Psalm 118 and the Parable of the Wicked Tenants

(avg. read time: 7–14 mins.)

Previously, I have looked at the connections of Ps 118 and Acts 4 that made the former appropriate to use as a resurrection text despite its lack of reference to resurrection. That piece goes into some detail on ideas that are important to my argument here, but I will not be repeating everything here mutatis mutandis. Here, I want to focus on what is likely the historical origin for Peter’s reading of Ps 118, particularly through the lens of the crucial v. 22. Notably, direct quotes of Ps 118:22 only appear in the words of Jesus (specifically in Matt 21:42 // Mark 12:10–11 // Luke 20:17) or in texts attributed to Peter, whether in speech (Acts 4:11) or in authorship (1 Pet 2:7). And it appears that it is precisely through Jesus and then through Peter that this text came to be seen as providing a narrative framework of the major gospel events. Jesus’s self-application of this text shaped how his followers read it, although the Gospels never record him explicitly connecting his resurrection to it, as this explicit explanation of this connection may be implied in Luke 24:25–27, 44–47.

I think this is the most likely account for why the earliest Christians read this text in this fashion because there was no other path yet laid out that led to such a conclusion. Some have proposed that the writer of this psalm designed it to be interpreted as referring to a/the Messiah.¹ This is certainly the interpretation of the targumist, who refers to a youth who becomes king (perhaps reading אבן [“stone”] as בן [“son”]), although this reading comes after the time of the NT. Whether or not this reading is accurate, it still would not explain the linkage with resurrection. J. Ross Wagner has likewise suggested that the psalm was read in messianic fashion by the time of Jesus on the basis of the royal psalms’ function in the final redaction of the Psalter, the LXX translation, and the liturgical use of Ps 118 in rabbinic texts (m. Sukkah 3.9; 4.4, 8; m. Ta’an. 4.4–5; m. Pesaḥ. 5.7; 10.5–7).² However, these arguments are suggestive at best—as Wagner himself acknowledges—of only an eschatological messianic interpretation of Ps 118.³ They do not establish a link to the resurrection.

In fact, no extant Jewish text outside of Qumran before the time of Jesus references Ps 118 for any purpose.⁴ Even in Qumran, the psalm only exists in what seem to be liturgical compilations.⁵ Verses 1–3, 6–11, 18–20, 23–26 appear in 4QPs[b] alongside portions of Pss 91; 92; 94; 99; 100; 102; 103; 112; and 116. 11QPs[a] features quotations of vv. 1, 8–9, 15–16, and 24–29—frag. E also includes vv. 25–29—among quotes from dozens of other psalms. 11QPs[b] also quotes vv. 1 and 15–16 alongside quotes from Pss 77:18–78:1 and 119:63–65. It is possible or even probable that these compilations gave Ps 118—among many other texts—an eschatological and messianic frame.⁶ The last text in particular seems to make an exodus link in a possible expression of hope for a new exodus. Still, none of these texts link Ps 118 with resurrection. At best, these texts and arguments surrounding them suggest general eschatological or possibly messianic interpretation, but none of them suggest linkage to resurrection in particular. In any case, in the context of the Egyptian Hallel of Pss 113–118, surely Ps 116 would have been a more fitting reference to Jesus’s resurrection, in the same vein of Peter’s interpretation of Ps 16 in Acts 2. However, the fact that there is no evident precedent in Second Temple Judaism for Peter’s interpretive move in Acts 4 naturally raises the question of if the significance of this psalm for Jesus influenced the interpretation and choice of this psalm over Ps 116 for describing the resurrection, which I have already indicated can be answered in the affirmative.

