John Calvin Commentary Psalms 18:46

"Jehovah liveth; and blessed be my rock; And exalted be the God of my salvation," — Psalms 18:46 (ASV)

Let Jehovah live. If this reading is adopted, which is in the optative mood expressing a wish that God might live, the expression may seem somewhat strange. However, it can be argued in its defense that it is a metaphor borrowed from human custom. People not only use this type of expression when they wish someone well, but they also utter it with loud and applauding acclamation when they intend to receive their rulers with due honor.

According to this view, it would be an expression in which praise is ascribed to God, and suitable for a triumphal song. It may, however, be properly considered as a simple affirmation, in which David declares that God lives; in other words, that He is endowed with sovereign power.

Furthermore, the life that David attributes to God is not to be restricted to God's being or essence, but is rather to be understood from the evidence of it derived from His works, which show us that He lives. Whenever He withdraws the working of His power from our sight, the sense and awareness of the truth, God lives, also vanishes from our minds. He is, therefore, said to live because He shows, by evident proofs of His power, that it is He who preserves and upholds the world. Since David had known this life of God by experience, he celebrates it with praises and thanksgiving.

If we read the first clause in the present tense, The Lord lives, the conjunction and, which follows, implies an inference. Accordingly, the words should be interpreted as follows: Jehovah lives, and, therefore, blessed be my strength.

The epithet, My strength, and the other which occurs in verse 48, My deliverer, confirm what I have already said: that God does not simply live in Himself, and in His secret place, but displays His vital energy in the government of the whole world.

The Hebrew word, צורי, tsuri, which we have translated my strength, is here to be understood in a transitive sense as Him who bestows strength.