Psalms 139:16

This difficult verse, rendered word for word, gives —

“My fœtus (literally, rolled) saw thine eyes,

And on thy book all of them were written;
Days were formed, and not (or, as the Hebrew margin, to him) one in them.”

The reading “substance yet being imperfect” of the Authorised Version follows the LXX. and Vulg., and (Symmachus, “shapeless thing”) periphrastically denotes the embryo, which the Hebrew word — literally, rolled, or wrapped, used in 2 Kings 2:8, “of a mantle,” in Ezekiel 27:24, “bales” (Authorised Version, “clothes;” margin, “foldings”) — almost scientifically describes. (Comp. Job 10:8; 2Ma. 7:22.)

Others take it of the ball of the threads of destiny; but this is not a Hebrew conception. By inserting the word members, the Authorised Version suggests a possible, but not a probable, interpretation. The Hebrew language likes to use a pronoun before the word to which it refers has occurred (see Note, Psalms 68:14); and, in spite of the accents, we must refer all of them to “days” (Authorised Version, “in continuance”).

“Thine eyes beheld my embryo,
And in thy book were written
All the days, the days
Which were being formed,
When as yet there were none of them.”

But a much more satisfactory sense is obtained by adopting one slight change and following Symmachus in the last line —

“The days which are all reckoned, and not one of them is wanting.”

All the ancient versions make that which is written in God’s book either the days of life, or men born in the course of these days, each coming into being according to the Divine will.