowed often with far larger and nobler faculties than the people who oppose him, with indomitable perseverance, a martyr to his error, sets himself up against the truth that is sphered in Jesus Christ; and the great divine message simply goes on its way, and all the babblement and noise are like so many bats flying against a light, or like the sea-birds that come sweeping up in the tempest and the night, to the hospitable Pharos that is upon the rock, and smite themselves dead against it. Sceptics well known in their generation, who made people’s hearts tremble for the ark of God, what has become of them? Their books lie dusty and undisturbed on the top shelf of libraries; whilst there the Bible stands, with all the scribblings wiped off the page, as though they had never been! Opponents fire their small shot against the great Rock of Ages, and the little pellets fall flattened, and only scale off a bit of the moss that has gathered there! My brother, let the history of the past teach you and me, with other deeper thoughts, a very calm and triumphant confidence about all that opponents say nowadays; for all the modern opposition to this Gospel will go as all the past has done, and the newest systems which cut and carve at Christianity, will go to the tomb where all the rest have gone; and dead old infidelities will rise up from their thrones, and say to the bran-new ones of this generation, when their day is worked out, ‘Are ye also become weak as we? art thou also become like one of us?’ ‘Whosoever shall fall on this stone shall be broken’: personally, he will be harmed; and his opinions, and his books, and his talk, and all his argumentation, will come to nothing, like the waves that break into impotent foam against the rocky cliffs.
III. Last of all, the issue, the ultimate issue, of unbelief is irremediable destruction when Christ begins to move.
The former clause has spoken about the harm that naturally follows unbelief whilst the Gospel is being preached; the latter clause speaks about the active agency of Christ when the end shall have come, and the preaching of the Gospel shall have merged into the act of judgment. I do not mean to dwell, brethren, upon that thought; it seems to me far too awful a one to be handled by my hands, at any rate. Let us leave it in the vagueness and dreadfulness of the words of Him who never spoke exaggerated words, and who, when He said, ‘It shall grind him to powder,’ meant {as it seems to me} nothing less than a destruction which, contrasted with the former remediable wounding and breaking, was a destruction utter, and hopeless, and everlasting, and without remedy. Ground-ground to powder! Any life left in that? any gathering up of that, and making a man of it again? All the humanity battered out of it, and the life clean gone from it! Does not that sound very much like ‘everlasting destruction from the presence of God and from the glory of His power’? Christ, silent now, will begin to speak; passive now, will begin to act. The stone comes down, and the fall of it will be awful. I remember, away up in a lonely Highland valley, where beneath a tall black cliff, all weather-worn, and cracked, and seamed, there lies at the foot, resting on the greensward that creeps round its base, a huge rock, that has fallen from the face of the precipice. A shepherd was passing beneath it; and suddenly, when the finger of God’s will touched it, and rent it from its ancient bed in the everlasting rock, it came down, leaping and bounding from pinnacle to pinnacle-and it fell; and the man that was beneath it is there now! ‘Ground to powder.’ Ah, my brethren, that is not my illustration-that is Christ’s. Therefore I say to you, since all that stand against Him shall become ‘as the chaff of the summer threshing-floor,’ and be swept utterly away, make Him the foundation on which you build; and when the storm sweeps away every ‘refuge of lies,’ you will be safe and serene, builded upon the Rock of Ages.
Alexander MacLaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture (1904–1910) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
C. I. Scofield1917 · Public DomainOn vv42–44Jehovah. Psa 118:23.
Lord’s
Jehovah. Psa 118:23.
The Scofield Reference Bible (1917 edition), notes by C. I. Scofield — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Paul E. Kretzmann1924 · Public DomainOn v42The application:
The application:
v. 42. Jesus saith unto them, Did ye never read in the Scriptures, The stone which the builders rejected, the same is become the head of the corner; this is the Lord’s doing, and it is marvelous in our eyes?
Read full note →
v. 43. Therefore I say unto you, The kingdom of God shall be taken from you, and given to a nation bringing forth the fruits thereof.
v. 44. And whosoever shall fall on this stone shall be broken; but on whomsoever it shall fall, it will grind him to powder.
Christ does not mince words, but applies the parable with merciless power. He reminds the members of the Jewish council of the words of the prophet, Psa 118:22. The Jews were the chosen builders of the spiritual temple of God. But one condition of their continuing in the work was the acceptance of the stone which was selected by God to be the headstone of the corner. By the miracle of Christ’s resurrection their rejection of Him was judged. Christ has become the corner-stone of the New Testament Church, the foundation of the great spiritual structure which will be completed on the last day, Eph 2:20-22. Addressing Himself directly to them, Jesus tells them the doom they may expect: forfeiture of all their privileges in the Kingdom, which will be given to the heathen world. And there is still another word which applies here, that of the stone of stumbling and of the rock of offense, Isa 8:14. If any one takes offense at this Corner-stone and falls on Him, he will be shattered; but if the Stone should fall upon someone by the judgment of God, he will be crushed to powder and scattered to the winds, Luk 2:34-35. On the last day all those that refused obedience to the heavenly King and rejected His Son, thus despising the grace gained also for them, will find themselves ground to pieces by the inexorable justice of God. "But to be built on the Stone is to believe on Christ that He is our Savior. If, then, I am called to the Gospel, and accept it and believe it, then I am one of the stones laid upon Him and am considered saved, not for the sake of my merit and works, but that I am built and laid on the Cornerstone, which is done through the true Christian faith, as the children pray: I believe on Jesus Christ, who was conceived by the Holy Ghost, born of Mary, the virgin, suffered under Pilate; He is the polished and proved Corner-stone. If I believe in Him, then I am built upon Him and will be saved, as Isaiah says: He that trusts in Him will not be ashamed; there the prophet explains clearly that being built upon Him means to trust in Christ and believe in Him."
Paul E. Kretzmann, Popular Commentary of the Bible (1921–1924) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
unfoldingWord translationNotes2017 · CC BY-SA 4.0On vv42–43Connecting Statement:
Connecting Statement:
Here Jesus begins to explain the parable of the rebellious servants.
Read full note →
General Information:
Jesus quotes the prophet Isaiah to show that God will honor the one whom the religious leaders reject.
Jesus said to them
It is unclear to whom Jesus asks the following question. If you need to make "them" specific, use the same audience as you did in Matthew 21:41.
Did you never read ... eyes'?
Jesus uses a question to make his audience think deeply about what this scripture means. AT: "Think about what you have read ... eyes.'" (See: Rhetorical Question)
The stone which the builders rejected has been made the cornerstone
Jesus is quoting from the Psalms. This is a metaphor that means the religious leaders, like builders, will reject Jesus, but God will make him the most important in his kingdom, like the cornerstone in a building. (See: Metaphor)
has been made the cornerstone
This can be stated in active form. AT: "has become the cornerstone" (See: Active or Passive)
This was from the Lord
"The Lord has caused this great change"
it is marvelous in our eyes
Here "in our eyes" refers to seeing. AT: "it is wonderful to see" (See: Metonymy)
Tyndale Open Study Notes2022 · CC BY-SA 4.0On vv42–4421:42 The cornerstone was either the first stone of…
21:42 The cornerstone was either the first stone of the foundation or the capstone (as of an arch), the last to be laid. The very stone that the builders rejected as unworthy of use was, in fact, the most important. Jesus was referring to his own role in the Kingdom of God (21:43) and to the religious leaders’ rejection of him.