To see how this text worked in such ways as to correlate with the gospel narrative, we must examine it in its context of usage in Jesus’s parable of the wicked tenants. It is notable that this reference appears after another allusion to Ps 118, specifically v. 26. As noted in the rabbinic texts, Ps 118, as the climax of the Egyptian Hallel of Pss 113–118, is a frequently highlighted text in Jewish tradition as being important for various festivals. Thus, the use of v. 26 as part of a greeting, especially for an entry such as Jesus had, is hardly unexpected, and it is something that all of the Gospels record (Matt 21:9 // Mark 11:9 // Luke 19:38 // John 12:13). But while this was how some crowds treated Jesus, his relationship with Jewish leadership was generally more strained, and it was certainly not made better by the incident at the temple. It is in this context in all of the Synoptics that we get our parable of the wicked tenants and its build-up to the use of a different verse from v. 22 to use as a different framework for a different purpose.

There are some variations in the story and framing that we will address, but this parable begins with a man (who Matthew’s version describes as a “master of the house” or landowner) who planted a vineyard. Matthew’s and Mark’s versions list how he also put a wall around it, dug a vat/winepress for it, built a tower, then leased it. Luke’s version simply mentions him leasing it, as that is what is most directly relevant to the progression of the story. The owner sends a series of servants to the tenants to collect at the proper time from the fruit of what he had planted and provided for. But the tenants mistreat them by beating and killing them (though Luke’s version reserves the killing for the last person sent). Then the owner decides to send his son to them, for surely they would respect him in light of his closer relationship with the owner. But this is not the case. Instead, the tenants think to kill the son and make the inheritance their own. When the son arrives, they drive him out of the vineyard and kill him (though the sequence in Mark is that he is killed and then cast out). Jesus then poses a rhetorical question about what the owner will do to those tenants, as everyone knows that they will be destroyed, and the vineyard will be given to others.

This is where the use of Ps 118:22 comes in. First, we must consider its role in the psalm it is taken from as something of a summary of the whole. The verses that frame the whole psalm with reference to the notion of God’s faithful love, as conveyed by the term חסד, are vv. 1–4 and 29.⁷ And indeed the LORD performs many actions in this psalm and virtually every couplet links some action to the LORD. Beyond the frame’s testimony to God’s goodness and faithful love, God responds to distress by setting the petitioner in a broad place (v. 5; cf. Job 36:16; Pss 18:19; 31:8), takes the side of the petitioner to help against enemies (vv. 6–7, 10–13), offers refuge to those who call (vv. 8–9), strengthens and saves the petitioner (vv. 14, 21), extends the right hand to do valiant actions (vv. 15–16; cf. Exod 15:6, 12; Pss 18:35; 20:6; 44:3; 48:10; 60:5; 98:1; 108:6; 138:7; Isa. 41:10), disciplines without destroying (v. 18), and gives light (v. 27). It is the LORD who receives thanks (vv. 19, 28), the LORD’s gate through which the righteous enter (v. 20), and the LORD’s name in which the petitioner comes (v. 26). In other cases, the psalmist summarizes or implies God’s actions in the act of thanksgiving (vv. 17, 19, 23–24). The yet future tense of God’s action is brought to a point in the people calling on God to save them and make them prosper, which may suggest at least an openness to an eschatological horizon for God’s action (v. 25).⁸ In any case, the basis for confidence is clear throughout the psalm, as nothing can stop God’s actions on behalf of the speaker and the people.

The one couplet in which the speaker does not refer to the LORD by name or by address is the key text of v. 22, but in this context the metaphor serves as a summarization of the larger narrative dynamics of God’s delivering vindication of the speaker and the people, as told throughout the psalm, and it is explicitly linked with the action of God in vv. 23–24.⁹ In this key text, the question is how exactly the metaphor portrays God’s faithful love.¹⁰ The debate over what God does for the “stone” in question has tended to focus on what kind of stone the אבן ... לראשׁ פנה is, as none of the other lexical, grammatical, or syntactical elements in this verse are as ambiguous. It could be a cornerstone, a foundation stone that stabilizes two adjacent walls and gives shape to the structure (cf. Job 38:6; Isa 28:16; Jer 51:26).¹¹ Mitchell Dahood supports this view by arguing that the psalmist has broken up a composite phrase of אבן פנה, as seems to be a common stylistic feature in the Psalms.¹² Others argue that the stone is a capstone, since the ראשׁ element seems to imply an exalted stone (cf. Zech 4:7) and the context seems to imply that the stone is visible to the audience.¹³ According to the former view, the builders rejected the stone in question, but God chose it as the stone that shapes the implied building, in contradiction to the verdict of the builders. According to the latter view, the builders rejected the stone at the initial stage of building but later deemed it fitting for the exalted position. Others have remained inconclusive, as the evidence is insufficient to settle this debate confidently.¹⁴

