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Psalms 118: What the Passage Says

67 claims across 29 verses, in the order the chapter makes them.

Not a sermon outline. What Psalms 118 says, and what its hard words meant. The reading of it is yours.

The Chapter in a Sentence

This is a song of thanks that opens and closes with the same line: the LORD is good, and his faithful love lasts forever. The speaker tells how he called out while in trouble, was answered and rescued, was surrounded by enemy nations, and was punished hard but not handed over to death. He then asks for the gates to be opened so he can go in and give thanks, and the song shifts to a group speaking: the rejected stone has become the cornerstone, this is the day the LORD has made, and blessings are given from the house of the LORD.

Claim by Claim

  1. 118:1
    • A call goes out to give thanks to the LORD.
    • The LORD is good.
    • The LORD's covenant love lasts forever.
  2. 118:2
    • Israel is called to say that the LORD's covenant love lasts forever.
  3. 118:3
    • The house of Aaron is called to say that the LORD's covenant love lasts forever.
  4. 118:4
    • Those who fear the LORD are called to say that the LORD's covenant love lasts forever.
  5. 118:5
    • The speaker called on the LORD out of a narrow, distressed place.
    • The LORD answered the speaker.
    • The LORD set the speaker in a broad, open place.
  6. 118:6
    • The LORD is on the speaker's side.
    • The speaker will not be afraid.
    • The speaker asks what man can do to him.
  7. 118:7
    • The LORD is on the speaker's side, among those who help him.
    • The speaker will look in triumph on those who hate him.
  8. 118:8
    • It is better to take refuge in the LORD than to trust in man.
  9. 118:9
    • It is better to take refuge in the LORD than to trust in princes.
  10. 118:10
    • All the nations surrounded the speaker.
    • In the name of the LORD the speaker cuts them off.
  11. 118:11
    • They surrounded the speaker.
    • They surrounded the speaker again, on every side.
    • In the name of the LORD the speaker cuts them off.
  12. 118:12
    • They surrounded the speaker like bees.
    • They were extinguished like a fire of thorns.
    • In the name of the LORD the speaker cuts them off.
  13. 118:13
    • Someone thrust hard at the speaker so that he would fall.
    • The LORD helped the speaker.
  14. 118:14
    • The LORD is the speaker's strength.
    • The LORD is the speaker's song.
    • The LORD has become the speaker's salvation.
  15. 118:15
    • A sound of joyful shouting and salvation is in the tents of the righteous.
    • The right hand of the LORD acts with valor.
  16. 118:16
    • The right hand of the LORD is lifted high.
    • The right hand of the LORD acts with valor.
  17. 118:17
    • The speaker will not die.
    • The speaker will live.
    • The speaker will recount the deeds of the LORD.
  18. 118:18
    • The LORD disciplined the speaker severely.
    • The LORD did not hand the speaker over to death.
  19. 118:19
    • The speaker asks that the gates of righteousness be opened to him.
    • The speaker will enter through those gates.
    • The speaker will give thanks to the LORD.
  20. 118:20
    • This is the gate belonging to the LORD.
    • The righteous will enter through it.
  21. 118:21
    • The speaker will give thanks to the LORD.
    • The LORD answered the speaker.
    • The LORD has become the speaker's salvation.
  22. 118:22
    • The builders rejected a stone.
    • That stone has become the head of the corner.
  23. 118:23
    • This came from the LORD.
    • It is marvelous in our eyes.
  24. 118:24
    • This is the day the LORD has made.
    • We will rejoice and be glad in it.
  25. 118:25
    • The speaker pleads with the LORD to save now.
    • The speaker pleads with the LORD to grant success now.
  26. 118:26
    • Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the LORD.
    • We have blessed you from the house of the LORD.
  27. 118:27
    • The LORD is God.
    • The LORD has given us light.
    • A command is given to bind the festival sacrifice with cords to the horns of the altar.
    • The command can also be read as binding the festival procession with branches.
  28. 118:28
    • The speaker says to the LORD that He is his God.
    • The speaker will give Him thanks.
    • The speaker says that He is his God.
    • The speaker will exalt Him.
  29. 118:29
    • A call goes out to give thanks to the LORD.
    • The LORD is good.
    • The LORD's covenant love lasts forever.

