to die (literally or figuratively) · verb, qal imperfect, 1st person common singular
live
אֶֽחְיֶ֑ה'ech.Yeh
H2421
to live · verb, qal imperfect, 1st person common singular
declare
וַ֝אֲסַפֵּ֗רva.'a.sa.Per
H5608
properly · conjunction + verb, piel, 1st person common singular
works
מַֽעֲשֵׂ֥יma.'a.Sei
H4639
an action (good or bad) · noun, common masculine plural construct
LORD
יָֽהּYah
H3050
Jah · proper noun, a man's name
Strong's Exhaustive Concordance (James Strong, 1890/1894), public domain; digitized by Open Scriptures (CC BY-SA). KJV word tagging: eBible.org (public domain). Original-language text, parsing and brief lexicon: STEPBible.org data from Tyndale House, Cambridge (CC BY 4.0).
Cross-references
John 11:4 When Jesus heard that, he said, This sickness is not unto death, but for the glory of God, that the Son of God might be glorified thereby.
Psalms 71:17-18 O God, thou hast taught me from my youth: and hitherto have I declared thy wondrous works.
Isaiah 38:16-20 O Lord, by these things men live, and in all these things is the life of my spirit: so wilt thou recover me, and make me to live.
Psalms 6:5 For in death there is no remembrance of thee: in the grave who shall give thee thanks?
Psalms 73:28 But it is good for me to draw near to God: I have put my trust in the Lord GOD, that I may declare all thy works.
Habakkuk 1:12 Art thou not from everlasting, O LORD my God, mine Holy One? we shall not die. O LORD, thou hast ordained them for judgment; and, O mighty G…
Romans 14:7-9 For none of us liveth to himself, and no man dieth to himself.
Psalms 145:4 One generation shall praise thy works to another, and shall declare thy mighty acts.
Cross-references from OpenBible.info (CC BY), in the lineage of the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge (public domain).
Commentary
Matthew Henry on Psalms 118:1-18
It appears here, as often as elsewhere, that David had his heart full of the goodness of God. He loved to think of it, loved to speak of it, and was very solicitous that God might have the praise of it and others the comfort of it. The more our hearts are impressed with a sense of God's goodness the more they will be enlarged in all manner of obedience. In these verses,
I. He celebrates God's mercy in general, and calls upon others to acknowledge it, from their own experience of it (Psa 118:1): O give thanks unto the Lord, for he is not only good in himself, but good to you, and his mercy endures for ever, not only in the everlasting fountain, God himself, but in the never-failing streams of…
I shall not die, but live,.... Not that he should never die, David knew he should; but that his present afflictions would not issue in death; or he should not die by the hands of his enemies, he sometimes feared he should; but now believed he should live, as he did, to a good old age: he knew he should live spiritually and eternally, and not die a second death; and so may all true believers and members of Christ say. Yea, these words may be considered as the words of Christ; who, though he came into the world to die, and did die for the sins of his people; yet he knew he should not die before his time, nor should he continue long under the power of death; but should live again, and live for…
Psalm 118:15-21
15. The voice of shouting and salvation is in the tabernacles of the just: the right hand of Jehovah hath done valiantly. 16. The right hand of Jehovah is exalted, the right hand of Jehovah hath done valiantly. 17. I shall not die, yea, I shall live, and speak of the works of God. 18. God chastising has chastised me; but he did not deliver me unto death. 19. Open to me the gates of righteousness; and having entered into them, I will praise God. 20. This is the gate of Jehovah, the just shall enter into it. 21. I will praise thee, because thou hast heard me, and hast been my salvation.
15. The voice of shouting and salvation is in the tabernacles of the just. He affirms that…
The Church Fathers
"I shall not die, but live, and declare the works of the Lord" [Psalm 118:17]. But they, while they were dealing havoc and death on every side, thought that the Church of Christ was dying. Behold, he now declares the works of the Lord. Everywhere Christ is the glory of the blessed Martyrs. By being beaten He conquered those who struck Him; by being patient of torments, the tormentors; by loving, those who raged against Him.
Thus it is that sinners, and all those who are aliens from the catholic church, heretics and schismatics, since they are excluded from glorifying [God] with the saints, cannot properly even continue to be observers of the feasts. But the righteous person, although he appears dying to the world, uses boldness of speech, saying, "I shall not die but live and narrate all your marvelous deeds." For even God is not ashamed to be called the God of those who truly mortify their members that are on the earth but live in Christ; for he is the God of the living, not of the dead. And he by his living Word quickens all people and gives him to be food and life to the saints; as the Lord declares, "I am the bread of life."