While I may be inclined to think that the cornerstone image is the more prominent of the possibilities, the ambiguity of the phrase may be intentional in order to be polyvalent. This saying summarizes the story of the psalm, which has featured God showing favor to the psalmist who comes in the name of the LORD over against enemies (vv. 5–14, 17–18), a shift to the plural to indicate that this victory is significant for more people than the individual speaker (vv. 15–16), and the acknowledgment of God’s faithful vindication by the community (vv. 2–4, 19–27).¹⁵ In other words, this image is one of both God’s climactic, exalting action (in line with the capstone image) and God’s foundational action around which he constituted the people. The petition for future action in v. 25 seems to front the sense of God’s action for the speaker as a precedent for future action, but it also represents God’s vindication and exaltation as exemplary and climactic. Therefore, the narrative dynamics of this text show that the form God’s inexorable, faithful love takes in this text is vindicating deliverance that serves as a foundation for still-expected action for the faithful.

Second, we must consider how this verse is used in the context of this parable in the Gospels. Matthew and Mark also feature a quotation from v. 23 that this is the Lord’s doing and it is a marvel in our eyes. Mark ends with that quote, but Matthew also puts a finer point on it in quoting Jesus as saying that the kingdom will be taken from those who rejected Jesus and given to others (consistently with Matt 8:11–12). Luke features a paraphrase of Isa 8:15 (as does the later addition of Matt 21:44; cf. 1 Pet 2:7–8). In both Matthew’s and Luke’s versions, this frame reinforces the conclusion to the story portion of Jesus’s teaching in that this stone is the foundation of God’s work of salvation and judgment, so that those who rejected it will find themselves broken by it.

But for all the variation in the details of the conclusion to the parable, the response to the same is consistent across all Synoptics, as the leaders realize that they are the ones implicated by the parable (Matt 21:45–46 // Mark 12:12 // Luke 20:19). And that response indicates that they realized how Jesus intended the parable as a kind of reflection on the history of Israel. For centuries, God had sent prophets to bring his people back to him, and the response was typically one of rejection. In some cases, that rejection was violent. Indeed, by this time popular traditions preserved in the Lives of the Prophets held that some of the major prophets had been killed for their message, such as Isaiah (1:1), Jeremiah (2:1), Ezekiel (3:2), Micah (6:2), and Amos (7:2). Although the Jewish leaders per se were not responsible for the death of John the Baptist, they rejected him nonetheless, so this history of rejection was still alive and well for this generation. This leads Jesus, in a less direct fashion than previously in all the Synoptics, to once again predict his death at the hands of the leaders, for they will put God’s own Son to death. And that rejection unto death will, in turn, mean their own condemnation and destruction.

