Matthew and the Targum of Psalm 118

Does Matthew Incorporate an Early Targum Tradition?

The Targums, Aramaic translations of the Hebrew bible, represent a window into early biblical interpretation and communities whose everyday language had shifted from Hebrew. The Targums are much more than translations, however, as they reflect interpretive traditions, attempts at clarification, and theological contemplation, much like a modern commentary but woven directly into the final text. While most written Targums date from several centuries after the New Testament period, scholars have recognized that the traditions and interpretive methods they preserve often reach back much earlier. These texts capture ways of reading scripture that were already circulating in various forms during the Second Temple period and into the first century.¹

The parable of the tenants at the end of Matthew 21 provides an interesting example of this interpretive tradition. While the written Targum to Psalm 118 would not appear for at least two centuries after Matthew's composition, both texts demonstrate similar ways of understanding the Psalm’s imagery. What emerges in comparing Matthew and the Psalm Targum is evidence of an interpretative common ancestry, a shared exegetical methodology that was later adapted for use in both Christian and Jewish communities. This way of reading the Hebrew bible was not an innovation of either Christian or Rabbinic literature, and instead reveals how biblical interpretation functioned as a living tradition long before it was codified by either tradition.

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This is the Lord’s gate—the godly enter through it. I will give you thanks, for you answered me, and have become my deliverer. The stone that the builders discarded has become the cornerstone. This is the Lord’s work. We consider it amazing! (Psalm 118:20-23)

This is the entrance of the sanctuary of the Lord; the righteous will enter by it. I will give thanks in your presence, for you have received my prayer, and become for me a redeemer. The child the builders abandoned was among the sons of Jesse; and he was worthy to be appointed king and ruler. “This has come from the presence of the Lord,” said the builders; “it is wonderful before us,” said the sons of Jesse. (Targum Psalm 118-20-23)²

The Targum of Psalms demonstrates several characteristic interpretive moves that transform the Hebrew text’s imagery into more concrete narratives. In Psalm 118, the Hebrew presents a progression from distress to deliverance, culminating in entrance through the temple gates. The speaker moves from being like a discarded stone, useless and rejected, to becoming the cornerstone itself, vindicated by divine intervention. The Targumist preserves this narrative arc of reversal but fills in the poetic gaps with very specific details. Where the Hebrew text leaves the identity of the rejected one open to interpretation, the Targum connects this directly to the story of David.

This transformation becomes especially clear in how the Targum handles the psalm’s central metaphor. The ‘stone that the builders rejected’ functions within a broader temple context and the vindicated one now enters through ‘the gates of justice’ into the temple. The Targum reimagines this architectural language entirely: the stone becomes ‘the child the builders abandoned’ who ‘was among the sons of Jesse,’ and the rejection is connected to the initial overlooking of David when anointing Israel’s king. The connection of ‘stone’ to ‘child’ is an important exegetical move and likely reflects awareness of a well-known Hebrew wordplay.³ The Targum leans into this connection and dramatizes the moment of recognition, creating dialogue where the source has none.

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When the harvest time was near, he sent his slaves to the tenants to collect his portion of the crop. But the tenants seized his slaves, beat one, killed another, and stoned another. Again he sent other slaves, more than the first, and they treated them the same way. Finally he sent his son to them, saying, ‘They will respect my son.’ But when the tenants saw the son, they said to themselves, ‘This is the heir. Come, let’s kill him and get his inheritance!’ So they seized him, threw him out of the vineyard, and killed him. Now when the owner of the vineyard comes, what will he do to those tenants?” They said to him, “He will utterly destroy those evil men! Then he will lease the vineyard to other tenants who will give him his portion at the harvest.” Jesus said to them, “Have you never read in the scriptures: “‘The stone the builders rejected has become the cornerstone. This is from the Lord, and it is marvelous in our eyes’? (Matthew 21:34-42)⁴

Matthew’s parable of the tenants reveals a similar interpretive approach to Psalm 118. At the end of the parable, Jesus quotes the very same verse from Psalm 118 about the rejected stone becoming the cornerstone. The connection is direct: just as the Targum transformed the rejected stone into a rejected son, Jesus in Matthew’s gospel links the rejected stone to the murdered son. This interpretive move relies on the same Hebrew wordplay that likely influenced the Targum, creating a conceptual bridge between the parable’s intent and the Psalm’s imagery. The rejected son of the parable becomes the vindicated cornerstone of the psalm quotation.⁵

The convergence between Matthew and the Targum becomes even more significant when considering the linguistic landscape of first-century Judaism. While the Hebrew wordplay between stone and son would have been familiar to many, this connection does not exist in either Aramaic or Greek, yet both the Greek-writing evangelist and the later Aramaic Targum preserve interpretations that use this Hebrew linguistic feature. The fact that two independent texts, written in different languages and contexts, arrived at similar readings of Psalm 118 is strong evidence for an established and influential interpretive practice. These were not isolated innovations but reflections of how Jewish communities in the late Second Temple period were already reading their scriptures, finding in their inherited texts underlying patterns that spoke to their contemporary practices and experiences.

1. Flesher, Paul Virgil McCracken, and Bruce Chilton The Targums: A Critical Introduction Baylor University Press, 2011

2. https://intertextual.bible/text/psalm-118.22-targum-psalm-118.22

3. Buth, Randall and Chad Pierce “Hebraisti in Ancient Texts: Does Ἑβραϊστί Ever Mean ‘Aramaic’?” in Buth, Randall, and R. Steven Notley (eds.) The Language Environment of First Century Judaea: Jerusalem Studies in the Synoptic Gospels (pp. 66-109) Brill, 2014

4. https://intertextual.bible/text/psalm-118.22-targum-psalm-118.22-matthew-21.42

5. Nolan, Brian M. The Royal Son of God: The Christology of Matthew 1-2 in the Setting of the Gospel (pp. 189-190) Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1979