Psalm 118:17-18 celebrates deliverance from a deadly crisis: the speaker declares that he will not die but live and recount the works of the LORD. He acknowledges severe divine discipline yet rejoices that God has not handed him over to death. In its immediate setting, this is testimony to rescue from danger rather than an explicit description of dying and returning bodily to life.

Luke 24:5-7 announces that Jesus truly has risen from the dead, and 1 Corinthians 15:20 calls Christ the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep. Psalm 118 is strongly messianic in New Testament usage, especially verses 22 and 26, but these fulfillment passages do not directly quote verses 17-18. The resurrection connection is therefore typological: the psalmist's deliverance from death becomes a pattern surpassed by Christ, who actually enters death and emerges victorious in resurrection life.