THE ACTS OF THE APOSTLES - Chapter 4 - Verse 11

Verse 11. This is the stone. This passage is found in Ps 118:22. It is quoted also by our Saviour, as applicable to himself. See Barnes "Mt 21:42".

The ancient Jews applied this to David. In the Targum on Ps 118:22, this passage is rendered, "The child who was among the sons of Jesse, and was worthy to be constituted King, the builders rejected." The New Testament writers, however, apply it without any doubt to the Messiah. Comp. Isa 28:16; Ro 9:33; Eph 2:20.

And from this passage we may learn, that God will overrule the devices and plans of wicked men, to accomplish his own purposes. What men despise and set at nought, he esteems of inestimable value in his kingdom. What the great and the mighty contemn, he regards as the very foundation and corner-stone of the edifice which he designs to rear. Nothing has been more remarkable than this in the history of man; and in nothing is more contempt thrown on the proud projects of men, than that what they have rejected he has made the very basis of his schemes.

{b} "the stone" Ps 118:22; Isa 28:16; Mt 21:42

{+} "at nought" "rejected"