What does it mean that the Lord is my strength and my song (Psalm 118:14)?

In the deliverance of His people, Jehovah proved to them His strength in a peculiar way. All His wonders which they had seen in the land of Egypt had not taught them to sing, "The Lord is my strength" (Ex. 15:2). To sing this song, "the salvation of the Lord," must be known in the soul. However, before manifesting to Israel His strength, Jehovah made evident to Israel their own weakness. No one really knows the power of God's salvation until he knows himself as being "without strength," and God has His own way of teaching believers this needful lesson. True, every believer has God for his salvation, though each one may not know in his soul the wondrous reality of it.

The violence of the enemy virtually drives the godly into the refuge of the Lord's presence, and this being so, there is reason for the believer to thank God for the oppression. Thus, the help of the Lord is learned in precious reality (v. 13). In fact, human weakness is virtually turned into strength, as Paul writes, "When I am weak, then I am strong" (2 Cor. 12:10). For the weakness that drives one into the Lord's presence becomes strength spiritually. "And He has become my salvation" (v. 14) The soul is lifted out of its bondage into the liberty of deliverance.

Second, the enemy of his soul — the devil that energized the nations (Rev. 12:15-17) had thrust sore at him; but the Lord had intervened for his help and had become his “strength,” his “song” and his “salvation” (vv. 13-14). The result being the “song” is heard in the dwelling of the righteous; the “strength” is seen in the right hand of the Lord; and the “salvation” in deliverance from death (vv. 15-17).

First of all, the song had one great theme — the glory and might of Jehovah their God, as displayed in His acts of power before their eyes. It begins with Him, "I will sing to the Lord, for He has triumphed gloriously." It ends with Him, "The LORD shall reign for ever and ever." Twelve times in all does His sacred Name occur in the song. Moses did not lead the people to sing about themselves, not even of their experiences of wonder and delight in all that they had witnessed. We venture to think that one of the weaknesses in our modern hymnology is the frequency with which we are led to sing about the depth of our feelings and experiences in praise and worship. It is spiritually damaging to tell the Lord in song that we praise Him "in strains of deepest joy," when as a matter of fact our joy is very shallow; and we have never known that of which we read in 1 Peter 1:8. Joy of that depth would reduce us to silence for it is "unspeakable." We avoid all extravagance when we celebrate the grace and glory of our Lord, for here it is impossible to exaggerate.

Secondly, though they did not sing about themselves, they did appropriate for themselves that which the Lord had done. They owned Him as their strength and salvation, in verse 2; as their Leader, their Redeemer and their Guide, in verse 13. All this He had proved Himself to be. They thankfully acknowledged Him in these things, and praised Him accordingly, confessing Him to be supreme above all the gods of Egypt that they had known, marked as He is by holiness and by powerful wonders.

I have no doubt whatever that the Red Sea — the passage of the children of Israel through the Red Sea — is a figure of the death and resurrection of Christ for His people, for us, i.e., that He died for our sins, and was raised again for our justification. The result is, that the moment Israel got through the Red Sea they began to sing. While they were in Egypt there was no song. What were they doing? Sighing, crying, weeping, groaning — they were miserable slaves. Even when they were at Pi-hahiroth (Ex. 14:2, 9), what were they doing? Fearing and trembling; they were in dread, and distress of soul. But the moment they had gone through the Red Sea, by the path which God had opened for them — the moment typically they had accepted death, and got into resurrection — what do I find? They begin to sing; they sing a triumphant song to the Lord. And what is the burden of the song? "The Lord is my strength and song, and he is become my salvation" (Ex. 15:2). It is what the Lord is, and what the Lord has done. Well might they sing, because, from the sunny heights of resurrection, they look down and see all their foes dead on the seashore, not one of them left. They are brought now to have to do with God, and to know God as their Saviour, and they can sing with happiness and truth, "The Lord is become my salvation." They are saved, and they know they are saved.

The case of Israel pursued by Pharaoh follows. They had to stand still and see the salvation of the Lord; but when the mighty work was done and their enemies were all covered by the mighty sea and they stood on the wilderness side of it, they sang, "The Lord is my strength and my song, and He is become my salvation" (Ex. 15:2). They were a saved people and in that hour of glorious triumph they knew it, and long after Moses in his farewell song to them said, "Happy art thou, O Israel: who is like to thee, O people saved by the Lord, the shield of thy help, and who is the sword of thy excellency!" (Deut. 33:29).

