Psalm 139

For the Chief Musician. A Psalm of David.

1 O Lord, You have searched me and known me.

² You know my sitting down and my rising up;
You understand my thought afar off.

³ You comprehend my path and my lying down,
And are acquainted with all my ways.

⁴ For there is not a word on my tongue,
But behold, O Lord, You know it altogether.

⁵ You have hedged me behind and before,
And laid Your hand upon me.

⁶ Such knowledge is too wonderful for me;
It is high, I cannot attain it.

⁷ Where can I go from Your Spirit?
Or where can I flee from Your presence?

⁸ If I ascend into heaven, You are there;
If I make my bed in hell, behold, You are there.

⁹ If I take the wings of the morning,
And dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea,

¹⁰ Even there Your hand shall lead me,
And Your right hand shall hold me.

¹¹ If I say, “Surely the darkness shall fall on me,”
Even the night shall be light about me;

¹² Indeed, the darkness shall not hide from You,
But the night shines as the day;
The darkness and the light are both alike to You.

¹³ For You formed my inward parts;
You covered me in my mother’s womb.

¹⁴ I will praise You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made;
Marvelous are Your works,
And that my soul knows very well.

¹⁵ My frame was not hidden from You,
When I was made in secret,
And skillfully wrought in the lowest parts of the earth.

¹⁶ Your eyes saw my substance, being yet unformed.
And in Your book they all were written,
The days fashioned for me,
When as yet there were none of them.

¹⁷ How precious also are Your thoughts to me, O God!
How great is the sum of them!

¹⁸ If I should count them, they would be more in number than the sand;
When I awake, I am still with You.

¹⁹ Oh, that You would slay the wicked, O God!
Depart from me, therefore, you bloodthirsty men.

²⁰ For they speak against You wickedly;
Your enemies take Your name in vain.

²¹ Do I not hate them, O Lord, who hate You?
And do I not loathe those who rise up against You?

²² I hate them with perfect hatred;
I count them my enemies.

The psalm could be said to teach God’s omniscience (vs.1-6), omnipresence (vs.7-12), sovereignty (vs.13-16), and holiness (vs.17-24), yet in the truest sense nothing could less exactly express the psalmist’s mind than these four great abstractions. To the psalmist, omniscience is “God’s complete knowledge of me,” omnipresence is that “God is with me no matter where I am,” and so forth. The “I-Thou” relationship is basic to the poem. — Guthrie, page 537.

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The Personal Depth of God’s Knowledge in Sharing One’s Everyday Experiences (vs.1-12). David underscores God’s omniscience and omnipresence, not in a general theological sense but rather with specific and personal reference to himself—which is to say, the individual believer. This focus is immediately indicated by David’s opening affirmation that God has searched him and known him, meaning not only that God has full knowledge of every fiber of his being, both physical and immaterial, but also that God experiences it with him. For this reason David goes on to affirm that God’s involvement in his active life (i.e., his waking hours, as indicated by the merism in v.2 “when I sit down and when I rise up”), not as an interested observer, but as an active participant, protecting him (v.5), seeking him out in patient love and parental chastisement when he tries to flee from His presence (v.7, clearly hearkening to Jonah 1:3; cf. also Jonah’s references in 2:2-3 to Sheol and the sea, as in vs.8-9 of this psalm), and guiding and leading him in all situations (v.10). — Wechsler, page 334.

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The Personal Depth of God’s Knowledge in Planning One’s Existence (vs.13-16). David intensifies his focus on God’s minute involvement in all aspects of his life by affirming that that involvement “began” not with his actual existence, but with his preexistence in the mind of God. He begins by considering the point at which he came into his individual existence (prior to which he existed only as part of the physical and spiritual “stuff” [i.e., the “unformed substance”] of his parents), attributing that individual creation exclusively to the work of God. With the creation as an individual physical being he was also give a soul, which, as the “image” of God, contains within the implicit knowledge that both it and the being in which it resides is wonderfully (or “divinely”) made. From here David moves backward in time to affirm not only God’s awareness, but also His determination of the precise number of days that he would live, when as yet there was not one of them. — Wechsler, pages 334-335.

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The Personal Depth of God’s Knowledge in Guiding One’s Walk in the Everlasting Way (vs.17-24). David concludes by affirming how precious [God’s intimate concern and thoughts] are to him, for those thoughts are indicative not only of God’s intrinsic omniscience, but also of His immeasurable lovingkindness. This love for the thoughts of God impels David in turn to hate and call imprecation upon all who stand opposed to the Originator of these thoughts (vs.19-22). At the same time, however, recognizing that he himself is far from perfect, and to guard against his hatred for God’s enemies being overtaken by the sinful goal of causing them hurt (rather than promoting God’s glory), David concludes by asking that God see if there be any hurtful way in him and, if so, to lead him therefrom (as in v.10, from a state of sin) in the everlasting way—i.e., the “upright” way of God (Psalm 27:11) on which He walks together with the righteous (Psalm 1:6). — Wechsler, pages 335-336.

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Can anyone have complete self-knowledge? (v.23). Only God knows all that there is to be known (cf. v.1), therefore let God search and expose any remaining wickedness and lead him in the way. — Guthrie, page 539.

Williams’ take:

The closing words of the prior Psalm introduce the sinless tabernacle of clay prepared by God for His Beloved Son. This Psalm develops the subject, and sets out the moral and physical perfections of that perfect human body. The Singer is Messiah. He here exposes His whole nature, emotional and physical, as man, together with His action, His inaction, His thoughts, His words and His ways to the scrutiny of God’s eye, and nothing but perfection is found. There is here absolute harmony between the Incarnate Word of God and the written Word of God. The Psalm … reveals the perfect submission and obedience of Christ’s human nature to the Word of God. — Williams, page 408.

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To “possess” and to “cover” (v.13) here mean to collect and to knit together; and “reins” is a comprehensive term embracing the human body both physical and emotional. The verse may be illustrated by the action of an able manufacturer in first assembling the parts of a machine and then putting them together. The mystery of the incarnation is, therefore, the subject of verses 13-16. The members of Christ’s sinless body existed continually in the secrecy of the Divine Wisdom; and when the time came they were woven together in the body of the Lord’s mother (vs.13-14). The miraculous nature of that birth, and Christ’s full testimony to it, form the subjects for praise in verse 14. — Williams, page 409.

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The statement that He was made of the same material as the first Adam (v.15), emphasizes the fact that His body was human and not angelic. — Williams, page 409.

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The sinlessness of Messiah’s humanity is expressed positively and negatively in verses 19-22 and 23-24. He rejoices that all wicked and bloodthirsty men will be destroyed by God; He gives a satisfactory reason for the justice of their doom (v.20); He abhors them (v.21); and He hates them with a perfect hatred—not a sinful hatred, but a perfect hatred (v.22). This demands a sinless nature. — Williams, page 409.

Wow. Wechsler’s and Guthrie’s takes are the traditional ones, and I think they have merit. God certainly knows all and is involved in all aspects of our lives. But Williams’ take is also compelling, and in some ways seems to hold together more consistently. But since Christ was in fact human, there is no actual tension between the two views—they just express two depths of truth.