I am disposed, after careful examination, to doubt whether the expression so often used by the Lord, "the kingdom of heaven," can be found in these books [Old Testament]. It is said, indeed, "Love wisdom, that you may reign forever." And if eternal life had not been clearly made known in the Old Testament, the Lord would not have said, as he did even to the unbelieving Jews, "Search the Scriptures, for in them you think that you have eternal life, and they are they that testify of me." And to the same effect are the words of the psalmist: "I shall not die but live and declare the works of the Lord." And again: "Enlighten my eyes, lest I sleep the sleep of death." Again, we read, "The souls of the righteous are in the hand of the Lord, and pain shall not touch them"; and immediately following, "They are in peace; and if they have suffered torture from people, their hope is full of immortality; and after a few troubles, they shall enjoy many rewards." Again, in another place: "The righteous shall live forever, and their reward is with the Lord, and their concern with the Highest; therefore shall they receive from the hand of the Lord a kingdom of glory and a crown of beauty." These and many similar declarations of eternal life, in more or less explicit terms, are found in these writings. Even the resurrection of the body is spoken of by the prophets. The Pharisees, accordingly, were fierce opponents of the Sadducees, who disbelieved the resurrection. This we learn not only from the canonical Acts of the Apostles, which the Manichaeans reject, because it tells of the advent of the Paraclete promised by the Lord, but also from the Gospel, when the Sadducees question the Lord about the woman who married seven brothers, one dying after the other, whose wife she would be in heaven. As regards, then, eternal life and the resurrection of the dead, numerous testimonies are to be found in these Scriptures. But I do not find there the expression "the kingdom of heaven." This expression belongs properly to the revelation of the New Testament, because in the resurrection our earthly bodies shall, by that change that Paul fully describes, become spiritual bodies, and so heavenly, that thus we may possess the kingdom of heaven. And this expression was reserved for him whose advent as king to govern and priest to sanctify his believing people was ushered in by all the…
Dictionary and topics
Hallel — Praise, the name given to the group of Psalms 113-118, which are preeminently psalms of praise. It is called “The Egyptian Hallel,” because it was chanted in the temple whilst the Passover lambs were…
Temple, the Second — After the return from captivity, under Zerubbabel (q.v.) and the high priest Jeshua, arrangements were almost immediately made to reorganize the long-desolated kingdom. The body of pilgrims, forming…
Death, Natural · When averted for a season, is a motive to increased devotedness — When averted for a season, is a motive to increased devotedness
Desire · SPIRITUAL — SPIRITUAL
Dictionary: Easton's (1897) and Smith's (1863), public domain. Topics: Nave's Topical Bible (1896) and Torrey's Topical Textbook (1897), public domain. Both as parsed by NEUU (CC BY 4.0).
The Hodu-cry is addressed first of all and every one; then the whole body of the laity of Israel and the priests, and at last (as it appears) the proselytes (vid., on Psa 115:9-11) who fear the God of revelation, are urgently admonished to echo it back; for "yea, His mercy endureth for ever," is the required hypophon. In Psa 118:5, Israel too then begins as one man to praise the ever-gracious goodness of God. יהּ, the Jod of which might easily become inaudible after קראתי, has an emphatic Dagesh as in Psa 118:18, and המּצר has the orthophonic stroke beside צר (the so-called מקּל), which points to the correct tone-syllable of the word that has Dechמ.
(Note: Vid., Baer's Thorath Emeth, p. 7 no…
God has restored the psalmist from death to life, so he praises the Lord publicly (cp. 116:6, 12-19).
Spurgeon's Treasury of David on Psalms 118:17
I shall not die, but live, and declare the works of the Lord.
I shall not die, but live. His enemies hoped that he would die, and perhaps he himself feared he should perish at their hand: the news of his death may have been spread among his people, tor the tongue of rumour is ever ready with ill news, the false intelligence would naturally cause great sorrow and despondency, but he proclaims himself as yet alive and as confident that he shall not fall by the hand of the destroyer. He is cheerfully assured that no arrow could carry death between the joints of his harness, and no weapon of any sort could end his career. His time had not yet come, he felt immortality beating within his bosom.…
