What Does Psalm 118:14 Mean?
The LORD is my strength and song, and becomes my deliverance.
Key words are shown with the Hebrew or Greek and what each word meant.
Selah Decoded Version The Selah Decoded Version renders what the Hebrew and Greek words meant to the people who first heard them.
King James wording
King James Version
The LORD is my strength and song, and is become my salvation.THE KEY
Deliverance here is not detached from its giver: the LORD himself becomes your strength, your song, and your way out.
THE MEANING
The verse gives you language for strength that does not begin in your own reserves: the LORD is your strength, and the song rising from that strength. Deliverance is not remote or abstract; the LORD becomes your way out, opening room where life has felt narrow.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
You do not have to become strong enough before deliverance can begin; here, the LORD is your strength and becomes your deliverance.
THE ROOT
לִישׁוּעָה
li-yeshuah
GROWS FROM
ישע
y-sh-ʿ
To deliver or bring out; here, a way out of constriction into room to live.
The Hebrew says the LORD became to the speaker for deliverance, placing the LORD himself at the heart of the way out. The verse presents deliverance as a movement into spacious life, not only a rescue handed over from a distance.
ALSO GROWS
yasha: Deliver, bring out.
יָשַׁע
This verb gives the movement inside the verse’s deliverance: being brought out.
yeshuah: Deliverance.
יְשׁוּעָה
This is the noun in the verse, naming what the LORD becomes for the speaker.
moshia: Deliverer.
מוֹשִׁיעַ
This branch names the one who brings a person out, joining the act of deliverance to the LORD’s presence.
עָזִּי
ozzi
GROWS FROM
עזז
ʿ-z-z
To be strong or mighty.
The verse names the LORD as the speaker’s strength, not merely as a source that supplies strength. That same presence is also the song and becomes deliverance, holding support, expression, and release together.
ALSO GROWS
oz: Strength, might.
עֹז
This is the strength named in the verse: the LORD is that strength for the speaker.
ma'oz: Stronghold, place of strength.
מָעוֹז
This branch makes strength a place of refuge, echoing how the LORD is both support and deliverance.
azuz: Mighty, powerful.
עָזוּז
This branch carries the quality of strength that the verse attributes to the LORD.
THE PATTERN
The LORD’s strength is received as deliverance, and that deliverance finds a voice in trust, joy, or praise.
The LORD is my strength and my song, and he has become my deliverance. This is my God, and I will make him a dwelling; my father's God, and I will lift him high.Look, God is my deliverance. I will lean my full weight and not tremble, for the LORD JEHOVAH is my strength and my song, and he has become my deliverance.And he said to me, "My favor is enough for you, for strength is carried to its end in weakness." Most gladly, then, I will boast all the more in my weaknesses, so that the strength of the Anointed One may pitch its tent over me.THE THREAD
The LORD is my strength and my song, and he has become my deliverance. This is my God, and I will make him a dwelling; my father's God, and I will lift him high.The same Hebrew phrase for strength and song, followed by becoming deliverance, appears here. Read together, the verses hold one movement: the LORD named as strength is also the song and the way out.
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