GEBible — Godless Engineer's Bible App
Geneva Bible translators 1599 · Public Domain On vv42–44 Began to be.
Began to be.
Master builders, which are chief builders of the house, that is, of the Church.
Read full note →
That matter (in that the stone which was cast away, is made the head) is the Lord’s doing, which we behold and greatly marvel at.
The chiefest stone in the corner is called the head of the corner, which beareth up the couplings or joints of the whole building.
Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain.
John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain On vv42–44 42 Jesus saith unto them, Did ye never read…
42 Jesus saith unto them, Did ye never read in the scriptures, The stone which the builders rejected, the same is become the head of the corner: this is the Lord’s doing, and it is marvellous in our eyes?
Ver. 42. Did ye never read in the Scriptures] Yes, full often, but never applied such a place as this to themselves. A godly man reads the Scriptures as he doth the statute book: he holds himself concerned in all that he reads; he finds his own name written in every passage, and lays it to heart, as spoken to him. The wicked, on the other side, put off all they like not, and dispose of it to others, as if themselves were none such. God forbid, said these to our Saviour, Luk 20:16. But he convinceth them out of their own reading, to be the men he meant. Men may make some sorry shift, and shuffle for a while from side to side, as Balaam’s ass did, but there is no averting or avoiding the dint of God’s displeasure, otherwise than by falling down, as the ass did, and afterwards her master, being rebuked for his iniquity, "The dumb ass speaking with man’s voice, forbad the madness of the prophet," 2Pe 2:16.
John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Matthew Poole 1685 · Public Domain On v42 Mark saith, Mar 12:10,11, And have ye not read…
Mark saith, Mar 12:10,11, And have ye not read this scripture, The stone which the builders rejected is become the head of the corner: this was the Lord’s doing, and it is marvellous in our eyes. Luke saith, Luk 20:17,18, And he beheld them, and said, What is this then that is written, The stone which the builders rejected, the same is become the head of the corner? Whosoever shall fall upon that stone shall be broken; but on whomsoever it shall fall, it will grind him to powder. It is more than probable that our Saviour had more words with them upon this argument than are left us upon sacred record; for John hath let us know, that we are not to expect that all he did or spake should be written, Joh 21:25; and as not every discourse or action, so not all words in the same discourse, nor all circumstances relating to the same action. Knowing themselves and their masters to be the husbandmen with whom the Lord had entrusted this vineyard the house of Israel, it is not reasonable to think they should be very patient to hear that God would miserably destroy them as wicked men, and commit his vineyard to the trust of others. We cannot therefore in reason imagine but that they should reply something to that, as thinking it a strange thing that he should assert, that for the rejection of him, God would reject his ancient people, and cast off the church of the Jews. To show this was nothing which ought to seem strange to them, he asks them, Did ye never read in the Scriptures, The stone, & c. Luke saith, he beheld them, and said, What is this then, &c.? As if the Pharisees had charged him with speaking without any warrant from the word of God, there was no such thing in the law or prophets. To convince them of their mistake, or at least that there was nothing in that he said which needed to appear strange to them, he saith, Did ye never read? or, Have ye not read the scripture? (so Mark relates it); or, What is this then? As Luke hath it. The text he quotes is Psa 118:22,23. It is manifest that the Jews understood that Psalm to be a prophecy of Christ, by the people’s acclamations of Hosanna; for the substance of those acclamations are in Psa 118:25,26; Save now, I beseech thee, O Lord: O Lord, I beseech thee, send now prosperity. Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord. Hoshiah na, hn he eyvwh Save, I beseech thee. This they understood of the Messiah. This they had heard cried unto our Saviour. Saith our Saviour, In that very Psalm you may read, The stone which the builders rejected is become the head of the corner. Before he had compared the church to a vineyard, to show their obligation to bring forth fruit; here to a building, to denote God’s dwelling in it. The builders here intended were the heads of the Jewish church, who not only by their own pretences, but by their calling, were builders, and ought to have been builders; though indeed they proved destroyers and pullers down, instead of builders. The church is elsewhere compared to a building, 1Co 3:9; Eph 2:21; and the teachers in it to builders, Rom 15:20; Gal 2:18. Our Lord is here compared to a stone, because he is the only firm foundation, the chief cornerstone; in whom all the building fitly framed together groweth unto an holy temple in the Lord: in whom ye also are builded together for an habitation of God through the Spirit, Eph 2:20-22; called by the prophet Isaiah, Isa 28:16, a stone laid in Zion for a foundation, a tried stone, a precious cornerstone, a sure foundation; which is applied to Christ, Act 4:11; Rom 9:33; 1Pe 2:6-8. He is become the head of the corner, that is, the chief, the principal stone in the building. Lest they should be startled at this, he addeth, this is the Lord’s doing, and it is marvellous in our eyes. This may seem strange to you, that those who seemed to be builders and pillars should be rejected and thrown away; and no wonder, for it is the Lord’s doing. In the reformations of churches from gross corruptions, God doth always some extraordinary things, which we are not at present able to reconcile to other reasons. Mat 21:43, (which some think should have been put after the next verse), our Lord tells them plainly, that God was removing his church from them to the Gentiles, which he calleth a people that should bring forth the fruits thereof.
And whosoever shall fall on this stone shall be broken: there will be many that shall be offended at Christ, his person, his doctrine, his institutions, upon which account he is called a stumbling stone, Rom 9:33. But they shall be broken: if they take offence at me, so as they will not believe on me, nor receive me, it will be their ruin.
Read full note →
But on whomsoever it shall fall, it will grind him to powder: if they shall go on to persecute me and my members, so that I fall on them, they shall be ruined, irreparably and irrecoverably, with a more dreadful destruction.
Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
William Burkitt 1703 · Public Domain On vv42, 44 Which words are the application that our Saviour makes…
Which words are the application that our Saviour makes of the foregoing parable concerning the vineyard; which the chief priests and Pharisees did not apprehend themselves to be concerned in, till he brought the application of it home unto them. Therfore, say I unto you, the kingdom of God shall be taken from you, &c.
Note, 1. The greatest mercy that God can bestow upon any people, is his giving his kingdom to them; that is, all gospel ordinances, and church privileges leading to the kingdom of heaven.
Read full note →
2. Observe the terms upon which God either gives or continues his kingdom to a church and nation. And that is, upon bringing forth the fruits thereof.
Learn, 3. That the greatest judgement which can befall a people, is the taking away the kingdom of God from them. The kingdom of God shall be taken from you, and given, &c.
