Psalm 139
24 verses · BSBPsalms book hub →
Speaks with:Psalms 119×3Jeremiah 23×3Hebrews 4×2Job 31×2Psalms 19×2Jonah 1×2
Summary
Chapter summary
The psalm of the God who knows: 'O Jehovah, thou hast searched me, and known me': my downsitting, mine uprising, my thoughts afar off. 'Whither shall I go from thy Spirit?' Heaven, Sheol, the wings of the morning, the uttermost parts of the sea: 'even there shall thy hand lead me.' 'Thou didst form my inward parts: thou didst cover me in my mother's womb… I am fearfully and wonderfully made'; mine unformed substance written in thy book. Thoughts precious, more than the sand. The close hands the searching back to the Searcher: 'Search me, O God, and know my heart… and lead me in the way everlasting.'
Context
Poetry · David, Asaph, Sons of Korah, others — Psalms overview
The world behind this chapter
Psalms 139The history
The first section uses words from ordinary trades. To search out is what a man does digging through a house looking for something; to sift a path and a lying down is the language of winnowing grain, separating everything until only what is real is left.
The escape attempt is a survey of the known world. Up to the sky, down to the realm of the dead, out on the wings of the dawn — the sun rises in the east and the psalm rides that light west to the far side of the Mediterranean, the edge of the map. Every direction a person could name is covered, and God is already there.
The section on the womb uses a weaver's word. Being intricately made in the depths of the earth pictures embroidery, threads worked into a pattern by hand in a hidden place, and the earth image was a common way of speaking about the darkness before birth. The days written in a book before one of them existed is a record-keeping image from a world of scrolls and registers.
The hard turn at the end — the wish that God would slay the wicked, and the statement that the singer hates those who hate God — is the same courtroom loyalty found across the Psalms. It ends, though, by putting the knife the other way round: search me, and see if there is any wicked way in me.
What it meant to them
Israelites had neighbors whose gods were local — tied to a river, a mountain, or a city, with no reach beyond it. This psalm says there is nowhere outside the jurisdiction, and turns that from a threat into comfort: even there your hand will lead me.
It also says something about every unborn life in the congregation. The one who knits a person together in secret is the one who has already written that person's days.
Sources cited
- Keil and Delitzsch, Commentary on the Old Testament , Psalms
- Charles H. Spurgeon, The Treasury of David on Psalm 139
The text of this chapter
This page carries no textual note on Psalms 139. Where this site has examined a place the manuscripts differ, the examination is in the manuscripts room. Every place this site examines →
Connections from this chapter
v. 1 · Same theme
El Roi ('the God who sees me'), the only divine name given by a woman and a foreigner, anticipates 'you have searched me and known me.' INTERPRETIVE trailhead.
Genesis 16:13→So Hagar gave this name to the LORD who had spoken to her: “You are the God who sees me,” for she said, “Here I have seen the One who sees me!”
Wikipedia 'El Roi'; Bible.org Lesson 34; text Ps 139
v. 13 · Written to them
Thou hast possessed my reins: fearfully made
topics/purpose→MannaFest topical index
This page draws on Jamieson, Fausset & Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory; John Calvin, Commentaries; John Wesley, Notes on the Old Testament and Matthew Henry, Complete Commentary.