Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Psalms 118:14
The LORD [is] my strength and song, and is become my salvation.
14. The words, taken from the Song of Moses (Exo 15:2; cp. Isa 12:2) recall the memory of Israel’s greatest deliverance, and imply that He Who brought them out of Egypt is still their Deliverer.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
The Lord is my strength and song – He is the source of strength to me; and he is the subject of my praise. There is no ground of praise in myself for anything that I have done, but all is due to him.
And is become my salvation – He has saved me. I live because he preserved me. So we shall be saved in heaven solely because he saves us, and there, more than can be possible here, we shall say, God is our strength and our song, and is become our salvation.
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
Psa 118:14-18
The Lord is my strength and song, and is become my salvation.
God and man
I. How God should be realized by every man. What should He be to every many
1. He should be his strength. All the strength we have, physical, intellectual, and moral is from God; nay, more, is Gods. Conscious dependence upon His strength is the foundation of piety. Hold thou me up, and I shall be saved.
2. He should be his song; that is, his joy. The source of all his joy and spring of his delights. We should rejoice in God as our Father.
3. He should be his salvation. He saves from misery by saving from sin.
II. How God is enjoyed by the righteous. Who is the righteous man? The man who is right in himself and right in relation to God and the universe.
1. Such a man has rejoicing. Being justified, or made right by faith; he has peace that passeth all understanding. Religion is happiness wherever it exists.
2. Such a man has salvation. A righteous man is saved–saved from sin, and to be saved from sin, is to be saved from all evils of all kinds.
III. How God appears in His procedure.
1. Courageous (verse 16). He moves on in the execution of His eternal purposes with absolute fearlessness. Of what can He be afraid, whose will can at any moment create or destroy universes?
2. Glorious. The right hand of the Lord is exalted. That is, praised, hououred, adored. Who that studies His works, whether the minute or the vast can fail to exalt and adore the right hand of the Lord? 3.Restorative (verses 17, 18). (Homilist.)
Christ is our song
I. In what sense Christ is a believers song.
1. He is the main object of hope and trust (Isa 12:2).
2. He is the main subject of praise and thanksgiving (2Co 9:15).
3. He is the main matter of joy and rejoicing (Psa 137:6; Psa 43:4). Three things are necessary.
(1) An interest in Him as our Saviour.
(2) The knowledge of that interest.
(3) Suitable walking.
II. What of Christ especially is a believers song? True believers sing, and ought to sing–
1. Of what Jesus Christ is in Himself as to His personal excellences and perfections.
2. Of what He is to us. He is our foundation, our food, our root, our raiment; and should we not sing of these?
3. Of what He hath done, and is doing, and will yet do, for us.
(1) He hath taken our nature upon Him, and in our nature suffered and died; He hath washed us from our sins in His own blood; called us with a holy calling; begun a good work.
(2) Is He not ever living to make intercession for us? Is He not guiding and guarding us, enlightening and comforting us, every day?
(3) He will perform the good work that He hath begun; He will come again and fetch us to Himself, that where He is there we may be also. Can ye name any other to sing of, that hath done the like for you?
III. What are the properties of this song?
1. He is the angels song (Job 38:7; Luk 2:13-14).
2. He is the most ancient song; the song of the ancients. They sung of Him as one to come, for they saw Him, though it was but as through the lattices, or as through a glass darkly.
3. He is the new song. Wherever ye read of a new song in Scripture, it points at Him (Psa 33:3; Psa 96:1; Psa 98:1; Psa 149:1). He is the New Testament song. Ever since His coming in the flesh all His saints have been singing of Him, as of one already come; rejoicing in Him, and showing forth His praises. As fast, as they have been made new creatures they have learned this new song.
4. He is their night song (Psa 42:8; Job 35:10).
(1) In the night season, when others are sleeping, true believers are rejoicing in God their Redeemer, and solacing themselves in Him (Psa 149:5; Son 1:13; Act 16:1-40.) Paul and Silas sang at midnight.
(2) In the night of sorrow and affliction. To be able to sing then, when everything looks sad and sorrowful round about us, is a great matter; as David (1Sa 30:6)
5. He is their song all the week, and their song on the Sabbath. We are bid to rejoice in the Lord always, every day, and they that have an interest in Christ, and know it, do so; but especially on Sabbath days (Psa 118:24). Sabbath days are set apart on purpose.
6. He is their song while they live, and their song when they die. While they live, in all the turns of their lives (Psa 146:2). And in a special manner when they come to die; upon sick-beds, and death-beds. As it is said of the swan, that she sings sweetest when dying, so it is with many of Gods people. At the death of Mr. John Janeway, one present said he never was in a room where God in Christ had more praises than there at that time.
