Psalms 118:14

"The Lord is my strength and my praise, and has become my salvation" [Psalm 118:14]. Who then fall, when they are pushed, save they who choose to be their own strength and their own praise? For no man falls in the contest, except he whose strength and praise fails. He therefore whose strength and praise is the Lord, falls no more than the Lord falls. And for this reason He has become their salvation; not that He has become anything which He was not before, but because they, when they believed on Him, became what they were not before, and then He began to be salvation unto them when turned towards Him, which He was not to them when turned away from Himself.

The fortitude of the martyrs of Christ, both men and women, is Christ. For if only men were strong in suffering, virtue would be ascribed to the stronger sex. Therefore, the weaker sex could also suffer bravely because God could do all things in everyone. So whether it is a man or a woman, in their tribulation they should say: The Lord is my strength; and: I will love you, Lord, my strength. Love itself is a virtue: for whoever knows how to love can endure all things for the sake of what they love. And if illicit love persuaded lovers to endure many hardships bravely for their trifles and sins, and they place no danger before their eyes as they lie in wait for another's modesty, how much stronger should they be in the love of God who love Him, from whom they cannot be separated, whether living or dying? The impudent lover indeed loses what he loves if he is killed for the sake of his beloved; but the strong and just lover of God not only does not lose what he loved by dying, but finds what he loved by dying. Finally, the lover of sin fears to confess, the lover of God fears to deny. Let us, therefore, choose the love, brothers, in which we can live innocently and die safely; for with this love chosen, when it possesses our hearts, for us to live will be Christ, and to die will be gain. By dying, we avoid what we hate; by dying, we reach what we love.

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 Saviour, 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. [2.] He triumphs over his enemies.

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 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 valour; 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 drown 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 realised then the song is clear and full.