William Burkitt's Expository Notes on the New Testament (1700–1703) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
John Gill 1763 · Public Domain On vv42–44 Jesus saith unto them, did ye never read the…
Jesus saith unto them, did ye never read the Scriptures,.... The passage which stands in Psa 118:22.
The stone which the builders rejected, the same is become the head of the corner: this is the Lord's doing, and it is marvellous in our eyes. Very appropriately is this Scripture cited, and applied to the present case; which expresses the rejection of the Messiah by the Jewish builders, priests, and scribes: the whole Psalm may be understood of the Messiah. R. David Kimchi owns (z), that there is a division among their Rabbins about it: some say that the Psalm is spoken of David, and others, that it is spoken of the days of the Messiah; and these are certainly in the right; and as for this particular passage, it is applied by some of them to the Messiah: so on mentioning Hos 3:5 they (a) say,
Read full note →
"David was king in this world, and David shall be king in the time to come: wherefore it is said, the stone which the builders refused, &c.
And one of their noted commentators (b) on those words, "though thou be little among the thousands of Judah", has this note:
"It is fit thou shouldest be little among the families of Judah, because of the impurity of Ruth the Moabitess, which is in thee: out of thee shall come forth unto me, Messiah, the son of David; for so he saith, "the stone which the builders refused", &c.
Christ is often in Scripture compared to a stone, and is called the stone of Israel; is said to be a stone of stumbling to some, and a precious tried stone to others: is represented as a stone cut out of the mountain without hands, and on which are seven eyes: and is fitly compared to one, for his usefulness in the spiritual building the church, where he is as both the foundation and corner stone, and for his strength and duration. Christ is the sure, firm, and everlasting foundation, which God has laid in Zion, and the only one of any avail; nor can any other be laid to any purpose; and if he is neglected, and laid aside, in the ministration of the word, the building which men endeavour to rear, or exhort unto, will come to nothing. Whoever build on him are safe, and on nothing else: Christ is the foundation, on which the church, and every believer, are built, and therefore will abide; for the gates of hell cannot prevail against them: the covenant of grace is immoveable, being established in him; its mercies are sure, and its promises yea and amen: the salvation of immortal souls is certain, resting upon him; the faith and hope of the saints fail not, being directed to, and settled on him: the house not made with hands, which is in heaven, is an eternal one; and the city, which has foundations, is a continuing one, because of the concern that Christ has in it; and though he is of such eminent use and importance in the building, yet, as such, the "builders rejected" him: by the builders are meant, the Jewish rulers, both political and ecclesiastical, especially the latter, who pretended to instruct, and build up the people in knowledge and understanding; but in a very bad way did they do it, and upon a very sandy foundation, upon their fleshly privileges, their moral righteousness, and the observance of the ceremonial law, and the traditions of the elders. The Jews used to call their doctors and their scholars "builders" (c): says R. Jochanan,
"the disciples of the wise men are called "builders", because they study in the building of the world all their days, which is the law.
These rejected the Messiah, refused to receive, and acknowledge him as such: they disallowed and disapproved of him, as base and vile, and the most contemptible of mortals, and set him at nought, and had him in the utmost scorn and derision. And so he is rejected by some who bear the characters of builders among Christians: as when his proper deity, and eternal sonship are denied, and he is treated as a mere creature; when his satisfaction and atoning sacrifice are either wholly rejected, or little regarded, lessened, and depreciated, and repentance and good works are put in the room of them; when his imputed righteousness is opposed, and laid aside, and the righteousness of men preferred unto it, and cried up as the matter of justification in the sight of God; when his efficacious grace is represented as unnecessary to regeneration, conversion, and sanctification, and to the performance of good works; and when he is left out of public ministrations, as the way of life and salvation, as the fountain of all grace, and foundation of all happiness, and human power, free will, and moral righteousness are put in his room. But notwithstanding the former and present rejection, and ill treatment of him, he is
become the head of the corner: he is the corner stone in the building which knits and cements it together, angels and men, Jews and Gentiles; Old and New Testament saints; saints above, and saints below, and in all ages and places, all meet, and are united together in this corner stone; which also strengthens and supports the building, and holds it together, and is the ornament and beauty of it: he is the chief corner stone; he is higher than the kings of the earth; he is superior to angels, and the chiefest among ten thousands of his saints; he is exalted above all creatures, angels, and men, who, by the Jewish builders, was despised and rejected, and scarce allowed to be worthy the name of a man:
this is the Lord's doing; this stone is laid in the building by him: the rejection of him is according to his determinate counsel and foreknowledge; and the exaltation of him, above every name, is owing to him, and he is by, and at his own right hand: and
is marvellous in our eyes; in the eyes of all the saints; there being in all this such, a wonderful display of the wisdom, grace, mercy, power, and faithfulness of God,
(z) In Psal. cxviii. 1. (a) Zohar in Exod. fol. 93. 3. (b) Jarchi in Mic. v. 2. (c) T. Bab. Subbut, fol. 114. 1. Vid. En Israel, fol. 64. 3. & Juchasin, fol. 80. 2. & 81. 1.
John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Wesley 1765 · Public Domain On vv42–44 The builders - The scribes and priests, whose office…
The builders - The scribes and priests, whose office it was to build up the Church. Is become the head of the corner - Or the chief corner stone: he is become the foundation of the Church, on which the whole building rests, and is the principal corner stone, for uniting the Gentiles to it, as the chief corner stone of a house supports and links its two sides together. Psalm cxviii, 22.
John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.
Adam Clarke 1810 · Public Domain On vv42–44 Verse 42. The stone] R. Solom. Jarchi, on Micah…
Verse 42. The stone] R. Solom. Jarchi, on Micah 5., says, this stone means the Messiah, אכן משיח: Abarbanel is of the same opinion. This seems to have been originally spoken of David who was at first rejected by the Jewish rulers, but was afterwards chosen by the Lord to be the great ruler of his people Israel. The quotation is taken from Ps 118:22.
As the Church is represented in Scripture under the name of the temple and house of God, in allusion to the temple of Jerusalem, which was a type of it, 1Co 3:16; Heb 3:6; 1Pe 2:5; so Jesus Christ is represented as the foundation on which this edifice is laid, 1Co 3:11; Eph 2:20-21.
Read full note →
The builders] The chief priests and elders of the people, with the doctors of the law.
Rejected] An expression borrowed from masons, who, finding a stone, which being tried in a particular place, and appearing improper for it, is thrown aside, and another taken; however, at last, it may happen that the very stone which had been before rejected, may be found the most suitable as the head stone of the corner.
This passage, as applied by our Lord to himself, contains an abridgment of the whole doctrine of the Gospel.
1. The Lord's peculiar work is astonishingly manifested in the mission of Jesus Christ.
2. He, being rejected and crucified by the Jews, became an atonement for the sin of the world.
3. He was raised again from the dead, a proof of his conquest over death and sin, and a pledge of immortality to his followers.
4. He was constituted the foundation on which the salvation of mankind rests, and the corner stone which unites Jews and Gentiles, beautifies, strengthens, and completes the whole building, as the head stone, or uppermost stone in the corner does the whole edifice.
