Psalm 118:21

Hebrew Bible

18 The Lord severely punished me, but he did not hand me over to death. 19 Open for me the gates of the just king’s temple. I will enter through them and give thanks to the Lord. 20 This is the Lord’s gate—the godly enter through it. 21 I will give you thanks, for you answered me, and have become my deliverer. 22 The stone that the builders discarded has become the cornerstone. 23 This is the Lord’s work. We consider it amazing!

John 11:41

New Testament

39 Jesus said, “Take away the stone.” Martha, the sister of the deceased, replied, “Lord, by this time the body will have a bad smell because he has been buried four days.” 40 Jesus responded, “Didn’t I tell you that if you believe, you would see the glory of God?” 41 So they took away the stone. Jesus looked upward and said, “Father, I thank you that you have listened to me. 42 I knew that you always listen to me, but I said this for the sake of the crowd standing around here, that they may believe that you sent me.”

 Notes and References

"... Anthony Hanson and Max Wilcox, co-founders of the Seminar on the use of the Old Testament in the New, identified the opening words of Jesus' prayer in Jn 11.41 as an allusion to Ps. 118.21 (LXX 117.21), and did so working independently of one another. Hanson was first to get into print in an article in 1973. Wilcox published four years later, by which time the coincidence had been discovered.1 The aim of this study is to offer support for this joint identification by approaching Jn 11.41-42 from the broader perspective of the composition of the Lazarus story as a whole ... we are now in a position to render a plausible account of the processes of creative interpretation of tradition which gave John's text its final form ... I am in agreement with the view that the Lazarus story was not originally part of the Gospel but was added to it by John at a later stage, probably in the process of a second edition.3 This is an important point because it affects our understanding of how John has worked: it means that the story was almost certainly interpolated into already existing material and that therefore, in composing it, John also designed it to fit its new surroundings ..."

North, Wendy Sproston "Jesus' Prayer in John 11" in Moyise, Steve, and J. L. North, editors. The Old Testament in the New Testament: Essays in Honour of J.L. North (pp. 164-180) Sheffield Academic Press, 2000

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