7. He is their song in the world, and will he their song to eternity. What is the great employment of heaven, and what will it be for ever and ever, but to lift up God-redeemer (Rev 5:9-13). Jesus Christ is to be our everlasting song (Isa 35:10). It is good to be found doing that, now that we would be glad to be found doing hereafter–world without end.
IV. Application.
1. This may serve for an examining sign, or mark of trial, whereby to know what we are as to our spiritual state and condition. We are bid to try ourselves (2Co 13:5). What, is Jesus Christ to us? What think we of Him? Hath He ever been our song? Do we rejoice in Him?
2. Here is a word of reproof to the true believers among us, that do not make Christ their song, that are in Him, but do not rejoice in Him; however, not with evenness and constancy, not in that measure and degree, that they should and ought. Thou shouldst chide thyself for it (Psa 43:5).
(1) It grieves the Spirit of God.
(2) It blemishes the ways of God; makes thee a stumbling-block to them that are without, like the evil spies.
(3) It is weakening to thyself. The more Christ is our song the more is our strength (Neh 8:10). Then search out the cause.
3. Exhortation, to all that call themselves believers. Make Christ your song, week days and Sabbath days.
(1) He is worthy that you should.
(2) The gain of it will be thy own, in present comfort, in eternal recompense. (Philip Henry.)
Making God our song
Instead of waiting until you get sick and worn out before you speak the praise of Christ, while your heart is happiest, and your step is lightest, and your fortune smiles, and your pathway blossoms, and the overarching heavens drop upon you their benediction, speak the praises of Jesus. The old Greek orators, when they saw their audiences inattentive and slumbering, had one word with which they would rouse them up to the greatest enthusiasm. In the midst of their orations they would stop and cry out: Marathon! and the peoples enthusiasm would be unbounded. My hearers, though you may have been borne down with sin, and though trouble, and trial, and temptation may have come upon you, and you feel to-night hardly like looking up, methinks there is one grand, royal, imperial, word that ought to rouse, your soul to infinite rejoicing, and that word is Jesus. (T. De Witt Talmage.)
Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell
My strength and song; the author of my strength, and therefore the just object of my song and praise. My salvation, i.e. my Saviour.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
The Lord [is] my strength and song,…. It being in the name of the Lord the enemies of the psalmist were destroyed; and having obtained help of him when sore thrust at, he gives him all the glory, and ascribes nothing to himself. It was the Lord that strengthened him, helped him, and gave him the victory. The Lord is the author and giver of strength, natural and spiritual; he is the “strength” of the hearts and lives of his people, and of their salvation; and therefore is their “song”, the matter of it: they sing of his nature and perfections, of his works of providence and grace, of his righteousness and salvation, as follows:
and is become my salvation; the author of temporal, spiritual, and eternal salvation; which the psalmist saw his interest in, and was assured of, and therefore sung praise on that account; see Ex 15:2.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
(14) Thou hast.Better, Thou didst thrust and thrust at me. This sudden change of person and challenge of the foes themselves is very dramatic.
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
14. The Lord is my strength Borrowed from the song at the Red Sea.
Exo 15:2
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
Psa 118:14 The LORD [is] my strength and song, and is become my salvation.
Ver. 14. The Lord is my strength and song ] i.e. The matter of my song, and mean of my joy. Trust in God shall once triumph.
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
song. Put by Figure of speech Metonymy (of Adjunct), App-6, for the theme of the song.
salvation. Compare Psa 118:21. Exo 15:2. Isa 12:2. Put by Figure of speech Metonymy (of Cause), App-6, for Him Who saves = my Saviour.
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
is my strength: Psa 18:2, Exo 15:2-6, Isa 12:2, Isa 45:17, Isa 45:22-25, Mat 1:21-23
Reciprocal: Jdg 8:3 – God 1Sa 2:1 – I rejoice Job 13:16 – my salvation Psa 18:1 – my Psa 21:1 – in thy Psa 27:1 – salvation Psa 63:5 – with joyful Psa 118:21 – and art Hab 3:18 – the God
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
118:14 The LORD [is] my strength and {f} song, and is become my salvation.
(f) In that he was delivered, it came not from himself, not from the power of man, but only from God’s favour, therefore he will praise him.
Fuente: Geneva Bible Notes
The psalmist had relied on the Lord as his strength and his source of joy, and He had saved him. Psa 118:14 repeats the first line of the Song of the Sea (Exo 15:2), the song the Israelites sang just after they crossed the Red Sea successfully. The psalmist rejoiced in God’s saving strength. Temporary discipline had led to recent deliverance, and this provided hope for future salvation. The gates in view probably refer to the temple courtyard gates through which worshippers such as the writer entered to praise God.
What a comfort Psa 118:15-18 would have been to the Lord Jesus as He sang them at His last Passover in the Upper Room! They assured Him that He would live again even though He would die.