5. He is hereby rendered the object of the joy and admiration of all his followers and the glory of man. This was done by the Lord, and is marvellous in our eyes.
Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Joseph Benson 1811 · Public Domain On vv42, 44 Mat 21:42-43. Jesus saith unto them — Luke says,…
Mat 21:42-43. Jesus saith unto them — Luke says, εμβλεψας αυτοις, ειπε, having looked on them, namely, with great compassion and solemnity in his countenance, he said, Did ye never read, or never reflect upon this remarkable passage in the Scriptures, The stone which the builders refused, &c.? — As if he had said, If the vineyard is not to be taken from you and given to others, what is the meaning of these words? Do they not plainly foretel that the Messiah shall be rejected by the Jewish great men, their teachers and rulers, the builders of their church and commonwealth, and that, though they put him to death, he shall become the head of the corner, or the head of the church? Now, what else is this but that he shall be believed on by the Gentiles, and unite them to the Church of God, as a head cornerstone unites the two sides of a building? This is the Lord’s doing, and it is marvellous, &c. — The rejection of the Messiah by the Jews, his reception among the Gentiles, and their admission into the church, are all very wonderful events, brought to pass by the singular providence of God. Therefore, because God himself has long ago expressly foretold that this judgment will happen to you; and because it is a most righteous and equitable judgment, I tell you plainly, the kingdom of God — Which you have thus vilely and ungratefully contemned and abused, shall be taken from you, and given to a nation, &c. — That is, the gospel of Christ shall be taken from you, and carried to the Gentiles, who will have more regard to the favour shown them, and improve it much better than you have done. It is justly observed by Dr. Campbell, “that this is one of the clearest predictions of the rejection of the Jews and of the call of the Gentiles, which we have in this history.”
Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary 1859 · Public Domain On vv42–43 The head of the corner. By these words, (Psalm…
The head of the corner. By these words, (Psalm cxvii,) which the Jews themselves expounded of their Messias, Christ shewed them, that although they, who should have been the architects, had rejected him, yet he should be the chief corner-stone to unite the Jews and the Gentiles, converted into one Christian Church, militant on earth and triumphant in heaven. See Acts iv. 11. (Witham) --- St. Augustine remarks, that this parable was addressed not only to the opponents of Christ’s authority, but likewise to the people.
George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).
Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset & David Brown 1871 · Public Domain On vv42–44 Jesus saith unto them. Did ye never read in…
Jesus saith unto them. Did ye never read in the scriptures-- (Psa 118:22-23).
The stone which the builders rejected, &c.--A bright Messianic prophecy, which reappears in various forms (Isa 28:16, &c.), and was made glorious use of by Peter before the Sanhedrim (Act 4:11). He recurs to it in his first epistle (Pe1 2:4-6).
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
Daniel D. Whedon 1874 · Public Domain On vv42–44 42. Jesus saith unto them — Our Lord now…
42. Jesus saith unto them — Our Lord now proceeds to hint to them that their first question, with which they opened this debate, was, as has just been said, completely answered. Still under a figure that of a stone rejected, he indicates how he, though by them rejected, would ultimately prove to be Lord of all, whose judgment would grind them to powder. The stone which the builders rejected — Psa_118:22. Note the rapid yet harmonious changes of our Lord’s illustration of the stone. The same stone is first a rejected stone; then, second, a head corner-stone; then, third, a stumbling-stone; and lastly, a stone hurled from a balista.
The stone which the builders reject is one which the architect or workman thinks too unshapely to be worked into the structure, and so casts it off; and this pictures Christ rejected by the Jewish rulers. The head stone of the corner is the large stone placed in the corner of a stone edifice, for the purpose of binding the two walls firmly together. And this describes Christ in his exaltation in the kingdom of God. Our Lord here interrupts the transition of the figure to declare, from Psalm cxviii, that this exaltation of himself was from God; and thus their question as to his authority is completely answered.
Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges 1878 · Public Domain On vv42, 44 42. Did ye never read in the scriptures] Psa_118:22…
42. Did ye never read in the scriptures] Psa_118:22 (Mat_21:25 of the same psalm is quoted above, Mat_21:9, where see note); the psalm “was probably composed for the first celebration of the Feast of Tabernacles after the completion of the Second Temple” (Neh_8:13-18). (Canon Perowne.) The original reference was to a stone used in the erection of the second Temple. The “corner stone” is the Jewish nation rejected at first, afterwards restored from captivity. Christ transfers this image to His Church, formed of Jew and Gentile alike (see Meyer), which, though despised at first, was destined to succeed to the spiritual supremacy of Israel.
In Act_4:11, Eph_2:20, 1Pe_2:6, Christ Himself is the head-corner-stone; but the two applications are not inconsistent, for Christ was the Representative first of the Jewish Nation (ch. Mat_4:15, Mat_2:1-11 (3)), then of the Church. Cp. also Isa_28:16, “I lay in Zion for a foundation a stone, a tried stone, a precious corner stone, a sure foundation.”
Read full note →
The stone] Rather, A stone. The builders rejected many stones.
the head of the corner] The stone that connects the two walls at the top and supports the roof.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers 1878 · Public Domain On vv42, 44 (42) Did ye never read. . . .?—The quotation…
(42) Did ye never read. . . .?—The quotation is remarkable as being found (Psa_118:22) in the immediate context of the verse which had supplied the “hosanna” shouts of the multitude on the preceding day. In the primary meaning of the Psalm, 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 on one side, as having no place in the building, but which was found afterwards to be that on which the completeness of the structure depended, that on which, as the chief corner-stone, the two walls met and were bonded together. The Psalmist saw in this a parable of the choice of David to be king over Israel; perhaps, also, of the choice of Israel itself out of the nations of the world. Elsewhere, as in Eph_2:20, and in the language of later ages, Christ Himself is the chief corner-stone. Here the context gives a somewhat different application, and “the stone which the builders rejected” is found in the future converts from among the Gentiles, the nation bringing forth the fruits which Israel had not brought forth—the “corner-stone” of the great edifice of the Catholic Church of Christ. This meaning was obviously not incompatible with the other. As the mind of the Psalmist included both David and Israel under the same symbolism, so here the Christ identifies Himself, more or less completely, with the Church which is His body. (Comp. Eph_1:22-23.)
