ps118

website/src/content/blog/2025/06/23/work.md

@@ -163,21 +163,23 @@ front-line jobs doing amazing work, but I've also seen how important those
 tertiary systems are.
 
 I also shouldn't dwell too long on my career choices, paralysed by an irrational
-angst that the value of my life hangs on making the right decision. I should remember
+angst that the value of my life hangs on making the right decision. I should
-that Jesus calls everyone alike, although most people don't have anywhere near as
+remember that Jesus calls everyone alike, although most people don't have
-much power over their own career as I do. And I should remember that, as a result, God
+anywhere near as much power over their own career as I do. And I should remember
-will use pretty much any line of work for his glory if I commit it to him.
+that, as a result, God will use pretty much any line of work for his glory if I
+commit it to him.
 
-So I shouldn't choose what's easy, nor what's perceived as noble, and nor should I be
+So I shouldn't choose what's easy, nor what's perceived as noble, and nor should
-paralysed by choice. But what ought I do instead?
+I be paralysed by choice. But what ought I do instead?
 
-Instead, I should commit my work to God right now, starting from this morning. I don't
+Instead, I should commit my work to God right now, starting from this morning. I
-have to wait until I find a perfect career, because I will never have a perfect career.
+don't have to wait until I find a perfect career, because I will never have a
-God can use the line of work I'm already in for his glory, and if I don't believe that,
+perfect career. God can use the line of work I'm already in for his glory, and
-I'm not just doubting myself, I'm doubting him. I should trust his power. And when I
+if I don't believe that, I'm not just doubting myself, I'm doubting him. I
-do have career choices, I should commit those to him too, not fretting endlessly as if
+should trust his power. And when I do have career choices, I should commit those
-one career is holy and another damned, but prioritising service to God and others over
+to him too, not fretting endlessly as if one career is holy and another damned,
-myself and trusting God with the rest.
+but prioritising service to God and others over myself and trusting God with the
+rest.
 
 Comfort, elitism and moralism are all forms of idolatry. I can toil endlessly
 pursuing any of them and never be satisfied. But instead, I can rest easy in the

