Psalms 118:25–27

Psalms 118:25 — "Save us now, we beg you, Yahweh!"

The Hebrew behind "save us now" is the single word hôšî'â-nā' — the very root from which "Hosanna" derives (from yāša', to save, and nā', a particle of urgent entreaty). In its original liturgical setting, this was not a shout of praise but a desperate, petitionary cry: Save! And save now! The urgency of nā' intensifies the plea, indicating that this salvation cannot wait. The verse belongs to what scholars identify as an antiphonal processional — the approaching pilgrim-king or priest crying out to God as he nears the sanctuary gates. The plea echoes the deepest longing of Israel: that divine intervention would break into history not gradually, but immediately and decisively. The repetition of the appeal in the second half of the verse ("we beg you") reinforces that this is communal supplication, the voice of all Israel rather than of any single person.

Psalms 118:26 — "Blessed is he who comes in Yahweh's name!"

This verse introduces one of the most pivotal phrases in all of Scripture: bārûk habbā' bešēm YHWH — "Blessed is the one who comes in the name of YHWH." The participle habbā' ("the one who comes") is notably open-ended. In the immediate pilgrimage context it greeted any worshipper arriving at the Temple. But its absolute, universal form — the one who comes — was read in Second Temple Judaism as pointing toward an expected figure of eschatological significance. The Targum and later rabbinic traditions associated this "coming one" with the Davidic king or with a priestly-royal Messiah. The second half of the verse, "We bless you from the house of Yahweh," shifts the voice to the priests stationed at the gate who pronounce the blessing upon the arrivals — a dramatic liturgical exchange between the pilgrim throng and the sanctuary's cultic ministers. The structure foreshadows the Eucharistic dialogue between assembly and priest.

Psalms 118:27 — "Yahweh is God, and he has given us light."

The declaration 'ēl YHWH — "God is Yahweh" or "Yahweh is God" — is a confessional formula asserting the exclusive divinity of Israel's covenant Lord against all rival deities. "He has given us light" (wayyā'er lānû) is more than metaphor: in the Temple liturgy, light was associated with God's šekînāh presence, with the Menorah of the sanctuary, and with the priestly blessing (cf. Num 6:25, "the LORD make his face shine upon you"). The verse then moves into a ritual instruction — "Bind the festival sacrifice with cords up to the horns of the altar" — though this final clause is often rendered separately. The image of light breaking forth is the theological resolution of the entire psalm: the one who cried "save us now" in verse 25 now stands in the luminous presence of the saving God. The movement is from petition to proclamation, from darkness to light, from the gate to the altar.

Typological and Spiritual Senses

The literal-historical sense gives way to an extraordinarily rich typological fulfillment. All four Evangelists record the crowd's use of these precise words at Jesus' entry into Jerusalem (Matt 21:9; Mark 11:9–10; Luke 19:38; John 12:13), transforming hôšî'â-nā' from a petition into an acclamation — the crowd does not merely ask for salvation but recognizes salvation arriving in person. The "one who comes in the name of the Lord" (ὁ ἐρχόμενος, ho erchomenos) becomes in the New Testament a technical title for Jesus (Matt 11:3; Luke 7:19–20; John 11:27). The light of verse 27 reaches its fulfillment in John 8:12 — "I am the light of the world" — and in the Prologue's declaration that in the Word "was life, and that life was the light of all people" (John 1:4). The altar of verse 27's liturgical instruction anticipates the altar of the Cross, and ultimately the Eucharistic altar upon which Christ's sacrifice is made perpetually present.

Catholic tradition uniquely illuminates these verses by situating them at the intersection of three interlocking realities: Scripture, Liturgy, and Christology — what the Catechism calls the "three criteria for interpreting Scripture in accordance with the Spirit who inspired it" (CCC §113).

Patristic Reading: St. Augustine in his Enarrationes in Psalmos identifies hôšî'â-nā' as the cry of the entire human race groaning for redemption, a cry that God answers not by sending a messenger but by coming in person. Justin Martyr (Dialogue with Trypho, ch. 36) argues that this verse was always destined for Christ, as only he fulfills the absolute singular form "the one who comes." Origen notes that the priests blessing from the house of the Lord prefigure the apostolic and episcopal ministry of blessing in Christ's name.

Liturgical Theology: The Sanctus of every Catholic Mass incorporates "Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord" (the Benedictus qui venit), placing Psalm 118:26 at the hinge between the Preface and the Eucharistic Prayer. This is theologically deliberate: the Church not only remembers Christ's triumphal entry but acclaims his real, sacramental coming under the Eucharistic species. The General Instruction of the Roman Missal (§79) notes that the Sanctus unites the earthly assembly with the heavenly liturgy, meaning this ancient pilgrim cry is perpetually ascending before the throne of God.

Catechism: CCC §559 explicitly cites Psalm 118:26 in its treatment of the triumphal entry, calling it a "messianic hope" fulfilled in Jesus. CCC §2641 notes the Psalms as "the masterwork of prayer in the Old Testament," supremely fulfilled in Christ who is both the one who prays the psalm and the one about whom it is prayed.

Magisterium: Verbum Domini (Benedict XVI, §19) teaches that every psalm finds its ultimate subject in Christ — he is at once the speaker of the psalm and its fulfillment. These three verses embody that principle with unique clarity: Jesus sang this psalm at the Last Supper (the Hallel concluded Passover) and days earlier was greeted with its words, making him simultaneously the cantor and the content of Psalm 118.

For the contemporary Catholic, these three verses are not ancient liturgical archaeology — they are living words spoken or sung at every Sunday Mass in the Sanctus. When a Catholic next hears "Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord, Hosanna in the highest," the invitation is to do what the pilgrim crowds did: to recognize that the one who approaches is not an idea or a symbol but a Person, arriving with saving power in the Eucharist.

The urgency of hôšî'â-nā' — "Save us now" — challenges the modern tendency to spiritualize salvation into a vague future hope. The psalm insists that divine rescue is immediate and concrete. Catholics living with addiction, broken relationships, illness, or spiritual dryness are invited to cry this petition with the rawness it deserves: not a polished liturgical formula but a genuine shout from the depths.

Verse 27's declaration — "He has given us light" — carries a practical call to receive before acting. Before the Catholic can bring Christ's light to the world (the missionary mandate), they must stand, like the Temple pilgrim, in the presence of the God who illumines. Eucharistic Adoration, daily lectio divina, and examination of conscience are the concrete practices through which this light is appropriated rather than merely affirmed.