A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Pulpit Commentary 1880 · Public Domain On vv42–44 Did ye never read? It is as though Christ…
Did ye never read? It is as though Christ said, "Ye have answered rightly. You profess to know the Scriptures well; do you not, then, apprehend that Holy Writ foretells that concerning Messiah and his enemies which you have just announced?" The imagery is changed, but the subject is the same as in the preceding parable. The vineyard is now a building; the husbandmen are the builders; the Son is the stone. In the Scriptures. The quotation is from Psa_118:22, 23 the same psalm which was used on the day of triumph when Christ was saluted with cries of "Hosanna!" and which, as some say, was first sung by Israel at the Feast of Tabernacles on the return from Captivity. The stone. This figure was generally understood to represent Messiah, on whom depended the existence and support of the kingdom of God. Many prophecies containing this metaphor were applied to him; e.g. Isa_28:16 Dan_2:34 Zec_3:9; so that the Pharisees could be at no loss to understand the allusion, seeing that Jesus claimed to be that Stone. Rejected; as being not suitable to the building, or useless in its construction. So the husbandmen rejected the Son. The ignorance and contempt of men are overruled by the great Architect. The head of the corner. The cornerstone, which stands at the base and binds together two principal walls. (see St. Paul"s grand words, Eph_2:19-22) We learn that Christ unites Jew and Gentile in one holy house. (comp. 1Pe_2:6, 1Pe_2:7) This (auth), being feminine, is thought by some to refer to "head of the corner" (kefalhn, gwniav); but it is better to take it as used by a Hebrew idiom for the neuter, and to refer generally to what has preceded, viz. the settlement of the cornerstone in its destined position, which is effected by the Lord himself. The ultimate victory of the rejected Son is thus distinctly predicted. (comp. Act_4:11 Rom_9:33)
The history of the Cornerstone.
Read full note →
Foundations are not now laid as in olden times. Foundation stones are now mere ornaments. There is no sense in which buildings now rest on them. Memorial stones are taking the place of foundation stones. Probably the figure of the "cornerstone" is taken from the corner of Mount Moriah, which had to be built up from the valley, in order to make a square area for the temple courts. Dean Plumptre says, "In the primary meaning of the psalm, 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 on one side, as having no place in the building, but which was found afterwards to be that on which the completeness of the structure depended, that on which, as the chief cornerstone, the two walls met, and were bonded together." Take this suggestion, and consider
I CHRIST AS THE PREPARED CORNERSTONE. Describe the work done on the limestone block in order to fit it for its place as a foundation stone. The apostle permits us to think of the experiences of our Lord"s human life as fitting him to be the Saviour he became. The Captain of our salvation was made perfect through suffering, for his work as the "bringer on of souls." "Though he were a Son, yet learned he obedience by the things that he suffered." The Cornerstone was being chiselled and, bevelled for its place. Work out this figure.
II CHRIST AS THE REJECTED CORNERSTONE. When our Lord spoke, the Cornerstone was almost ready; and there were the men who prided themselves on being the builders of God"s temple of religion. And they were, then and there, rejecting that "tried Stone, that precious Cornerstone." They would put nothing on it. It was not to their mind. It may lie forever in the quarry for all they care. But happily they were only like overseers, or clerks of works. The Architect himself may order this Stone to be brought, and made the "Head of the corner.
III CHRIST AS THE HONOURED CORNERSTONE. The Architect himself did interfere, brushed those petty officials aside, had the tried Stone brought out, and on it he has had built the new temple of the ages. That temple is rising into ever richer and nobler proportions, and it was never more manifest than it is today, that the "Cornerstone is Christ. R.T.
The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Biblical Illustrator 1887 · Public Domain On v42 The stone which the builders rejected.
Mat_21:42
The stone which the builders rejected.
Read full note →
Redemption a marvellous work
I. It is Gods work.
1. Contrary to intentions or acts of the builders.
2. No one else competent to perform it.
II. It is a marvellous work.
1. From extent of agency employed.
2. Divine attributes displayed.
3. Demerit of its objects.
4. Number and extent of its benefits-
(a) wrath removed;
(b) reconciliation and peace;
(c) access to God;
(d) adoption;
(e) sanctified nature;
(f) eternal life. Learn-
(1) this work challenges our trust;
(2) requires thought;
(3) Demands unceasing praise. (Preachers Portfolio.)
It will grind him to powder:-Penalty of unbelief
I remember, away up in a lonely Highland valley, where beneath a tall black cliff, all weather-worn and cracked and seamed, there lies at the foot, resting on the green sward that creeps round its base, a huge rock that has fallen from the face of the precipice. A shepherd was passing beneath it, and suddenly, when the finger of Gods will touched it, and rent it from its bed in the everlasting rock, it came down, leaping and bounding from pinnacle to pinnacle, and it fell; and the man who was beneath it is there now! It will grind him to powder.… Therefore I say to you, since all that stand against Him shall become as the chaff of the summer threshing-floor, and be swept utterly away, make Him the foundation on which you build, and when the storm sweeps away every refuge of lies you will be safe and serene, builded upon the Rock of Ages. (Dr. McLaren)
Judgment and mercy
I. The greatest judgment which can ever befall a people is taking the kingdom of God from them. The kingdom of God was taken by the Jews themselves for some peculiar and temporal blessings which those who enjoyed it had above all other people. It was taken by our Saviour for a clearer manifestation of the will of God to the world, and the consequence of that in the hearts of good men, and all the spiritual blessings which do attend it. So that the taking away the kingdom of God from them must needs be the heaviest judgment which could befall a people, since it implies in it the taking away all the greatest temporal and spiritual blessings. Jews make the kingdom of God to consist
(1) in deliverance of them from their enemies;
(2) in the flourishing of their state, or that polity which God established among them;
(3) in the solemn worship of Him at the temple.
All these were taken away. Take the kingdom of God in the sense our Saviour meant-the power of the gospel-and the judgment is yet more evident.
1. It is acknowledged by the Jews themselves that these great calamities have happened to them for some extraordinary sins.
2. The sin ought to be looked on as so much greater by how much heavier and longer this punishment hath been than any inflicted on them before.
3. The Jews have not suffered these calamities for the same sins for which they suffered before.
4. It must be some sin which their fathers committed, and which continues yet unrepented of by them to this day.
There were these remarkable forerunners of desolation in the Jewish state which I am afraid we are too much concerned in.
1. A strange degeneracy of all sorts of men from the virtues of their ancestors.
2. A general stupidity and inapprehensiveness of common danger.
3. An atheistical contempt of religion.
4. Spiritual pride.
II. The greatest mercy that can ever be vouchsafed to a nation is Gods giving His kingdom to it. (Bishop Stilligfleet.)
The head stone of the corner
The Jews were the first builders to whom God gave the privilege to build His Church. Three things the corner-stone is to the builders work-
1. The structure ranges up to the corner-stone. All else is below, that it may be high; all ministers to it. Abase yourself that Christ may be exalted.
2. The whole fabric holds up the head of the corner to the view of men that it may be admired. Take care that the aspect which your religion wears to every man is not yourself, but Christ.
3. Let Christ, as the stone does the corner, bind everything. He is the one cementing all that is true. Whatever is in Christ, though it be repugnant to your feelings, do not send it away from you. (J. Vaughan, M. A.)
The stone of stumbling
The two clauses of the text figuratively point to two different classes of operation-in the one case the stone is represented as passive, lying quiet; in the other, it has got motion. In the one case, it is a self-inflicted, remedial injury; in the other, it is total and judicial.
I. Every man has some kind of connection with Christ. The gospel must influence every man somehow; it is an element in our present civilization. Christ does something to every one of us. He is either the rock on which I build or a stone of stumbling.
