Luke’s gospel is full of references to the Psalms. In Jesus’ thesis statement for hermeneutical endeavour in Luke 24 he speaks of Moses and the Prophets, a typical Hebrew form of speaking, meaning the Old Testament. A few verses later when meeting with his disciples he says that Moses, the Prophets, and the Psalms testify that he would die and on the third day rise.
The addition of the Psalms is unusual, drawing them out for special attention. There’s lots we could consider there, but we should at least notice that Luke loves the Psalms. There are a number we could pick on, but we might particularly notice Psalm 118 in Luke 19–21 and Psalm 110 in Luke 20–22.
Luke directly quotes Psalm 118 three times (13.35, 19.38, 20.17–18). The first is Jesus in his lament over Jerusalem, the second his disciples declaring him king for the first time at the triumphal entry, and the third Jesus identifying himself as the rejected stone who becomes the cornerstone.
The triumphal entry is the first time that Jesus is explicitly called king in Luke’s gospel, though this has been alluded to throughout, particularly with the language of David’s throne and son. The disciples receive Jesus as Psalm 118 requires, singing in similar tones to the angels of Luke 2.14; the Pharisees do the opposite, rejecting him and asking Jesus to silence his disciples due to fear of the Romans sudden and brutal response to claims of alternative kingship.
Psalm 118 is full of linguistic connections to Exodus 14 and 15, the Red Sea crossing and Moses’ subsequent song of praise for the God who throws the horse and his rider into the sea. It sits at the end of a section of the Psalms called the Egyptian Hallel (Psalms 113–118), celebrating the Exodus. Luke likes the Exodus motif theologically and used the word directly in the transfiguration narrative with Jesus referring to his own exodus. It may be that his repeated use of Psalm 118 is because he (and Jesus) perceive Jesus’ mission in terms of a new exodus.
Psalm 118 is also traditionally a Passover Psalm, probably sung with the rest of the Egyptian Hallel at the end of Passover. This is likely what the disciples sang as they climbed the mount of Olives late on the Thursday evening (Matthew 26). The Egyptian Hallel points towards a coming Davidic king, particularly in Psalm 118. Psalm 118 also sits at the central pivot of book five of the Psalms, focused on the restoration of Israel: book five centres around Psalms 118 and 119 which together recapitulate Psalm 1 and 2, telling again a story of King and Priest like the two pillars of the Temple, Jachin and Boaz. So, to quote Psalm 118 comes bundled with a wide Psalmic theology of the Messiah who is both King and Priest. Jesus is entering Jerusalem as the true end of Israel’s exile, and ours, and the true beginning of the restoration of Israel in the person of Jesus as the covenant is widened to allow the Gentiles to be grafted into Jesus, the true Israel. Psalm 118 ends as a journey towards the Altar. I imagine Jesus’ ironic amusement at their correct identification of him as the king to come without realising he is also the sacrifice heading to the altar to herald the king’s coming.
We can go further with this though, particularly when we read along the grain of Luke’s quotation of Psalm 118 in Luke 20.17–18, the stone that was rejected becoming the cornerstone. We should remember that stone and son (even/ben) sound similar out loud in Hebrew leading to a common play on words. Luke connects stones and children in 3.8 as well. Stones are littered across this section of Luke (19.40, 20.6, 20.17–18, 21.5–6). Perhaps these are wider allusions to Psalm 118. Especially if we think that the play on words with ‘son’ might be intended, I think you can notice Luke drawing our attention to three different kinds of sons in this section.
We have the sons of Abraham (a term Jesus uses in Luke to great effect, if not here explicitly), true Israel, who recognise Jesus (19.40); we have the sons of Israel, who fear being stoned to death (20.6) but will face the fate of the Temple in AD70 (21.5–6); and we have the divine Son, the cornerstone (20.17–18). I think Luke may be deliberately alluding to Psalm 118 (or Jesus was in his speech at this time) to help provoke the reader to respond to Jesus as a stone who will be built into the new Temple of living stones (1 Peter 2) or who will be rejected and cast aside as the old Temple is destroyed.
I did wonder if Luke has woven more allusions to Psalm 118 into this section so compared the Seputagint (the Greek translation of the Old Testament known at the time the New Testament was written) of Psalm 118 with Luke to see if key terms were repeated but didn’t find anything particularly exciting (Psalm 110 is a different story, but that’s for another post). There is the use of the word for rejection (apodokimazō) in 17.25, of which almost all uses of in the New Testament are direct quotations of Psalm 118.22 (the stone the builders rejected), which could be an allusion, but not one that particularly brings additional light other than to suggest that Luke loves the Psalms.
What’s the point of noticing all of this? Three things:
First, to notice the way that Jesus is carefully using Psalm 118 behind what he’s doing and saying. The Lord is constantly doing this with scripture; it frames his life and his thought world. He lives a biblical ‘imaginary,’ and expects those he interacts with to understand that.
Second, to notice the way that Luke is gently using Psalm 118 to enhance what Jesus is saying, not as strongly as he does with other texts, but there’s a genius to his literary layering. I suspect he learned that from paying attention to Jesus’ teaching as it was reported to him.
Third, to notice the beauty of the Bible and enjoy it for its own sake. There’s no new or hidden meaning in anything I’ve written here; we should be wary of that when people claim it. Rather, the echoes of scripture enhance the plain meaning of the text and can cause us to marvel at the brilliance of scripture and the teaching of Jesus.
If you find that interesting, this is a summary of part of what I presented at THINK 2026, you can listen to my session here, or find the rest of the conference from there.
Photo by Carlos N. Cuatzo Meza on Unsplash
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