Luke 20:17 to Daniel 2:34

NT Text: Luke 20:17

OT Source(s):

• Daniel 2:34, 44-45 (the stone cut without hands that strikes the statue and becomes a great mountain)

Source: Treasury of Scripture Knowledge

Reference Type: Allusion

Connection Method(s): Promise-Fulfillment + Typology (Direct Type, Forward-Looking)

Significance: After citing Psalm 118:22 (the stone the builders rejected has become the cornerstone), Jesus immediately adds: "Everyone who falls on this stone will be broken to pieces, but he on whom it falls will be crushed" (Luke 20:18). The "falling and crushing" imagery extends beyond Psalm 118 to Daniel 2:34-35, 44-45, where the stone (ʾeben) cut without human hands strikes the statue and grinds it to powder, then grows into a mountain filling the whole earth. Daniel's stone represents the kingdom of God that will shatter and replace all human empires. Jesus fuses the two stone images — Psalm 118's cornerstone and Daniel's crushing stone — to present himself as the one whose rejection leads to ultimate vindication and judgment. The compressed citation demonstrates his awareness that the Stone imagery in Scripture is composite, gathering together themes of rejection (Ps 118), construction (Isaiah 28:16), and eschatological judgment (Daniel 2).