Psalms 139:1-23

In this Psalm, David praises God by specially dwelling upon the one attribute of omniscience. If we really wish to praise God, we must think of him as he is, and it is the best praise that we can render to God to describe him as he is; and any one of his many attributes is so full of glory that, if we give due honour to it, we shall have much to say upon it.

Psalms 139:1. O LORD, thou hast searched me, and known me.

It is true that God knows everything, but that is not what David says here. He makes a personal application of the universal truth: «O Lord, thou hast searched me, and known me.» He does not talk about God's knowledge of other men, but he speaks to God concerning himself: «O Lord, thou hast searched me, and known me ;» «thou hast searched me as if thou wert looking for contraband goods. Thou hast ransacked me, thou hast gone down into my very heart, and hast spread out every secret part of my being: ‘Thou hast searched me, and known me.'»

«Lord, thou hast seareh'd and seen me through,

Thine eye commands with piercing view

My rising and my resting hours,

My heart and flesh, with all their powers.»

Psalms 139:2. Thou knowest my downsitting and mine uprising, thou understandest my thought afar off.

«What I do, and what I do not do; my downsitting for rest, and my uprising for action; thou knowest me altogether, my most trivial deeds, and my most important movements. My thoughts are so well known to thee that, even before I think them, thou knowest what they will be. Thou needest not to come near to me in order to know me; so strong is thine eye that if thou only lookest at me from a vast distance as a man looks at a star in the midnight airy, ‘ thou understandest my thought afar off.' What I think, and why I think it, whether it be sorrowful or hopeful, thou understandest my thought. Sometimes, I cannot understand it myself, but thou always understandest it.»

Psalms 139:3. Thou compassest my path and my lying down, and art acquainted with all my ways.

«Thou hast put a ring round me both in my stayings and my goings. I go to sleep, but thou dost not sleep. I cannot think of thee while I slumber, but thou dost think of me, and thou ‘ art acquainted with all my ways.'»

«Great God, thy penetrating eye

Pervades my inmost powers;

With awe profound my wondering soul

Falls prostrate, and adores.

To be encompass'd round with God,

The holy and the just;

Arm'd with omnipotence to save,

Or crush me into dust!

Oh, how tremendous is the thought!

Deep may it be impress'd!

And may the Spirit firmly grave,

This truth within my breast!»

Psalms 139:4. For there is not a word in my tongue, but, lo, O LORD, thou knowest it altogether.

«Thou not only knowest what it is, but thou knowest all about it; even the word which I have not yet spoken, the word that is in my tongue, as well as the word that is on my tongue. Those seeds of speech, that have as yet not grown into words, thou knowest them altogether.»

Psalms 139:5. Thou hast beset me behind and before, and laid thine hand upon me.

«Like men lying in ambush, ‘thou hast beset me behind and before.' All that I have ever done, and all that I shall ever do, thou knowest it all. I am like one under arrest, upon whom the officer lays his hand so that he may have no opportunity of escaping. I am in thy grip; thou hast taken such a firm hold upon me that I cannot get away from thee. In another sense, I am like a child enfolded in his mother's arms, for thou hast ‘laid thine hand upon me.'»

Psalms 139:6. Such knowledge is too wonderful for me! it is too high, I cannot attain unto it.

«I cannot climb up to thy glorious throne; the very lowest step of it is far higher than my feet can reach: ‘I cannot attain unto it.'»

Psalms 139:7. Whither shall I go from thy spirit! or whither shall I flee from thy presence ?

«I do not want to do so, but it would be quite impossible for me to flee from thy presence even it I wished to do so. Neither by steady marching, nor by rapid flight, can I get away from thee.»

Psalms 139:8. If I ascend up into heaven, thou art there:

The Hebrew is, «Thou there;» as if there was nothing else there but God.

Psalms 139:8. If I make my bed in hell, behold, thou art there.

This seemed even more wonderful to the psalmist than that God was in heaven; so he put in a «behold « « Behold, thou.»

Psalms 139:9. If I take the wings of the morning, and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea;

«If I fly on the wings of light, which travels with inconceivable rapidity,»

Psalms 139:10. Even there shall thy hand lead me, and thy right hand shall hold me.

«I cannot go there except by thy leading, and I shall not be there except by thine uplifting. There is no way by which I can keep away from God even if I try to do so. If, instead of living in the light, I seek to hide myself in the darkness, what then ?»

Psalms 139:11. If I say, Surely the darkness shall cover me; even the night shall be light about me.

«The very night shall change its nature, and turn from darkness into light.»

Psalms 139:12. Yea, the darkness hideth not from thee; but the night shineth as the day: the darkness and the light are both alike to thee.

