I shall not die, but live, and declare the works of Jah.
Psalm 118 is a thanksgiving song from people who have just come through danger on every side, and verse 17 is where their confidence turns from survival to speech. Two questions sit under it: who kept them alive, and what is the life for?
The verse does not come from a place of safety. These people can still count their enemies, and they steady themselves on what God has promised, not on what they can see.
Verse seventeen expresses, with much power and sweetness, how unshaken their faith stays. Hemmed in by fear on every side, His people think of the covenanted faithfulness and power of God, and look forward with joy to retelling His mighty acts.
Earlier in the psalm the speaker says he cuts off the nations. Older versions read "I will destroy them" there. Notice the phrase he attaches to that claim.
Three times we get the words, "In the Name of the Lord will I destroy them," or more literally, as the margin shows, "I cut them off"… That the Psalmist should say, "I cut them off," is remarkable. But note that he does it "in the Name of the Lord." That means the power behind the act is the Lord's, and not his own. It is the right hand of the Lord that has won the victory… So instead of going down into death, the godly live and declare the works of the Lord.
The next verse admits the Lord Himself had disciplined the speaker severely. So the pressure came in three layers, not one.
Third, behind the opposition of the nations and the power of Satan there was, in these trials, the chastening of the Lord. The enemy had thrust hard at him to bring about his fall (v. 13); but the Lord has chastened him "severely" for his good. The enemy would oppose him to bring him into death; the Lord chastened him to save him from death. If the Lord chastens, it is only to remove all that is contrary to Himself in His people. He does it to open a righteous way into His presence, so that they may stand there for His praise (vv. 18-21). The devil is behind the outward enemies of God's people, but the Lord is behind the power of the devil, and there is no one behind the Lord.
The second half of the verse explains the first. One writer reads the plea as the words of Jesus Himself.
Jesus here pleads (see also Ps. 6:5, Ps. 30:9, Ps. 115:17) to be delivered from death, on the ground that the dead could not praise God, nor the grave declare Him. For God is not the God of the dead but of the living. "The living, the living, he shall praise you," says Hezekiah, taught by the Spirit to speak as a man who knows he stands in resurrection. And so Jesus cries for deliverance on this most blessed plea, that God is known not in death but in life.
The hope in this verse points to earth, not to heaven. Commentators mark it out as different from the Christian's expectation.
Here we have a very different future for saints from the one that forms the Christian's hope. The Christian looks to be taken out of this scene, while the wicked remain for judgment (2 Thess. 1:7-9). The saint in the Psalms (Ps. 17:15 excepted) looks to stay alive on earth, having an earthly calling. So his proper expectation is to be kept from death (Ps. 68:20; 116:8-9, 15; 118:17).
Another writer names the moment when the verse will be fulfilled.
Verse 17 is particularly applicable to the godly remnant of Israel when entering the millennium. Many will have died during the great tribulation — in fact two-thirds of Israel — but one third will be brought through the fire, refined as silver, and will live on earth throughout the thousand years. They will indeed "live, and recount the deeds of the LORD."
Believers facing death have taken these words on their own lips. John Wycliffe lay ill, with monks crowding his bedside to make their speeches:
Wycliffe lay quite silent until they had finished their speeches. Then he asked his servant to raise him on his pillow, fixed his keen eyes on them and said sternly, "I shall not die, but live, and declare the evil deeds of the friars." In dismay and astonishment the monks rushed from the room. Soon his words came true. His sickness left him, and he rose from his bed to begin his most glorious work — giving the English people the Bible in their own language.
- Pressed — the trouble came in three layers: the nations, the enemy, and God's chastening hand behind both.
- Spared — the enemy pushed him toward death. The Lord chastened him to save him from it.
- Powered — the victory belongs to the Lord's right hand, not to the speaker's own strength, even where he says "I cut them off."
- Purposed — God keeps him alive so he can tell what God has done. The dead cannot praise Him; God is known in life, not in the grave.
- Proved — the confidence holds while the danger is still in sight. It reaches a people who will yet come through fire, and it has steadied believers on their sickbeds.
Jah hath chastened me sore; but he hath not given me over unto death.
The verse looks back on a trial so severe that death seemed the obvious end of it. Then it names the hand behind the trial: God's own. Every sufferer asks the same question. If God struck the blow, how far will He go, and what is He after?
The psalm names three pressures in turn. One writer sets them in order, and the last is the deepest:
All the nations had gathered together against Jerusalem. But Christ was there with them in His heart in the trouble... The adversary thrust hard to make him fall, but Jehovah was with him. Last of all, Jehovah had chastened him severely, but He had not given him over to death. There were three points, and the same three are known in an individual soul. The nations surrounded him. The adversary thrust hard at him. And last came the real secret, deepest in sorrow, yet the key to all deliverance in it: Jehovah had chastened him severely.
Two hands were at work in the same affliction, and they had opposite aims:
The enemy had thrust hard at him to bring about his fall (v. 13); but the Lord has chastened him "severely" for his good. The enemy would oppose him to bring him into death; the LORD chastened him to save him from death... The devil is behind the outward enemies of God's people. But the Lord is behind the power of the devil, and there is no one behind the Lord.
The second half of the verse sets a limit. Chastening has a purpose, and killing is not it:
He knew, however, that God's people would not die. The divine chastening that had come over Israel would not end in wiping the nation out... When a father chastises his child, it is not to kill it, but to form it according to his own character. This is how God deals with us too, "that we may become partakers of His holiness" (Heb. 12:10). This is a comforting thought. God acknowledges us as His children when He chastens us. He chastens us precisely because we are His children.
