Embracing God’s Strength Through Prayer and Praise

The Lord is my strength and song,
And He has become my salvation.

My Thoughts

As we seek the Lord and simply ask in prayer, He becomes our strength, our song, our joy, our happiness by developing our relationship with our Father, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit through prayer and studying His word. When we seek Him, His strength is imparted, and salvation is realized. His strength becomes our refuge, through His song we recognize our purpose, and when we put our trust in Jesus for help and rescue, He becomes our trust and deliverer. Not only can the Lord bring strength and a song. Yahweh Himself becomes the strength and the song of those who put their trust in Him.

This verse emphasizes the Lord as both strength and song for believers, signifying a deep spiritual relationship cultivated through prayer and the study of His word. When individuals seek God, they receive His strength and realize salvation, rendering Him their source of joy and purpose. Commentaries by various theologians highlight that true praise must be directed to God, recognizing Him as the ultimate deliverer. Through faith, God becomes not only strength and joy but also the essence of salvation in their lives…..Bill

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Commentaries:

Charles Spurgeon

“The LORD my strength and song,” my strength while I was in the conflict, my song now that it is ended; my strength against the strong, and my song over their defeat. He is far from boasting of his own valor; he ascribes his victory to its real source, he has no song concerning his own exploits, but all his peans are unto Jehovah Victor, the Lord whose right hand and holy arm had given him the victory.

“And is become my salvation.” The poet warrior knew that he was saved, and he not only ascribed that salvation unto God, but he declared God himself to be his salvation. It is an all-comprehending expression, signifying that from beginning to end, in the whole and in the details of it, he owed his deliverance entirely to the Lord. Thus can all the Lord’s redeemed say, “Salvation is of the Lord.” We cannot endure any doctrine which puts the crown upon the wrong head and defrauds the glorious King of his revenue of praise. Jehovah has done it all; yea, in Christ Jesus he is all, and therefore in our praises let him alone be extolled. It is a happy circumstance for us when we can praise God as alike our strength, song, and salvation; for God sometimes gives a secret strength to his people, and yet they question their own salvation, and cannot, therefore, sing of it. Many are, no doubt, truly saved, but at times they have so little strength that they are ready to faint, and therefore they cannot sing: when strength is imparted and salvation is realized, then the song is clear and full.

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Enduring Word

The LORD is my strength and my song: Quoting Miriam’s song (Exodus 15:20), the singer knew not only that God could bring strength and a song, but that Yahweh Himself became their strength and the song of those who put their trust in Him. Going even further, the psalmist understood that Yahweh had become his salvation. Yahweh is these things for His people.

When the LORD is our strength, it means that He is our resource and our refuge. We look to Him for our needs, and we are never unsatisfied.

When the LORD is our song, it means that He is our joy and our happiness. We find our purpose and life in Him, and He never disappoints.

When the LORD is our salvation, it means we put our trust for help and deliverance in none other. He is our rest and rescue.

With all this true, it emphasizes the importance of seeking God Himself when we need strength, a song, or salvation. Often we seek the things themselves, sometimes as even detached from God Himself. To seek God and to receive Him is to receive all these profound gifts. (Guzik)

“Good songs, good promises, good proverbs, good doctrines are none the worse for age. What was sung just after the passage of the Red Sea is here sung by the prophet, and shall be sung to the end of the world by the saints of the Most High.” (Plumer, cited in Spurgeon)

“Thus delivered, the singer breaks into the ancient strain, which had gone up on the shores of the sullen sea that rolled over Pharaoh’s army, and is still true after centuries have intervened: ‘Jah is my strength and song, and He is become my salvation.’ Miriam sang it, the restored exiles sang it, tried and trustful men in every age have sung and will sing it, till there are no more foes; and then, by the shores of the sea of glass mingled with fire, the calm victors will lift again the undying ‘song of Moses and of the Lamb.’” (Maclaren)

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Albert Barnes

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.”

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John Gill

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 sang praise on that account; see Exodus 15:2.

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Matthew Henry

(v. 14), “The Lord is my strength and my song; that is, I make him so (without him I am weak and sad, but on him I stay myself as my strength, both for doing and suffering, and in him I solace myself as my song, by which I both express my joy and ease my grief), and, making him so, I find him so: he strengthens my heart with his graces and gladdens my heart with his comforts.” If God be our strength, he must be our song; if he work all our works in us, he must have all praise and glory from us. God is sometimes the strength of his people when he is not their song; they have spiritual supports when they want spiritual delights. But, if he be both to us, we have abundant reason to triumph in him; for, he be our strength and our song, he has become not only our Savior, but our salvation; for his being our strength is our protection to the salvation, and his being our song is an earnest and foretaste of the salvation.

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The Pulpit Commentaries

DIVINE RELIEF. We call on God, and he answers us, and sets us “in a large place” (Psalms 118:5). He takes us out of the straits in which we were hemmed in, and places us where we can breathe freely and can act happily and fearlessly. He has become “our salvation” (Psalms 118:14). Our liabilities are met, our enemies disarmed, our reputation cleared, our position secured, our friends reconciled and restored, our path is made plain; we “return unto our rest.”

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Cross-References

Exodus 15:2 (KJV)

² The Lord is my strength and song,

And he is become my salvation:

He is my God, and I will prepare him an habitation;

My father’s God, and I will exalt him.

Isaiah 12:2 (KJV)

² Behold, God is my salvation;

I will trust, and not be afraid:

For the Lord JEHOVAH is my strength and my song;

He also is become my salvation.

Isaiah 58:11 (KJV)

¹¹ And the Lord shall guide thee continually,

And satisfy thy soul in drought,

And make fat thy bones:

And thou shalt be like a watered garden,

And like a spring of water, whose waters fail not.

Psalm 18:2 (KJV)

² The Lord is my rock, and my fortress, and my deliverer;

My God, my strength, in whom I will trust;

My buckler, and the horn of my salvation, and my high tower.

Isaiah 45:22–25 (KJV)

²² Look unto me, and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth:

For I am God, and there is none else.

²³ I have sworn by myself,

The word is gone out of my mouth in righteousness, and shall not return,

That unto me every knee shall bow,

Every tongue shall swear.

²⁴ Surely, shall one say, in the Lord have I righteousness and strength:

Even to him shall men come;

And all that are incensed against him shall be ashamed.

²⁵ In the Lord shall all the seed of Israel be justified, and shall glory.

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Geneva Bible 1560

Psalm 118:14

14 The Lord is my strength and (f) song: for he hathe been my deliverance.

(f) In that he was delivered, it came not of himself, nor of the power of man, but only of God’s favor: therefore he will praise him.

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Closing Thoughts

From Proverbs 4:

Wisdom is the principal thing;

Therefore get wisdom.

And in all your getting, get understanding.

Exalt her, and she will promote you;

She will bring you honor, when you embrace her.

She will place on your head an ornament of grace;

A crown of glory she will deliver to you.

Hear, my son, and receive my sayings,

And the years of your life will be many.

I have taught you in the way of wisdom;

I have led you in right paths.

When you walk, your steps will not be hindered,

And when you run, you will not stumble.

Take firm hold of instruction, do not let go;

Keep her, for she is your life.

My son, give attention to my words;

Incline your ear to my sayings.

Do not let them depart from your eyes;

Keep them in the midst of your heart;

For they are life to those who find them,

And health to all their flesh.

Keep your heart with all diligence,

For out of it spring the issues of life.

Let your eyes look straight ahead,

And your eyelids look right before you.

Ponder the path of your feet,

And let all your ways be established.