Psalm 118

We hope you enjoyed reading this magnificent Psalm.  It begins and ends the same, with the familiar call to praise: Oh, give thanks to the Lord, for He is good! For His mercy endures forever.  And no Psalm gives the proof of God’s goodness and mercy any better than this one.  And if you will allow one of your slightly misguided worship songs to be properly redirected, you will see what I mean. 

Do you sing that little chorus, This is the day, this is the day, that the Lord has made, that the Lord has made.  I will rejoice, I will rejoice and be glad in it, and be glad in it?  It is commonly sung as an encouragement to thank God for today, sung in the morning so we get a good start.  But I am sure you noticed that this song comes from this Psalm (v24).  And I hope you noticed as well: it refers to a particular day.  ONE DAY IN HISTORY.  The day the builders rejected the Stone who then became the Chief Cornerstone. 

It is a passage quoted often in the New Testament (Mt. 21:42; Mark 12:10; Lk. 20:17; Ac. 4:11; Eph. 2:20; 1 Peter 2:7).  It speaks of the day of Jesus’ death (the Stone rejected but thereby He became the Chief Cornerstone).  Reminisce with me for a moment.  Jesus referred to that day as your hour and the power of darkness (Luke 22:53).  It was a sad day, a difficult day, a time of the most severe affliction.  But Jesus also said, My Father loves me because I lay down My life that I may take it again (John 10:17).  Jesus willingly obeyed His Father.  He knew Psalm 118 (several of the quotes listed above were by Christ), that His Father is good and forever merciful; that He was on His side and for Him (118:5-7), that He could be trusted (118:8-9), that there would be total victory in the name of the Lord (118:10-12), that the cross and the bearing of our sins was the gate of the Lord through which the righteous shall enter (118:20).

So should we sing the praise of 118:24 early in the morning, at the start of every day?  Sure!  Absolutely!  But keep it Christ-centered.  It is the day of the cross that after three days would issue in the resurrection and after 40 days would take Him to the Father’s right hand and after 50 days would see the coming of the indwelling Holy Spirit and the establishment of a New Covenant.  If that day resulted in eternal goodness from God then certainly your day can count on no less.  Sing it at the outset of a day that you anticipate will be filled with trouble; your troubles will be nothing compared to those of the day of the death of our Lord.  Face today rejoicing over the day the Stone was rejected.  This was the Lord’s doing; it is marvelous in our eyes (118:23).  As Christ was the willing sacrifice, bound to the altar of His cross (118:27) so you enter this day by willingly presenting your body as a living sacrifice, bound on the altar of the cross you have taken up as you follow Christ!

Oh, give thanks to the Lord, for He is good!  For His mercy endures forever.

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I want to add a note concerning verse 27. I have not changed the blog but we do recognize that verse has some challenges with respect to interpretation. There is nothing in the Law nor in the historical books of the Old Testament that speak of binding a sacrifice to the horns of the altar. So what are we to understand with respect to that part of the verse? Each of the verses around it have a synonymous parallelism so I do think that whatever the last half of verse 27 means it should connect in some way with the first half. I also see the entire psalm as fitting for the Messiah. It is fitting to connect the light given to us by the Lord as the light of the world who is Jesus. And Verse 26 is certainly Messianic in the sense it was used on the day of Jesus royal or triumphant entry into Jerusalem. So with respect to the binding of the sacrifice to the horns of the altar there are a couple of possibilities. Jewish interpretation of the story of Abraham and Isaac in Genesis 22 refers to it as the "Binding of Isaac". Is it possible that our passage is dealing with the "Binding of Jesus", for Whom Isaac is a type? Or is it possible that all other sacrifices became unnecessary with the sacrifice of the Messiah so that those sacrifices should just be tied to the horns of the altar and the worshipers turn their attention to Christ? However we understand it, it does seem to me that in some way it must speak of the Lord Jesus Christ.

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Where is another edition to thinking about this Psalm. I have often seen a connection between Psalm 118 and Romans 8:31-39. I'm not saying that Paul was making the connection but that there is certainly a devotional connection which I'll share with you.

118:5-9 = 8:31-34

118:10-14 = 8:35

118:15-18 = 8:36

118:19-21 = 8:37

118:22-24 = 8:38-39

118:25-28 = Rom. 9-11