II. The immediate issue of rejection of him is loss and maiming-Whosoever shall fall on this stone shall be broken. The positive harm. No man ever yet passively rejected Christ; there is always a slight struggle with right before living away. So that every man who rejects Christ wounds his own conscience, hardens his own heart, makes himself a worse man. By the natural result of his unbelief his nature shall be broken. I need not dwell on the negative evil results of unbelief; we fail to possess the great Jove of God by which only we are made what we ought to be. Not only by the act of rejection of Christ do we maim ourselves, but also all attempts of opposition to the gospel as a system stand self-convicted-Whosoever falls on this stone shall be broken.
III. The ultimate issue of unbelief is irremediable destruction when Christ begins to move. The former clause has spoken about the passive operation of unbelief whilst the gospel is being preached; this about the active agency of Christ, It shall grind him to powder. (A. McLaren, D. D.)
The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
B. W. Johnson 1891 · Public Domain On vv42–44 42. The stone which the builders rejected. “The Scripture”…
42. The stone which the builders rejected. “The Scripture” that speaks of this stone is Psalm 118:22, 23—a psalm which the Jews applied to the Messiah. Peter twice applied it to him (Acts 4:11; 1 Peter 2:7). The figure represents a stone rejected by the builders as worthless, and then found to be the chief corner-stone of the building. The stone is Christ, rejected by the Jewish nation, but “the chief corner-stone,” for this is what is meant by the “head of the corner.” The “corner-stone” joined two walls. Alford thinks this is a reference to the union of Jews and Gentiles in the church. Marvellous. That the rejected stone should become the “chief corner-stone, elect and precious,” on which the whole structure of the spiritual temple rests.
B. W. Johnson's The People's New Testament with Notes (1889–1891) — public domain. Electronic text from the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (CCEL) ThML edition.
Alexander MacLaren 1905 · Public Domain On v44
Matthew
THE VINEYARD AND ITS KEEPERS
Read full note →
THE STONE OF STUMBLING
Mat 21:44.
As Christ’s ministry drew to its close, its severity and its gentleness both increased; its severity to the class to whom it was always severe, and its gentleness to the class from whom it never turned away. Side by side, through all His manifestation of Himself, there were the two aspects: ‘He showed Himself froward’ {if I may quote the word} to the self-righteous and the Pharisee; and He bent with more than a woman’s tenderness of yearning love over the darkness and sinfulness, which in its great darkness dimly knew itself blind, and in its sinfulness stretched out a lame hand of faith, and groped after a divine deliverer. Here, in my text, there are only words of severity and awful foreboding. Christ has been telling those Pharisees and priests that the kingdom is to be taken from them, and given to a nation that brings forth the fruits thereof. He interprets for them an Old Testament figure, often recurring, which we read in the Psa 118:1 - Psa 118:29 {and I may just say, in passing, that we get here His interpretation of that psalm, and the vindication of our application of it, and other similar ones, to Him and His office}; ‘The stone which the builders rejected,’ said He, ‘is become the head of the corner’; and then, falling back on other Old Testament uses of the same figure, He weaves into one the whole of them-that in Isaiah about the ‘sure foundation,’ and that in Daniel about ‘the stone cut out without hands, which became a great mountain,’ crushing down all opposition,-and centres them all in Himself; as fulfilled in Himself, in His person and His work.
The two clauses of my text figuratively point to two different classes of operation on the rejecters of the Gospel. What are these two classes? ‘Whosoever shall fall on this stone shall be broken: but on whomsoever it shall fall, it will grind him to powder.’ In the one case, the stone is represented as passive, lying quiet; in the other, it has acquired motion. In the one case, the man stumbles and hurts himself; a remediable injury, a self-inflicted injury, a natural injury, without the active operation of Christ to produce it at all; in the other case the injury is worse than remediable, it is utter, absolute, grinding destruction, and it comes from the active operation of the ‘stone of stumbling.’ That is to say, the one class represents the present hurts and harms which, by the natural operation of things, without the action of Christ judicially at all, every man receives in the very act of rejecting the Gospel; and the other represents the ultimate issue of that rejection, which rejection is darkened into opposition and fixed hostility, when the stone that was laid ‘for a foundation’ has got wings {if I may so say}, and comes down in judgment, crushing and destroying the antagonist utterly. ‘Whosoever falls on this stone is broken,’ here and now; and ‘on whomsoever it shall fall, it will grind him to powder,’ hereafter and yonder.
Taking, then, into account the weaving together in this passage of the three figures from the Old Testament to which I have already referred,-the rejected stone, the foundation, and the mountain-stone of Daniel, and looking in the light of these, at the twofold issues, one present and one future, which the text distinctly brings before us,-we have just three points to which I ask your attention now. First, Every man has some kind of contact with Christ. Secondly, Rejection of Him, here and now, is harm and maiming. And, lastly, Rejection of Him, hereafter and yonder, is hopeless, endless, utter destruction.
I. In the first place, every man has some kind of connection with Christ.
I am not going to enter at all now upon any question about the condition of the ‘dark places of the earth’ where the Gospel has not come as a well-known preached message; we have nothing to do with that; the principles on which they are judged is not the question before us now. I am speaking exclusively about persons who have heard the word of salvation, and are dwelling in the midst of what we call a Christian land. Christ is offered to each of us, in good faith on God’s part, as a means of salvation, a foundation on which we may build. A man is free to accept or to reject that offer. If he reject it, he has not thereby cut himself off from all contact and connection with that rejected Saviour, but he still sustains a relation to Him; and the message that he has refused to believe, is exercising an influence upon his character and his destiny.
Christ comes, I say, offered to us all in good faith on the part of God, as a foundation upon which we may build. And then comes in that strange mystery, that a man, consciously free, turns away from the offered mercy, and makes Him that was intended to be the basis of his life, the foundation of his hope, the rock on which, steadfast and serene, he should build up a temple-home for his soul to dwell in,-makes Him a stumbling-stone against which, by rejection and unbelief, he breaks himself!
My friend, will you let me lay this one thing upon your heart,-you cannot hinder the Gospel from influencing you somehow. Taking it in its lowest aspects, it is one of the forces of modern society, an element in our present civilisation. It is everywhere, it obtrudes itself on you at every turn, the air is saturated with its influence. To be unaffected by such an all-pervading phenomenon is impossible. To no individual member of the great whole of a nation is it given to isolate himself utterly from the community. Whether he oppose or whether he acquiesce in current opinions, to denude himself of the possessions which belong in common to his age and state of society is in either case impracticable. ‘That which cometh into your mind,’ said one of the prophets to the Jews who were trying to cut themselves loose from their national faith and their ancestral prerogatives, ‘That which cometh into your mind shall not be at all, that ye say, We will be as the heathen, as the families of the countries to serve wood and stone.’ Vain dream! You can no more say, I will pass the Gospel by, and it shall be nothing to me, I will simply let it alone, than you can say, I will shut myself up from other influences proper to my time and nation. You cannot go back to the old naked barbarism, and you cannot reduce the influence of Christianity, even considered merely as one of the characteristics of the times, to zero. You may fancy you are letting it alone, but it does not let you alone; it is here, and you cannot shut yourself off from it.
