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The Day which the Lord made.
This is the day which the Lord hath made ;
We will rejoice and be glad in it.— Ps. czviii. 24.
This is unmistakably a psalm for use in the Temple worship, and was probably meant to be sung antiphonally, on some day of national rejoicing indicated in the text. A general concurrence of opinion points to the period of the restoration from Babylon as its date, but different events connected with that restoration have been selected. The psalm implies the completion of the Temple, and therefore shuts out any point prior to that. Delitzsch fixes on the dedication of the Temple as the occasion; but the view is still more probable which supposes that it was sung on the great celebration of the Feast of Tabernacles, recorded in Neh, viii. 14-18. In later times ver. 25 was the festal cry raised while the altar of burnt-offering was solemnly compassed, once on each of the first six days of the Feast of Tabernacles, and seven times on the seventh.
1. Apparently the psalm falls into two halves, of which the former half (w. 1-16) seems to have been sung as a processional hymn while approaching the sanctuary, and the latter (w. 17-29), partly at the Temple gates, partly by a chorus of priests within, and partly by the procession when it had entered. Verses 22, 23, 24 probably belong to the priestly chorus. They set forth the great truth made manifest by restored Israel's presence in the rebuilt Temple. The metaphor is suggested by the incidents con- nected with the rebuilding. The " stone " is obviously Israel, weak, contemptible, but now once more laid as the very founda- tion stone of God's house in the world. The broad truth taught by its history is that God lays as the basis of His building, i.e., uses for the execution of His purposes, that which the wisdom of
man despises and tosses aside.
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400 THE DAY WHICH THE LORD MADE
2. The general truth contained here is that of St. Paul's great saying, " God chose the weak things of the world, that he might put to shame the things that are strong." It is a law which finds its highest exemplification in the foundation for God's true temple, other than which can no man lay. Israel is not only a figure of Christ ; there is an organic unity between Him and them. What- ever, therefore, is true of Israel in a lower sense is true in its highest sense of Christ. If Israel is the rejected stone made the head of the corner, this is far truer of Him who was indeed rejected of men, but chosen of God and precious, the corner stone of the one great living temple of the redeemed.
The text is best regarded as the continuation of the choral praise in vv. 22, 23. " The day " is that of the festival now in pro- gress, the joyful culmination of God's manifold deliverances. It is a day in which joy is duty, and no heart has a right to be too heavy to leap for gladness. Private sorrows enough many of the jubilant worshippers no doubt had, but the sight of the Stone laid as the head of the corner should bring joy even to such. If sad- ness was ingratitude and almost treason then, what sorrow should now be so dense that it cannot be pierced by the Light which lighteth every man ?
3. In our Lord's time the whole of this psalm was applied to the Messiah by the Jewish interpreters. Christ was the Stone, refused by the builders of Israel, but afterwards made the Head of the corner. His was the welcome, " Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord " ; to Him was addressed the prayer, " Hosanna, save, I pray," as on Palm Sunday, by the Jewish multitude. Thus it was very natural for the Christian Church to find in the words, " This is the day which the Lord hath made ; we will rejoice and be glad in it," an application to our Lord Jesus Christ. What was the day in Christ's life which He made His own, beyond all others ? Not His birthday ; for that meant His entrance on a life of sorrows. Not His ascension day ; for that was the closing scene of a triumph already achieved. Not His transfiguration day; it was a momentary flash of glory in a career of pain. Not the day of His crucifixion ; it was a great day for a ruined world, but for Him it marked the lowest stage of humiliation and of woe. The day of days in the life of
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Christ was the day of His resurrection. It reflected a new glory on the day of His birth. It witnessed a triumph of which the ascension was but a completion. It was to the transfiguration what the sunrise is to the earliest dawn. It poured a flood of light and meaning on Calvary itself ; and showed that what took place there was not simply the death-scene of an innocent Sufferer, but a sacrifice which would have power with God to the end of time.
Something of this kind is what was felt by the early Christians about Easter Day ; and as it was the greatest day in the life of Jesus Christ, so for them it was the greatest day in the whole year. It was the day of days ; it was the Lord's Own Day. Every Lord's Day in the year was a weekly feast of Christ's rising from the dead ; on Easter Day, the force and meaning of all these Lord's Days were gathered into one consummate expression of joy and praise. " This is the day which the Lord hath made ; we will rejoice and be glad in it."