Words Worth Explaining

Every language note in this chapter, gathered. These explain what a word meant, never what it means for the reader.

118:1
LORD in small capitals stands for the personal name of Israel's God, four Hebrew consonants usually written YHWH. Jewish readers did not say the name aloud, substituting a word meaning "my Lord," and English translations follow that custom. "Faithful love" translates Hebrew *hesed*, the loyalty owed within a binding relationship, steady commitment rather than warm feeling. Verses 1–4 are call-and-response: a leader calls, and the crowd answers with the same line each time.
118:2
This part of the psalm was sung back and forth. A leader called out a line at the temple, and the crowd answered with the same words each time.
118:3
The house of Aaron means the priests. Aaron was Moses' brother, and the right to serve at the altar passed down through his male descendants only, so "house of Aaron" is a way of naming the whole hereditary priesthood at once.
118:4
"Those who fear the LORD" is a standing phrase for people who worship him with reverence and awe, not people who are frightened of him. In later usage it could also cover foreigners who attached themselves to Israel's worship without being Israelites, which may be why they are listed as a third group after Israel and the priests.
118:5
Hebrew pictures trouble as a tight, cramped space and rescue as being let out into open country. The two halves of the verse are that single image: squeezed, then given room.
118:7
"Look in victory at" translates an idiom meaning to see one's enemies defeated, to still be standing and watching when they are not.
118:9
"Princes" here means rulers and nobles generally, the powerful men whose backing a person might seek, not specifically the sons of a king.
118:10
To act "in the name of the LORD" is to act by his authority and with his backing, the way an envoy speaks in the name of the king who sent him.
118:12
Dried thorn brush was the cheapest, commonest fuel. It catches instantly, blazes up, and is ash within moments, the point of the comparison is speed, not heat.
118:13
The psalm turns without warning to address someone as "you", the attacker, or in some readings death itself. Some ancient versions read the line as "I was pushed hard," without naming who pushed. The Hebrew as it stands is a direct accusation.
118:14
This line quotes, word for word, the victory song sung after the escape from Egypt in Exodus 15:2. A listener would have recognized it the way one recognizes a line from a national anthem.
118:15
"Tents" is the old word for people's dwellings, kept in poetry long after Israel lived in houses; it means households, not literal camping. The "right hand" stands for strength and skill, because the sword hand was normally the right one.
118:16
The right hand meant the strong hand people fought with. God's right hand is a picture of God's power.
118:18
The verb covers a parent's or teacher's discipline as much as a judge's punishment, correction meant to instruct, however severe.
118:19
The gates of the temple courts. Verses 19–20 preserve a ritual exchange at the entrance: a worshiper asks to be let in, and the answer from inside states the condition for entry. "Righteousness" here describes those fit to pass through, not the gates themselves.
118:22
The Hebrew says "head of the corner", the stone set where two walls meet, which fixes the line and level of everything built afterward. Builders sorting through quarried stone would discard a block that looked wrong; the saying turns on the discarded block proving to be the crucial one. It reads like a proverb the psalm is quoting.
118:24
"This day" means the day of the festival, when the crowd gathered at the temple to sing this song.
118:25
The Hebrew words here are *hoshi'ah-na*, "save, please", the cry that came into English as "Hosanna." It was a plea for help before it became a shout of praise.
118:26
A blessing spoken by the priests from inside the temple over pilgrims arriving at the gates. "The house of the LORD" means the temple building itself.
118:27
"Made his light shine on us" is court language for a superior turning a favorable face toward someone; it echoes the priestly blessing of Numbers 6:25. The altar had a raised projection at each of its four corners, called horns, which were smeared with blood in some rituals and grabbed by fugitives claiming sanctuary. The second half of the verse is genuinely obscure in Hebrew: the words can mean binding the festival animal with cords to those horns, or binding the festival procession with leafy branches, and translators have long divided over which.
118:28
"Lift you high" means telling everyone how great God is.

Read Psalms 118