website/src/content/blog/2025/07/03/ps118.md

@@ -0,0 +1,252 @@
+---
+title: Why Psalm 118 is the theme tune to Matthew's Gospel
+description: >-
+  Partly inspired by what I misheard at Cornhill Summer School 2025.
+pubDate: 2025-06-26
+---
+
+[Psalm 118][ps-118] is one of the best-loved hits in the Hebrews' ancient
+songbook, the Psalms, and also one of the most re-interpreted.
+
+It has been heavily used in both Jewish and Christian liturgy since ancient
+times. It is heavily referenced in the Rabbinical literature. Depending how
+generous you are with what counts as an 'allusion', you can count between twenty
+and sixty quotes and allusions to Psalm 118 in the New Testament. It has been
+frequently set and re-set to music, memorised, sung, interpreted and
+re-interpreted.
+
+But why should we care about an old song and its ensemble of interpreations? At
+least part of the answer that its long history of usage includes another
+Biblical text which urgently appeals to us today: the Gospel of Matthew.
+
+If we can understand why Matthew referred to Psalm 118, not once, not twice, but
+five times, all in the space of five chapters, we might understand a little
+better the story that Matthew wants to tell us.
+
+To understand why it's so important for Matthew, first, let's get on the same
+page on what the psalm actually says.
+
+## A story in four characters
+
+The psalm features four characters: a hero, a congregation, some enemies, and
+the Lord.
+
+The hero narrates psalm's central block, from verse 5 to verse 21. He is a
+warrior hero: he 'cuts off' his enemies. He is nearly defeated, but is
+eventually victorious, and ascribes his victory to the Lord. He then approaches
+the 'gates through which the righteous shall enter', and appeals to go through
+so that he can praise the Lord there.
+
+Having heard the hero's account, the final section is dominated by the
+congregation. They thank the Lord for his saving work, which they describe thus:
+'the stone the builders rejected has become the chief cornerstone.' This implies
+that the hero had initially faced rejection, before being vindicated. The people
+show their praise by bringing a sacrifice bound with branches up to the altar,
+and finally the psalm is book-ended by repetition of the opening motif: 'give
+thanks to the Lord, for he is good, for his mercy endures forever!'
+
+There is potentially a fifth character, the 'builders' who rejected the stone.
+Interpreters often identify these 'builders' either with the enemies or with the
+congregation, though not always. The text doesn't say.
+
+Apart from the Lord, none of these four (or five) characters are named in the
+text.
+
+This is where the intrigue lies: who are these characters? Who are the enemies?
+Who is the congregation? And who is this embattled hero, this 'stone the
+builders rejected' which has become 'the chief cornerstone'?
+
+If I were to enumerate all the solutions that have been proposed to this puzzle,
+reading this essay would give you piles. But in order to understand some of the
+context in which Matthew was writing, permit me briefly to introduce two of the
+most popular Jewish interpretations.
+
+## Moses
+
+The first is Moses. Psalm 118 lays on thick the references to the Song of the
+Sea in Ex 15.
+
+The central line, 'the Lord is my strength and song, he has become my
+salvation!' is a direct quote from Ex 15:2. Like Ex 15, the psalm uses the
+divine name frequently. Not only that, but the psalm, like Ex 15, prefers the
+relatively unusual form YH rather than the more common YHWH. The psalm echoes Ex
+15 also in its references to the right hand of the Lord doing mighty things, his
+chosen hero being hard-pressed by foreign nations and enjoying the Lord's
+'salvation', and by the hero's response, 'praising' and 'exalting' the Lord.
+
+In short, the psalm is absolutely reeking with references to the Song of the
+Sea, Moses' classic number-1 hit. No ancient Jew, for whom the psalm was
+originally written, could have failed to smell it.
+
+The Midrash Tehillim, a Jewish commentary on the psalter composed in the early
+medieval period, even ascribes the psalm to Moses, claiming that he sang it on
+the first Pesach (Passover). Certainly, the psalm has featured heavily in Jewish
+celebrations of both Pesach and Sukkoth (another exodus-inspired festival) since
+ancient times.
+
+However, perhaps surprisingly, Moses is not the most common Jewish reading of
+the hero of Psalm 118. That accolade goes to the next great hero of the Hebrew
+Scriptures: David.
+
+## David
+
+Although, unlike many other psalms, this one is not explicitly described as
+being 'of David', very many Jewish interpreters associate this psalm with that
+improbable king. For instance, the Targum -- an Aramaic paraphrase and
+commentary on the Hebrew Scriptures -- explicitly reads David, Samuel and Saul
+into the psalm. David has also been a favourite reading of some Christian
+readers, including John Calvin.
+
+Why is this? One reason might be the psalm's context in the psalter. The psalter
+is divided into five books, and contemporary scholars theorise that in the
+second Temple period, editors arranged these five books thematically.
+
+Books I and II tell how God had a covenant with David, and Book III laments that
+the covenant with David has failed, perhaps because David failed to keep the
+commands of the Torah. The task of Books IV and V is to show that God will
+restore his Davidic kingdom and fulfil his promises.
+
+Psalm 118 sits in this final block, as the last psalm of Book IV. This suggests
+we should expect David, or a type of David, to feature: a returning king, coming
+back to fulfil his destiny to rule as an intermediary between God and his
+people. (Presumably, this time, he's got to be a true keeper of the Torah in
+order for this to work.)
+
+Notice that a Davidic interpretation is inherently implicitly also a Messianic
+interpretation. David is dead. God promised that he would establish an
+everlasting throne in Jerusalem, where a human mediator would rule on his
+behalf, and God and his people could live together in peace forever. David, for
+all his merits, has conspicuously failed to deliver on this promise. So, if this
+psalm looks back to David, it must also look forward to the one who will fulfil
+God's promises to David.
+
+So in this traditional Davidic interpretation, it's understood that God is going
+to choose someone who will re-establish that Davidic throne, and this time it's
+going to really work. Which means this time, it's going to be really different.
+
+## Jesus
+
+On the face of it, the New Testament authors seem to have nothing to do with the
+traditional interpretations. Instead of Moses or David, they exclusively
+identify the hero of Psalm 118 with Jesus. What are they up to?
+
+One reason the New Testament authors went ham for Psalm 118 is simply because it
+was well-known. I mentioned that it was used heavily at Pesach and Sukkoth. As a
+result, lots of Jews were very familiar with its ideas and its language. Many
+ordinary people would have memorised it.
+