See, my dear brethren, how we dwell continually under the inspection of God. You have seen bees in a glass hive, and watched all their movements, or you have put an insect under a powerful microscope, and examined every part of it. Even so doth the omniscient God watch and examine you; nothing is done by you that he does not observe. The poet speaks of the fierce light that beats about the throne of man, but you dwell in that far fiercer light which beats about the throne of God.

Psalms 139:13. For thou hast possessed my reins:

«Those secret organs of my body which I cannot see, and whose working I can only imperfectly comprehend.»

Psalms 139:13. Thou hast covered me in my mother's womb.

«Even before I came on the stage of action, thou wast exercising wondrous care over me.»

Psalms 139:14. I will praise thee;

That is a good resolution for each one of us, as well as the psalmist, to make. As God sees me, let me praise him; it will be pleasing to him to hear me praising him: «I will praise thee; «

Psalms 139:14. For I am fearfully and wonderfully made :

Nobody can rightly study the anatomy of the human body, and see the beautiful arrangement of the various veins, and nerves, and sinews, and muscles, and bones, without saying with the psalmist, «I am fearfully and wonderfully made: «

Psalms 139:14. Marvelous are thy works; and that my soul knoweth right well.

To study God's marvelous works, you need not go abroad; for they can be plainly seen in your own body. This earthly house of your tabernacle, in which you dwell so long as you are in this world, is a masterpiece of divine wisdom and skill.

Psalms 139:15. My substance was not hid from thee, when I was made in secret, and curiously wrought in the lowest parts of the earth.

God made us in his secret workshop by a marvelous method of divine power.

Psalms 139:16. Thine eyes did see my substance, yet being unperfect; and in thy book all my members were written, which in continuance were fashioned, when as yet there was none of them.

God's wonderful foreknowledge enabled him to know us even before we knew ourselves, or anyone else knew us; and in the very making of us, the creation of our body and mind and spirit, God was beforehand with us.

Psalms 139:17. How precious also are thy thoughts unto me, O God! how great is the sum of them!

«l love to remember that thou, my God, art thinking of me. I am not distressed or alarmed by that recollection; I do not say, ‘ How terrible are thy thoughts unto me, O God! ‘but, How precious' how consoling, how full of promises of blessing to me,' are thy thoughts unto me, O God! how great is the sum of them!»

Psalms 139:18. If I should count them, they are more in number than the sand: when I awake, I am still with thee.

«Thou dost lull me to sleep, and thou dost awake me in the morning; and when I open my eyes, thou art still there.» Happy believer, who is always with God! Why should not you and I, dear friends, always be consciously in the presence of God? We are never right unless we are in that condition; and if we ever begin to forget God, we are in a wrong state of heart. If we can live, from day to day, without realizing that God is near us, we are falling into a sad and dangerous condition.

Psalms 139:19. Surely thou wilt slay the wicked, O God:

It cannot be that God has seen all their wickedness, and read their evil thoughts, and yet will spare them. When men offend in the very presence of the judge, it is easy work for him to try them.

Psalms 139:19. Depart from me therefore, ye bloody men.

«Ye men of blood, ye men stained with the blood of your fellows, get away from me, for I do not want to be harboring criminals. God sees my company as well as myself, so depart from me?

Psalms 139:20. For they speak against thee wickedly, and thine enemies take thy name in vain.

David could not bear even the thought that men should insult such a God; a want of reverence to the All-seeing One was altogether unbearable to him; so he bade those who were guilty of such wickedness to take themselves away from him.

Psalms 139:21. Do not I hate them, O LORD, that hate thee? and am not I grieved with those that rise up against thee? I hate them with perfect hatred: I count them mine enemies.

We are to love our own enemies, but we are not to love God's enemies, nor willingly to mix with them. How can Christian men associate with the lewd and irreverent without becoming partakers of their evil deeds? Let us take note of what David says, and realize that we cannot be the friends of God if we are the friends of God's enemies. Now the psalmist comes back to his key-note. He began the Psalm with the declaration, «O Lord, thou hast searched me;» and now he prays,

Psalms 139:23. Search me, O God, and know my heart:

«Thou hast searched me, O God; but I pray thee to do it again, and to keep on doing it; never take thy great search-light away from me.»

Psalms 139:23. Try me, and know my thoughts:

«I cannot hide them from thee, and would not if I could.»

Psalms 139:24. And see if there be any wicked way in me,

«Lord, look for the dross, to consume it; look for the spots, to wash them away.»

Psalms 139:24. And lead me in the way everlasting.

«Amen,» our hearts say, «Amen, so let it be.»