The reference to Ps 118:22 (and v. 23 in Matthew and Mark) reinforces these points, but it does more than that. It implies that the story does not end there for the one rejected. The response to him becomes a basis for judgment precisely because God vindicates and exalts this Son of his that was rejected. That is, there is an implicit reference here to Jesus’s resurrection and exaltation. Jesus thus embodies the subject of Ps 118 in a way no one had anticipated before. On the one hand, Jesus’s resurrection is foundational and formational for the notion of salvation. On and around this action, God builds the larger salvific edifice, much like the stone in Ps 118:22. On the other hand, the contrast between the leaders’ decision and God’s action resonates with the stone rejected by the builders but made crucial by God. When Jesus’s vindication has taken the form of resurrection, his identifications and predictions have also been vindicated, and the implied formative role of the stone in God’s work has likewise been revealed in the form of the resurrection. And as Luke indicates in his last chapter, such a reading of this text and of other texts besides most likely did not occur to the disciples until after Jesus’s resurrection when he taught them how to read it thus. For indeed, it is only in the light of the resurrection that we see why Jesus chose this text as a reference point in this teaching and how it provides a narrative framework for the major gospel events.

1. John C. Crutchfield, Psalms in Their Context: An Interpretation of Psalms 107–118 (Milton Keynes: Paternoster, 2011), 54–55, 95–96; Martin Mark, Meine Stärke und mein Schutz ist der Herr: Poetologisch-theologische Studie zum Psalm 118, FB 92 (Würzburg: Echter, 1999), 248–52.

2. J. Ross Wagner, “Psalm 118 in Luke–Acts: Tracing a Narrative Thread,” in Early Christian Interpretation of the Scriptures of Israel: Investigations and Proposals, ed. Craig A. Evans and James A. Sanders, JSNTSup 148 and SSEJC 5 (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic, 1997), 158–61. Cf. Andrew C. Brunson, Psalm 118 in the Gospel of John: An Intertextual Study on the New Exodus Pattern in the Theology of John, WUNT 2/158 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2003), 59, 78–82.

3. Wagner, “Psalm 118,” 160–61.

4. The earliest such text is T.Sol. 23:4, in which Solomon refers to the text in the process of construction. However, this particular text may be a locus of Christian influence.

5. For more detail on what follows, see Michel Berder, ‘La pierre rejetée par les bâtisseurs’: Psaume 118,22-23 et son emploi dans les traditions juives et dans le Nouveau Testament, EBib 31 (Paris: Librairie Lecoffre, 1996), 181–92; Brunson, Psalm 118, 86–88.

6. Ben Zion Wacholder, “David’s Eschatological Psalter: 11QPsalms[a],” HUCA 59 (1988): 23–72.

7. On this term see Nancy deClaissé-Walford, Rolf A. Jacobson, and Beth Laneel Tanner, The Book of Psalms, NICOT (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2014), 7–8; R. Laird Harris, “חסד,” TWOT 1:305–7. My preferred translation of this term as “faithful love” expresses agreement with Harris’s argument that the term expresses the love that precedes and envelops the covenant rather than simply to the keeping of the covenant.

8. Frank-Lothar Hossfeld and Erich Zenger, Psalms 3: A Commentary on Psalms 101-150, trans. Linda M. Maloney, Hermeneia (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2011), 242.

9. Ibid.; Mitchell Dahood, Psalms III: 101–150, AB 17A (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1970), 159.

10. On the variety of views, see Berder, pierre rejetée, 113–20.

11. Theodoret (Comm. Pss. 118:22) supports this view, also citing Symmachus, while his interpretation of its significance seems to be based on Eph. 2:20. Also see Leslie C. Allen, Psalms 101-150, rev. ed., WBC 21 (Nashville: Nelson, 2002), 167; deClaissé-Walford, Jacobson, and Tanner, Psalms, 868; James Luther Mays, Psalms, Interpretation (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 1994), 377.

12. Dahood, Psalms, 159, 413–14.

13. Michael Cahill, “Not a Cornerstone! Translating Ps 118,22 in the Jewish and Christian Scriptures,” RevB 106 (1999): 345–57; John Goldingay, Psalms 90–150, vol. 3, BCOTWP (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2008), 361–62; Hossfeld and Zenger, Psalms 3, 229, 230, 242.

14. Berder, pierre rejetée, 144–46; Mark, Meine Stärke, 248–52.

15. Cf. Mays, Psalms, 377.