+But that in itself doesn't explain why the New Testament authors used it. They
+didn't refer to Scripture arbitrarily, but they subverted shared interpretations
+in order to tell a new story. The cleverest instance of this is in the Gospel of
+Matthew.
+
+Matthew first gets his reader tuned in to Psalm 118 as Jesus enters Jerusalem on
+the back of a colt. Matthew quotes the crowds quoting Psalm 118, shouting
+'Hosanna to the son of David! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!'
+In case we missed the application, he pairs this with his own quotation from the
+prophecy of Zechariah: Jesus is the coming king who will fulfil God's promises.
+The crowd also wave him in with branches, typical of Sukkoth celebrations and a
+reference to Ps 118:27.
+
+So now we know Jesus is the returning king, we're expecting his imminent victory
+over his enemies, right? That's what Psalm 118, and its traditional Mosaic and
+Davidic interpretations, suggests, and so it's clearly what Matthew wants us to
+think. But that's when things take a sudden turn.
+
+Immediately after this, Jesus tells the Parable of the Tenants. He implies that
+the well-educated, respectable religious leaders are complicit in murder and
+enemies of God. It's a shocking teaching, and it doesn't go down well.
+
+Matthew depicts Jesus continuing to teach in the Temple while sparring with the
+religious elites. Jesus caps off what was already a dreadful day by declaring
+seven devastating woes on the religious leaders. As he finally exits the Temple,
+he leaves another ominous quote from Psalm 118 hanging in the air: 'For I tell
+you, you will not see me again until you say, Blessed is he who comes in the
+name of the Lord.'
+
+This doesn't make sense at all. According to the Psalm 118 storyline, we were
+supposed to be seeing Jesus cutting down his enemies and arriving at the Temple
+to celebrate with God's people. But now he's doing the opposite: he's cutting
+down God's people and then leaving the Temple mired in controversy.
+
+Jesus then, after taking a private seminar for his disciples, invites them to
+what he knew would be his last supper. Matthew shows the reader how Judas had
+already betrayed Jesus behind his back. And yet, Matthew doesn't let up. He
+points out that they are celebrating their Pesach meal, and at the end, he
+points out that they finished with a hymn.
+
+Why these apparently irrelevant details? He's begging you to put two and two
+together. His Jewish readers would have immediately clocked that the hymn in
+question was Psalm 118, ritually sung at the end of the Pesach meal.
+
+So even at the very moment Jesus' total defeat in shame and misery is sealed,
+they're still singing this song about a victorious returning king, coming to
+re-establish David's throne forever?
+
+The point that Matthew wants us to clock is the point Jesus made to the
+religious leaders in the Parable of the Tenants: 'the stone the builders
+rejected has become the chief cornerstone.' He really is the perfect Moses and
+the perfect David that God has promised. But before his great victory, he needs
+a great rejection. The surprise is that neither Jesus' rejection nor his victory
+look anything like what anyone expected.
+
+Rather than being hard-pressed by foreign nations and defeating them in battle,
+Jesus is oppressed by his own people, the Jews. (We should understand this in
+the context that Matthew's Gospel was written primarily for an audience of Jews,
+hence why he expects them to pick up on all the references to Psalm 118.)
+
+But this oppression is only the surface layer: his real fight was his fight with
+the spiritual powers of sin and death. By going to the cross, he consented to be
+hard-pressed.
+
+And his Resurrection is his victory. Through it, he shows that he has defeated
+death. Now he is ascended to the right hand of the Father, where he rules as the
+perfect David, as the one who could both act as a human intermediary between God
+and humanity, and as one who could truly keep God's law. He is also the perfect
+Moses, who, by God's power, led his people out of captivity to sin and death in
+order to worship God. The old covenants are broken, but God has remained
+faithful and delivered on them anyway, and in doing so has created a new people,
+the Church, who will enter the gates of righteousness because Jesus has opened
+the way.
+
+For a contemporary Jewish reader of Matthew's Gospel, the references to Psalm
+118 would automatically have conjured all the associations with Moses and David,
+and as a result, all the Messianic secondary meanings, that he needed to make
+his point. He could have expected his original readers to join the dots.
+
+For a contemporary reader, particularly one like me that didn't get an
+old-fashioned Biblical education, it might take a bit more work to spot the
+links. But isn't it worth it? This psalm helps us to understand the message of
+Matthew's Gospel: Jesus fulfils God's promises in a way that nobody expected.
+
+## Conclusion
+
+As I've discovered, Matthew's way is far from the only way of reading Psalm 118.
+That's to be expected: as I noted at the start, none of the characters apart
+from the Lord are named in the text. It's up to us as readers to impose
+allegories onto the text, if that is what we choose to do.
+
+And that is what interpreters from ancient times have strove to do. Indeed,
+Matthew didn't ignore or overwrite previous interpretations: he used Psalm 118
+precisely because he knew that if he put Jesus into Psalm 118, his readers would
+have made the link to Moses and David themselves. In order to get Matthew's
+subversive new reading, you've got to be fluent in the rich tradition of old
+readings.
+
+Therefore I will keep reading. As I've encountered Psalm 118 recently, I've
+re-discovered how understanding one Biblical text can shed dramatic new light on
+another. If God is willing, perhaps this will help me to see him once again in
+sharp relief.
+
+## Further reading
+
+- [Calvin's commentary on Psalm 118](https://biblehub.com/commentaries/calvin/psalms/118.htm)
+- [Cook, EM. 2001. Targum Tehillim: An English Translation. Book V](http://targum.info/pss/ps5.htm)
+- [Vaillancourt, IJ. 2019. Psalm 118 and the eschatological son of David. JETS 62(4) pp 721-738](https://etsjets.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/files_JETS-PDFs_62_62-4_JETS_62.4_721-738_Vaillancourt.pdf)
+- [Gillingham 2020. ‘Das schöne Confitemini’: engaging with Erich Zenger’s reading of Psalm 118 from a Jewish and Christian reception history perspective. In: 'By my God I can leap over a wall': Interreligious Horizons in Psalms and Psalms Studies](https://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:1dff6f67-3c9e-41a8-a691-90e1e260fcdd)
+- [Botha PJ 2003. Psalm 118 and social values in Ancient Israel. OTE 16(2) pp 195-215](https://www.researchgate.net/publication/237449388_Psalm_118_and_social_values_in_Ancient_Israel)
+
+I was inspired to write this essay by the teaching on Psalm 118 at Cornhill
+Summer School 2025.
+
+[ps-118]: https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Psalm%20118