But it is not merely as a subtle and diffused influence that the Gospel exercises a permanent effect upon us. It is presented to each of us here individually, in the definite form of an actual offer of salvation for each, and of an actual demand of trust from each. The words pass into our souls, and thenceforward we can never be the same as if they had not been there. The smallest ray of light falling on a sensitive plate produces a chemical change that can never be undone again, and the light of Christ’s love, once brought to the knowledge and presented for the acceptance of a soul, stamps on it an ineffaceable sign of its having been there. The Gospel once heard, is always the Gospel which has been heard. Nothing can alter that. Once heard, it is henceforward a perpetual element in the whole condition, character, and destiny of the hearer.
Christ does something to every one of us. His Gospel will tell upon you, it is telling upon you. If you disbelieve it, you are not the same as if you had never heard it. Never is the box of ointment opened without some savour from it abiding in every nostril to which its odour is wafted. Only the alternative, the awful ‘either, or,’ is open for each-the ‘savour of life unto life, or the savour of death unto death.’ To come back to the illustration of the text, Christ is something, and does something to every one of us. He is either the rock on which I build, poor, weak, sinful creature as I am, getting security, and sanctity, and strength from Him, I being a living stone’ built upon ‘the living stone,’ and partaking of the vitality of the foundation; or else He is the other thing, ‘a stone of stumbling and a rock of offence to them which stumble at the word.’ Christ stands for ever in some kind of relation to, and exercises for ever some kind of influence on, every man who has heard the Gospel.
II. The immediate issue of rejection of Him is loss and maiming.
‘Whosoever shall fall on this stone shall be broken.’ Just think for a moment, by way of illustrating this principle, first of all, of the positive harm which you do to yourself in the act of turning away from the mercy offered you in Christ; and then think for a moment of the negative loss which you sustain by the same act.
Note the positive harm. Am I uncharitable when I say that no man ever yet passively neglected the message of love in God’s Son; but that always this is the rude outline of the experience of people who know what it is to have a Saviour offered to them, and know what it is to put Him away,-that there is a feeble and transitory movement of heart and will; that Conscience says, ‘Thou oughtest’; that Will says, ‘I would’; that the heart is touched by some sense of that great and gentle vision of light and love which passes before the eye; that the man, as it were, like some fever-ridden patient, lifts himself up for an instant from the bed on which he is lying, and puts out a hand, and then falls back again, the vacillating, fevered, paralysed will recoiling from the resolution, and the conscience having power to say, ‘Thou oughtest,’ but no power to enforce the execution of its decrees, and the heart turning away from the salvation that it would have found in the love of love, to the loss that it finds in the love of self and earth? Or in other words, is it not true that every man who rejects Christ does in simple verity reject Him, and not merely neglect Him; that there is always an effort, that there is a struggle, feeble, perhaps, but real, which ends in the turning away? It is not that you stand there, and simply let Him go past. That were bad enough; but the fact is worse than that. It is that you turn your back upon Him. It is not that His hand is laid on yours, and yours remains dead and cold, and does not open to clasp it; but it is that His hand being laid on yours, you clench yours the tighter, and will not have it. And so every man {I believe} who rejects Christ does these things thereby-wounds his own conscience, hardens his own heart, makes himself a worse man, just because he has had a glimpse, and has willingly, and almost consciously, ‘loved darkness rather than light.’ Oh, brethren, the message of love can never come into a human soul, and pass away from it unreceived, without leaving that spirit worse, with all its lowest characteristics strengthened, and all its best ones depressed, by the fact of rejection. I have nothing to do now with pursuing that process to its end; but the natural result-if there were no future Judgment at all, if there were no movement ever given to the stone that you ought to build on-the natural result of the simple rejection of the Gospel is that, bit by bit, all the lingering remains of nobleness that hover about the man, like scent about a broken vase, pass away; and that, step by step, through the simple process of saying, ‘I will not have Christ to rule over me,’ the whole being degenerates, until manhood becomes devil-hood, and the soul is lost by its own want of faith. Unbelief is its own judgment; unbelief is its own condemnation; unbelief, as sin, is punished, like all other sins, by the perpetuation of deeper and darker forms of itself. Every time that you stifle a conviction, fight down a conviction, or drive away a conviction; and every time that you feebly move towards the decision, ‘I will trust Him, and love Him, and be His,’ yet fail to realise it, you have harmed your soul, you have made yourself a worse man, you have lowered the tone of your conscience, you have enfeebled your will, you have made your heart harder against love, you have drawn another horny scale over the eye, that will prevent you from seeing the light that is yonder; you have, as much as in you is, withdrawn from God, and approximated to the other pole of the universe {if I may say that}, to the dark and deadly antagonist of mercy, and goodness, and truth, and grace. ‘Whosoever falls on this stone,’ by the natural result of his unbelief, ‘shall be broken’ and maimed, and shall mar his own nature.
I need not dwell on the negative evil results of unbelief; the loss of that which is the only guide for a man, the taking away, or rather the failing to possess, that great love above us, that divine Spirit in us, by which only we are ever made what we ought to be. This only I would leave with you, in this part of my subject, Whoever is not in Christ is maimed. Only he that is ‘a man in Christ’ has come ‘to the measure of the stature of a perfect man.’ There, and there alone, do we get the power which will make us full-grown. There alone is the soul planted in that good soil in which, growing, it becomes as a rounded, perfect tree, with leaves and fruits in their season. All other men are half-men, quarter-men, fragments of men, parts of humanity exaggerated and contorted and distorted from the reconciling whole which the Christian ought to be, and in proportion to his Christianity is on the road to be, and one day will assuredly and actually be, a ‘complete and entire man, wanting nothing’; nothing maimed, nothing broken, the realisation of the ideal of humanity, the renewed copy ‘of the second Adam, the Lord from heaven.’
There is another consideration closely connected with this second part of my subject, that I just mention and pass on. Not only by the act of rejection of Christ do we harm and maim ourselves, but also all attempts at opposition-formal opposition-to the Gospel as a system, stand self-convicted and self-condemned to speedy decay. What a commentary upon that word, ‘Whosoever falls on this stone shall be broken,’ is the whole history of the heresies of the Church and the assaults of unbelief! Man after man, rich in gifts, endowed often with far larger and nobler faculties than the people who oppose him, with indomitable perseverance, a martyr to his error, sets himself up against the truth that is sphered in Jesus Christ; and the great divine message simply goes on its way, and all the babblement and noise are like so many bats flying against a light, or like the sea-birds that come sweeping up in the tempest and the night, to the hospitable Pharos that is upon the rock, and smite themselves dead against it. Sceptics well known in their generation, who made people’s hearts tremble for the ark of God, what has become of them? Their books lie dusty and undisturbed on the top shelf of libraries; whilst there the Bible stands, with all the scribblings wiped off the page, as though they had never been! Opponents fire their small shot against the great Rock of Ages, and the little pellets fall flattened, and only scale off a bit of the moss that has gathered there! My brother, let the history of the past teach you and me, with other deeper thoughts, a very calm and triumphant confidence about all that opponents say nowadays; for all the modern opposition to this Gospel will go as all the past has done, and the newest systems which cut and carve at Christianity, will go to the tomb where all the rest have gone; and dead old infidelities will rise up from their thrones, and say to the bran-new ones of this generation, when their day is worked out, ‘Are ye also become weak as we? art thou also become like one of us?’ ‘Whosoever shall fall on this stone shall be broken’: personally, he will be harmed; and his opinions, and his books, and his talk, and all his argumentation, will come to nothing, like the waves that break into impotent foam against the rocky cliffs.
