Psalm 139 For the Chief Musician. A Psalm of David.

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

²You know my sitting down and my rising up;

You understand my thought afar off.

³You comprehend my path and my lying down,

And are acquainted with all my ways.

⁴For there is not a word on my tongue,

But behold, O Lord, You know it altogether.

⁵You have hedged me behind and before,

And laid Your hand upon me.

⁶Such knowledge is too wonderful for me;

It is high, I cannot attain it.

⁷Where can I go from Your Spirit?

Or where can I flee from Your presence?

⁸If I ascend into heaven, You are there;

If I make my bed in hell, behold, You are there.

⁹If I take the wings of the morning,

And dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea,

¹⁰Even there Your hand shall lead me,

And Your right hand shall hold me.

¹¹If I say, “Surely the darkness shall fall on me,”

Even the night shall be light about me;

¹²Indeed, the darkness shall not hide from You,

But the night shines as the day;

The darkness and the light are both alike to You.

¹³For You formed my inward parts;

You covered me in my mother’s womb.

¹⁴I will praise You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made;

Marvelous are Your works,

And that my soul knows very well.

¹⁵My frame was not hidden from You,

When I was made in secret,

And skillfully wrought in the lowest parts of the earth.

¹⁶Your 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.

¹⁷How precious also are Your thoughts to me, O God!

How great is the sum of them!

¹⁸If I should count them, they would be more in number than the sand;

When I awake, I am still with You.

¹⁹Oh, that You would slay the wicked, O God!

Depart from me, therefore, you bloodthirsty men.

²⁰For they speak against You wickedly;

Your enemies take Your name in vain.

²¹Do I not hate them, O Lord, who hate You?

And do I not loathe those who rise up against You?

²²I hate them with perfect hatred;

I count them my enemies.

²³Search me, O God, and know my heart;

Try me, and know my anxieties;

²⁴And see if there is any wicked way in me,

And lead me in the way everlasting.

 

Commentary

Vs. 1-4 ¹O Lord, You have searched me and known me.

²You know my sitting down and my rising up;

You understand my thought afar off.

³You comprehend my path and my lying down,

And are acquainted with all my ways.

⁴For there is not a word on my tongue,

But behold, O Lord, You know it altogether.

Preamble: In this Psalm David finds great comfort in recalling and expounding the many and wonderful and merciful ways of our God towards us in His knowing us completely. 

There is nothing that the Lord our God, God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ our Savior does not know about us. For He has searched us all and He knows us all. This understanding David came to know by His own relationship with Him. For God who formed us in the womb is the only One who knows and understands us completely. From our sitting down to our rising up, He knows what we do and why we do what we do, indeed even our deepest thoughts, dreams, and desires, He knows and understands. And as for our lives He comprehends the paths that we take, (for by His granting us free will, we all get to choose the paths that we take), and yet even before we take step in whatever direction we choose to go, He knows and understands it fully, just as He fully knows and understands us. For God our Father is fully acquainted with all our ways, so much more than an earthly father is or could ever be with his children. Our God knows us, knows what moves and motivates us, knows what steps we will take and where we will go, even before we do so. Even the words that we speak, or desire to speak, before we speak them, He knows them altogether. There is nothing then about our person or our lives that the Lord our God does not know and understand altogether. For He alone has the true intimate knowledge of us, for God our Father is always watching over our person.

Vs. 5-6 ⁵You have hedged me behind and before,

And laid Your hand upon me.

⁶Such knowledge is too wonderful for me;

It is high, I cannot attain it.

The Lord’s watching over us also means that He has set boundaries for us (like a loving parent does for their child). Thus He has hedged us in, but not as an imprisonment, but as protection, for He has given us boundaries in which we can live and grow in all aspects of life. For He has laid His hand upon us in His perfect knowledge our person so as to leads us to Himself where our satisfaction can only be found. David then in trying to comprehend even the mere edges of His way becomes completely breathless, and can now only say, “Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; It is high, I cannot attain it.”

Vs. 7-8 ⁷Where can I go from Your Spirit?

Or where can I flee from Your presence?

⁸If I ascend into heaven, You are there;

If I make my bed in hell, behold, You are there.

From God’s Omniscience to His Omnipresence, David now understands that there is no where God is not already there. For by His Spirit, He is everywhere, whether in heaven, or here on earth, or even in the hell, God’s Presence is everywhere. No then that where you are there is God, you don’t need to climb mountains to find Him, or pilgrimage to temples, or holy sites, or travel to ends of the earth, all you need to do is bow your head in prayer right where you are and ask Him to come into your life (Rev. 3:21).

Vs. 9-10 ⁹If I take the wings of the morning,

And dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea,

¹⁰Even there Your hand shall lead me,

And Your right hand shall hold me.

David now expands this thought of God’s Omnipresence, saying that even if he could take the wings of morning; that is the beams of morning sunlight and travel upon them to uttermost parts of the sea; he could not out run the Omnipresence of God. For, 

“Even there Your hand shall lead me,

And Your right hand shall hold me.”