All the children of Israel were safe when God put the pillar of fire and cloud between them and the foe; all were secure, protected by the crystal walls of the sea, while passing through its depths; but not until the morning broke, and the people saw with their own eyes that their enemies were no more, did the host of Israel, from the eldest to the youngest, realise freedom indeed, and rejoice in the freeing hand of Jehovah. "Thy right hand, O Lord, is become glorious in power," they sang in their freedom to their mighty Deliverer. And so it is even now. Where the freeing hand of the Son of God has touched us, there is not only conscious liberty, but great joy in Himself, for salvation is of the Lord, and He has triumphed gloriously. Sin has been suffered for, and put away for all who believe. Satan has been overthrown upon his own chosen battle-ground, death itself — the Victor has risen from among the dead. Jesus is our strength and song.

Whether this scripture is a quotation from Exodus 15:2, or whether it is a repetition only of the same words, it is impossible to say. The point to be observed is their beautiful applicability to Israel's new deliverance, a deliverance as wonderful and complete as when they were brought out of Egypt and through the Red Sea by their Redeemer God. It is the voice of the remnant in this Psalm, and of the remnant now brought through their final trials into blessing, looking back upon their past circumstances and celebrating their deliverance. The Lord Himself gives the key to its interpretation in the allusion He makes to the Psalm in Matthew 23:39. The first four verses take up the well-known chorus of Israel's praise, and the fifth gives the occasion of the rehearsal of the enduring character of the Lord's mercy, "I called upon the Lord in distress: the Lord answered me, and set me in a large place." The distress had been caused, will be caused, if taken in its prophetic form, by the nations who will be gathered against Jerusalem, as we read in Zechariah, in the last days. Israel's case will then be hopeless to man's eye, and would be hopeless but for the intervention of Jehovah, "The Lord helped me." (v. 13.) Hence the burst of praise, as in days of yore, when standing on the banks of the Red Sea, "The Lord is my strength and song, and is become my salvation." Two or three other interesting features may be noticed. Suffering as they will from the hands of man, they yet recognise it as chastening from the Lord (v. 18, compare Heb. 12), and the effect of the chastening is to open their lips in praise in the Lord's house. (vv. 19-21.) Moreover, they connect their deliverance with the once rejected, but now glorious Messiah: "The stone which the builders refused is become the head stone of the corner. This is the Lord's doing; it is marvellous in our eyes," etc. (vv. 22-24.) The reader will find the study of the whole Psalm both interesting and profitable.

We may observe that the usual notion of "Jah" as an abbreviated form of "Jehovah" can hardly consist with its usage here (v. 2) along with "Jehovah." See also Isa. 26:4, where the same association occurs. As "Jehovah" is used for the name of God in relation with His people (Ex. 6), His name of moral government in general (Gen. 2 and throughout the Old Testament, with or without the name of Elohim), so "Jah" appears to express His intrinsic being. There is therefore great force in combining it with His name of relationship; while its own propriety remains where it stands alone, as in Ex. 15:2, Ex. 17:16; Ps. 118:14. Jah then is God in His absolute being, the Self-existent; Jehovah in His relative and continuous character, the God of ages especially in connection with the sons of Israel, Who fulfils at length the promises He made to the fathers as God Almighty. So in Ex. 15:2, "Jah is my strength and song"; and in Ex. 17:16, "The hand is on the throne of Jah" as the oath that "Jehovah will have war with Amalek from generation to generation." So in Ps. 68:4, "His name is Jah"; and in v. 18 we find "the dwelling of Jah Elohim" for "the rebellious." "The Most High," as in Isaiah 14:14, and often from Gen. 14:18, etc., abundantly in the Psalms, and also in the so-called Chaldee of Daniel, is His title to be displayed in the future kingdom, when all rivals vanish into their nothingness.

Hence Exodus 15 is a fine specimen of a song of praise. It is the language of a redeemed people celebrating the worthy praise of Him who had redeemed them. "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 fathers God, and I will exalt him. The Lord is a man of war, the Lord is his name, … thy right hand, O Lord is become glorious in power: thy right hand, O Lord, has dashed in pieces the enemy … who is like to thee, O Lord, among the gods? Who is like thee, glorious in holiness, fearful in praises, doing wonders? … Thou, in thy mercy, hast led forth the people which thou hast redeemed: thou hast guided them in thy strength to thy holy habitation. … The Lord shall reign for ever and ever." How comprehensive is the range of this song. It begins with redemption and ends with the glory. It begins with the cross, and ends with the kingdom. It is like a beauteous rainbow, of which one end dips in "the sufferings," and the other in "the glory which should follow." It is all about Jehovah. It is an outpouring of soul produced by a view of God and His gracious and glorious actings.