III. Last of all, the issue, the ultimate issue, of unbelief is irremediable destruction when Christ begins to move.
The former clause has spoken about the harm that naturally follows unbelief whilst the Gospel is being preached; the latter clause speaks about the active agency of Christ when the end shall have come, and the preaching of the Gospel shall have merged into the act of judgment. I do not mean to dwell, brethren, upon that thought; it seems to me far too awful a one to be handled by my hands, at any rate. Let us leave it in the vagueness and dreadfulness of the words of Him who never spoke exaggerated words, and who, when He said, ‘It shall grind him to powder,’ meant {as it seems to me} nothing less than a destruction which, contrasted with the former remediable wounding and breaking, was a destruction utter, and hopeless, and everlasting, and without remedy. Ground-ground to powder! Any life left in that? any gathering up of that, and making a man of it again? All the humanity battered out of it, and the life clean gone from it! Does not that sound very much like ‘everlasting destruction from the presence of God and from the glory of His power’? Christ, silent now, will begin to speak; passive now, will begin to act. The stone comes down, and the fall of it will be awful. I remember, away up in a lonely Highland valley, where beneath a tall black cliff, all weather-worn, and cracked, and seamed, there lies at the foot, resting on the greensward that creeps round its base, a huge rock, that has fallen from the face of the precipice. A shepherd was passing beneath it; and suddenly, when the finger of God’s will touched it, and rent it from its ancient bed in the everlasting rock, it came down, leaping and bounding from pinnacle to pinnacle-and it fell; and the man that was beneath it is there now! ‘Ground to powder.’ Ah, my brethren, that is not my illustration-that is Christ’s. Therefore I say to you, since all that stand against Him shall become ‘as the chaff of the summer threshing-floor,’ and be swept utterly away, make Him the foundation on which you build; and when the storm sweeps away every ‘refuge of lies,’ you will be safe and serene, builded upon the Rock of Ages.
Alexander MacLaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture (1904–1910) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
C. I. Scofield 1917 · Public Domain On vv42–44 Jehovah. Psa 118:23.
Lord’s
Jehovah. Psa 118:23.
The Scofield Reference Bible (1917 edition), notes by C. I. Scofield — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Paul E. Kretzmann 1924 · Public Domain On v42 The application:
The application:
v. 42. Jesus saith unto them, Did ye never read in the Scriptures, The stone which the builders rejected, the same is become the head of the corner; this is the Lord’s doing, and it is marvelous in our eyes?
Read full note →
v. 43. Therefore I say unto you, The kingdom of God shall be taken from you, and given to a nation bringing forth the fruits thereof.
v. 44. And whosoever shall fall on this stone shall be broken; but on whomsoever it shall fall, it will grind him to powder.
Christ does not mince words, but applies the parable with merciless power. He reminds the members of the Jewish council of the words of the prophet, Psa 118:22. The Jews were the chosen builders of the spiritual temple of God. But one condition of their continuing in the work was the acceptance of the stone which was selected by God to be the headstone of the corner. By the miracle of Christ’s resurrection their rejection of Him was judged. Christ has become the corner-stone of the New Testament Church, the foundation of the great spiritual structure which will be completed on the last day, Eph 2:20-22. Addressing Himself directly to them, Jesus tells them the doom they may expect: forfeiture of all their privileges in the Kingdom, which will be given to the heathen world. And there is still another word which applies here, that of the stone of stumbling and of the rock of offense, Isa 8:14. If any one takes offense at this Corner-stone and falls on Him, he will be shattered; but if the Stone should fall upon someone by the judgment of God, he will be crushed to powder and scattered to the winds, Luk 2:34-35. On the last day all those that refused obedience to the heavenly King and rejected His Son, thus despising the grace gained also for them, will find themselves ground to pieces by the inexorable justice of God. "But to be built on the Stone is to believe on Christ that He is our Savior. If, then, I am called to the Gospel, and accept it and believe it, then I am one of the stones laid upon Him and am considered saved, not for the sake of my merit and works, but that I am built and laid on the Cornerstone, which is done through the true Christian faith, as the children pray: I believe on Jesus Christ, who was conceived by the Holy Ghost, born of Mary, the virgin, suffered under Pilate; He is the polished and proved Corner-stone. If I believe in Him, then I am built upon Him and will be saved, as Isaiah says: He that trusts in Him will not be ashamed; there the prophet explains clearly that being built upon Him means to trust in Christ and believe in Him."
Paul E. Kretzmann, Popular Commentary of the Bible (1921–1924) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
unfoldingWord translationNotes 2017 · CC BY-SA 4.0 On vv42–43 Connecting Statement:
Connecting Statement:
Here Jesus begins to explain the parable of the rebellious servants.
Read full note →
General Information:
Jesus quotes the prophet Isaiah to show that God will honor the one whom the religious leaders reject.
Jesus said to them
It is unclear to whom Jesus asks the following question. If you need to make "them" specific, use the same audience as you did in Matthew 21:41.
Did you never read ... eyes'?
Jesus uses a question to make his audience think deeply about what this scripture means. AT: "Think about what you have read ... eyes.'" (See: Rhetorical Question)
The stone which the builders rejected has been made the cornerstone
Jesus is quoting from the Psalms. This is a metaphor that means the religious leaders, like builders, will reject Jesus, but God will make him the most important in his kingdom, like the cornerstone in a building. (See: Metaphor)
has been made the cornerstone
This can be stated in active form. AT: "has become the cornerstone" (See: Active or Passive)
This was from the Lord
"The Lord has caused this great change"
it is marvelous in our eyes
Here "in our eyes" refers to seeing. AT: "it is wonderful to see" (See: Metonymy)
translationWords
Jesus
word of God
cornerstone
lord
unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.
Tyndale Open Study Notes 2022 · CC BY-SA 4.0 On vv42–44 21:42 The cornerstone was either the first stone of…
21:42 The cornerstone was either the first stone of the foundation or the capstone (as of an arch), the last to be laid. The very stone that the builders rejected as unworthy of use was, in fact, the most important. Jesus was referring to his own role in the Kingdom of God (21:43) and to the religious leaders’ rejection of him.
Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.