What gives the enemy his room to work? One writer points to something unjudged in the heart:
Evil on the conscience, or evil in the heart that we do not even notice, gives Satan a handle against the soul. Sometimes it is a terrible one, even where the soul is upright. The soul finds rest only in self-judgment and in confessing whatever gives him that handle. Satan would seek to make us fall this way. But behind all this we must see the hand of God, as in Job's case. "The LORD has disciplined me severely, but he has not given me over to death." It is for blessing.
The chastening had a goal beyond the pain. It opened a door:
They had had to face death, with the terror of God's wrath in it. Yet He had not given them over to it. The exercise had been profitable for them; the chastening had done its work; and now they would not die, but live. The gates of righteousness could now be opened to them, and they would enter in and give thanks to Jehovah.
Another writer names what the chastening was clearing away:
If the Lord chastens, it is only to remove all that is contrary to Himself in His people. His aim is to open a righteous way into His presence, so that they may be there for His praise.
Commentators read this psalm as the nation's future thanksgiving, looking back on trials already past. On that reading the timing of the rescue is deliberate:
He becomes their salvation, but only after His dealings in chastisement have had their full effect... God will deliver His people, but only after His chastening has achieved the happy end that it had in view.
Paul writes of himself, "as punished, and yet not killed" (2 Corinthians 6:9). One writer traces those words back to this psalm:
God's hand was on him, too, as well as man's. As a true son of the Father of spirits, he shared what all share whom God acknowledges as His (Heb. 12:5-7). If others forgot this, he did not. He said it openly, for the glory of God and for the comfort of his brothers. The Spirit led him to use words almost the same as the words that will one day swell the song of Zion's gladness, when the day of her return from captivity has come (Ps. 118:18).
- Cause. Behind the nations and behind the adversary stands a third hand: the Lord's own chastening. It is the deepest sorrow of the three, and "the key to all deliverance."
- Contrast. The enemy strikes to bring you into death; the Lord strikes to save you from it. There is no one behind the Lord.
- Limit. A father's rod is meant to shape, not to kill. So the verse stops short of death. That limit is the proof that He owns you as His child.
- Result. When the chastening has done its work, the gates of righteousness open. The sufferer does not die. He walks through them giving thanks.
- Reach. The same words serve a nation's future song and one man's daily hardships. Paul takes them up as "punished, and yet not killed."
Open to me the gates of righteousness I will enter into them; Jah will I praise.
After a hard season of discipline, the singer stands at the entrance and calls for the doors to open — not to escape, but to go in and give thanks. Two questions follow. What makes these gates "gates of righteousness"? And who may pass through them?
Who is asking here matters. These are people God brought close to death and then spared.
They had had to face death with the terror of God's wrath in it, as we have seen. Yet He had not given them over to it. The exercise had been profitable for them; the chastening had done its work; and now they would not die, but live. The gates of righteousness could now be opened to them, and they would enter in and give thanks to the LORD.
Why call the doors "gates of righteousness"? One writer ties the name to the character of the age they open into.
The last part of the Psalm (verses 19-29) shows us how the blessing of the thousand-year kingdom is going to be secured. First of all comes the emphasis on righteousness (verses 19-21). In that glad time righteousness is going to reign. So the gate that leads into it has to be a gate of righteousness, and those who enter through it must be righteous.
The next verse calls it the LORD's gate. That settles who sets the conditions — and it brings back an old question.
The gate of righteousness which they have claimed — the way into the LORD's presence — belongs to Himself. He alone can fix the terms of admission, and the demands of His own nature set those terms. True, "the righteous shall enter through it": that, in a way, is easily understood. But it only raises the old question, "How can a man be in the right before God?" And have they — these delivered Israelites — now found the answer?
The answer comes at once. The righteousness that opens the gate is not found in the worshipper at all.
Righteousness with God is indeed the portion of the saved, and only of the saved. It is a gift, not a work carried out by us. In the sense we mean here, it is not even worked out in us. There is certainly a practical righteousness worked out in us. It is always tied to our capacity to enjoy God's presence and our moral fitness for it. But that is still not the "gate" into His presence. Here the righteousness we need is in Another. Christ is Himself the gate.
The gate belongs to God, and so does the welcome at it. So what gives anyone the right to walk in?
These gates are the property of the Lord, and it is He who welcomes the righteous as they enter (v. 20). They have no righteousness of their own that gives them the title to enter. Rather, God has answered them and has become their salvation. Apart from His salvation they would have no title there at all. But His salvation is perfect, and they may well praise Him (v. 21).
Notice how bold this request is. A people once weighed down with guilt now claim the right to walk through those doors.
There is also a clear and strong claim of righteousness as their sure and settled standing (verses 19, 20). They are no longer a sinful nation, a people laden with iniquity (Isa. 1:4). They claim the right to enter at the gates of righteousness, as the nation which the LORD has both justified and saved (Isa. 45:25).
Inside the gate, Israel's first act is praise. The psalm then goes deeper, to the One Israel once rejected.
Now the gates of righteousness are open before Israel. The way he turns to this at once, as the result of trial, is beautiful: he will go in and praise the LORD. It is also the gate of the LORD, and the righteous enter into it. Israel will praise there, because the LORD has heard him and become his salvation. But further and deeper truth comes out here. There is no restoration of Israel without Messiah, and Israel now acknowledges the One they once despised. "The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone. This is the LORD's doing; it is marvellous in our eyes."
- Discipline first. The doors open only after the trial has done its work. The people who faced death now live to give thanks.
- Righteousness names the gate. Righteousness will reign inside, so the entrance must be righteous — and so must everyone who walks through it.
- The gate is God's, so the terms are God's. He alone sets the conditions, and His own nature fixes them.
- The needed righteousness is in Another. It is a gift, not something produced by us or even in us — Christ is Himself the gate.
- Inside, the first act is praise. He goes in to thank the LORD. The psalm then moves straight to the rejected stone that became the cornerstone.