Thus David rightly sees God's Presence with him as his guiding light, always showing him the way in which to walk safely, just as His right hand holds onto to him as a father does his child, so that he does not get lost or wander off into this evil and dark and debased world. 

Vs. 11-12 ¹¹If I say, “Surely the darkness shall fall on me,”

Even the night shall be light about me;

¹²Indeed, the darkness shall not hide from You,

But the night shines as the day;

The darkness and the light are both alike to You.

Because of God’s Omnipresence, David is assured that even if the darkness were to fall upon him, he would still be in God’s light. For not even the deepest darkness could hide us from the Omnipresence of God whose Presence and Person is always illuminating the way for us, for He is still there with us even in darkest places and times of our lives, for He still sees us. For darkness to God is the same as light, He loses no abilities to save and redeem us or anyone who believes in Him.

Vs. 13-14 ¹³For You formed my inward parts;

You covered me in my mother’s womb.

¹⁴I will praise You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made;

Marvelous are Your works,

And that my soul knows very well.

David now marvels and delights in how God formed him with all of the interstices of his human body, and personality, even from the very inception of his person in his mother’s womb. Therefore, “I will praise You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made”, and so are you. Therefore, as a redeemed man of God, David can now bodily say, God’s works are marvelous, and that my soul knows very well, and so can you if you believe in the Lord Jesus Christ you will God's Righteousness by faith imputed to you!

Vs. 15-16 ¹⁵My frame was not hidden from You,

When I was made in secret,

And skillfully wrought in the lowest parts of the earth.

¹⁶Your 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.

David continues his contemplation of how God brought him into being. For before David was, God knew him, knew what he would look like and be. For God created us and give us whatever attributes and abilities we will have. There was no mystery then when God formed David in the womb, when He pieced together all the cells which would make up our persons. For God’s eyes saw our substance when we were yet to be formed. Indeed, all of David’s days, even before he was born, God had fashioned for him when as yet there were none.

Vs. 17-18 ¹⁷How precious also are Your thoughts to me, O God!

How great is the sum of them!

¹⁸If I should count them, they would be more in number than the sand;

When I awake, I am still with You.

As David's understanding of the Lord our God grows so does his love and appreciation for all His thoughts grow. For God's thoughts are more precious to us who believe in Him then anything, and if you added them all up the sum of their wisdom is innumerable. And yet what we know is so infinitesimally small compared to what He knows, and so in an effort to describe this David uses the metaphor of God’s thoughts being more in number than the all the grains of sand in all the world. Nonetheless our complete inability to know our God on His level does not cause Him to forsake us, nor us abandon Him. Instead as David says here, when we awake, we are still with Him. Do not then let your own inabilities to understand all the mysteries of God cause you to turn from Him. For God bows to our level of understanding to help us understand Him at His level. You can then know Him just as Jesus has revealed Him to us all! 

Vs. 19-22 “Oh, that You would slay the wicked, O God!

Depart from me, therefore, you bloodthirsty men.

²⁰For they speak against You wickedly;

Your enemies take Your name in vain.

²¹Do I not hate them, O Lord, who hate You?

And do I not loathe those who rise up against You?

²²I hate them with perfect hatred;

I count them my enemies.”

In knowing and understanding the Lord our God as He is, David has nothing but complete contempt for the wicked who push Him away, who do not want to know Him and follow His ways, but only want to follow their own evil hearts wicked and violent desires. Therefore David (like every righteous person wants to see the righteous judgment of God executed upon them), but until then he himself will have nothing to do with them, thus he says to them, depart from me you bloodthirsty men. For indeed they speak wickedly against the Lord our God, they even take our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ’s most precious Name and they vilely and brazenly blasphemy it. Therefore, I am in full agreement with David when he says, ²¹Do I not hate them, O Lord, who hate You?

And do I not loathe those who rise up against You?

²²I hate them with perfect hatred;

I count them my enemies.” ^{Vs. 21-22}

That said, we ourselves are people of reconciliation, therefore if anyone repents and turns to the Lord in faith we also will turn to them and receive them, for this is the gospel of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. For we do not pretend to have the authority of God to exercise His judgment on those who rise up against Him. For all vengeance is reserved for the Lord, He will repay His adversaries. 

Vs. 23-24 ²³Search me, O God, and know my heart;

Try me, and know my anxieties;

²⁴And see if there is any wicked way in me,

And lead me in the way everlasting.

In concluding this Psalm, David now prays a deep and self-searching prayer, a prayer which invites God to examine us, to know our hearts and try us, to even know our anxieties, (for these also affect our behavior), so as to reveal to us what needs to be changed in us, and what needs to be strengthened in us. It is then a God dependent prayer that is seeking to know oneself as God already knows us, and thus to have Him help us change. For in our having a desire to be righteous we do not want any wicked way in us, (any wicked way hidden deep in us), therefore we ask Him to see if there is any wicked way in us (and remove it from us) so that He can lead us in the way everlasting. This then is the prayer that every child of God needs to pray on their sanctification journey home.

Scripture Quotations

New King James (1982): Thomas Nelson.