What Does Psalm 118:22 Mean?
The stone the builders push away becomes the head of the corner.
Key words are shown with the Hebrew or Greek and what each word meant.
Selah Decoded Version The Selah Decoded Version renders what the Hebrew and Greek words meant to the people who first heard them.
King James wording
King James Version
The stone which the builders refused is become the head stone of the corner.THE KEY
The stone the builders reject becomes the point that sets the whole structure’s orientation.
THE MEANING
A refusal can define how something is treated without defining where it belongs. Here, the same stone moves from rejected material to the head of the corner, the point the structure gathers around.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that being refused proves you are unfit to belong.
THE ROOT
מָאֲסוּ
ma'asu
GROWS FROM
מאס
To reject, despise, or regard as repulsive.
“push away” in this verse is ma'asu. The Hebrew word carries the force of rejection with disdain. The striking turn is that what is treated as repellent becomes the stone the structure gathers around.
ALSO GROWS
ma'as: To reject or despise.
מָאַס
This verb shows the builders’ refusal as an act of rejection, not merely a neutral choice.
ma'us: Rejected or despised.
מָאוּס
This related form describes the status imposed on the stone before its place changes.
אֶבֶן
even
GROWS FROM
אבן
Stone.
The stone remains the same object through both parts of the verse; its treatment and place change. Hebrew forms keep the אבן consonants visible as the word shifts from a single stone to stones joined with what follows.
ALSO GROWS
avanim: Stones.
אֲבָנִים
The plural keeps the same stone-word at the center, even when it is one among many building materials.
avnei: Stones of; the construct form of stones.
אַבְנֵי
This form appears in compounds such as אֶבֶן פִּנָּה (even pinnah), “cornerstone,” joining stone directly to its structural place.
פִּנָּה
pinnah
GROWS FROM
פנה
To turn, face toward, or orient.
The corner is where the structure’s faces and directions meet. Calling the stone the head of the corner makes it the point from which the rest of the arrangement takes its orientation.
ALSO GROWS
panah: Turned or faced toward.
פָּנָה
The verb carries the sense of direction and orientation that makes the corner more than a mere edge.
panim: Face or front.
פָּנִים
The face-word echoes the corner as the meeting point of the structure’s visible sides.
THE PATTERN
A rejected element can become the structural point that gives the whole arrangement its orientation.
Therefore, thus says the Lord GOD, Behold, I lay in Zion a stone, a tested stone, a weighty cornerstone, a foundation set firm. The one who leans his weight will not hurry.Jesus said to them, Did you never read in the scriptures, The stone the builders tested and cast aside has become the head of the angle; this comes from the side of the LORD, and it is wondrous in our eyes?So honor is yours, you who lean your full weight upon him; but for those who will not yield, the stone the builders tested and set aside has become the head of the corner,THE THREAD
Therefore, thus says the Lord GOD, Behold, I lay in Zion a stone, a tested stone, a weighty cornerstone, a foundation set firm. The one who leans his weight will not hurry.Isaiah uses the same Hebrew words for stone (אֶבֶן, even) and corner (פִּנָּה, pinnah). It places that corner stone as both tried and precious, opening the image of rejection into one of tested value and structural place.
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