Bible Commentaries

1. Searched me—The psalmist begins with self-application of the doctrine of omniscience. It is more to know the human heart than to know distant worlds and laws of matter.

Known me—Hebrew, simply, Thou hast known, comprehending not me only, but all things relating to me, as in next verse.

2. Downsitting and… uprising—That is, my hours of rest and of activity, my most retired and most familiar life.

Afar off—Literally, From afar. From thy remotest heaven thou knowest me as if I were before thee. See Psalms 138:6

3. Compassest—That is, to watch and guard. The word sometimes means to scatter by winnowing, as Jeremiah 51:2. Thou winnowest my path, would denote a sifting out of evil, like chaff, that the way might be pure and safe; or, thou triest my path.

4. For there is not a word in my tongue, etc.—Rather, When there is not a word in my tongue, behold, O Jehovah, thou knowest all. Before the word is spoken God sees back in the heart the thought and desire, and knows all that is within, whence words proceed.

5. Beset—Surrounded, like a besieging army, for my protection if good, to render my escape impossible if wicked.

Laid thine hand upon me—I am already in thy grasp, wholly in thy power.

6. Too wonderful for me—Above the reach of the human faculties. Same as “it is high, I cannot attain to it,” in the next line. Thus far the psalmist describes omniscience. He next proceeds to connect omnipresence, omnipotence, and wisdom.

7. Whither shall I go—That is, I can go no whither from thy spirit— neither from thy power nor presence.

8. Heaven—Hebrew, heavens. The celestial heights, however far.

Hell— Hebrew, sheol, the lowest depths, the under world. The ideas of power and of omnipresence are continued. Amos 9:2

9. Wings of the morning—Wings of the dawn are swift wings, like the early light, which spreads swiftly.

Uttermost parts of the sea—The ancients supposed the sea everywhere surrounded the land, and hence the description is of the utmost limit of the globe. It also stands for extreme west, as opposed to “morning,” or earliest dawn, in the preceding line. In this view the supposition is equal to the extreme points of the universe.

10. Even there—The power and presence of God are as real and effective there as here, or at any place.

11. Darkness—He has found distance to make no difference with the power, knowledge, and presence of God. He now shows that darkness and light are both alike with him.

13, 14. From God in universal space and material nature, the psalmist returns to contemplate God, in his own mysterious origin and personal being. The creative power and wisdom of God, operating according to his absolute knowledge of the formative atoms and occult laws of embryonic life, are a further mystery, and a ground of praise and thanksgiving.

Possessed—The Hebrew will bear the meaning “formed;” it may also indicate possession and control.

Reins—In Hebrew psychology, the soul or mind, as it relates to the power of acutest sensibility.

Covered—It is more common, modernly, to translate the word woven, thou hast interweaved me, that is, with bones, sinews, nerves, muscles, vascular ducts, etc. But it is better here to take the usual rendering, “covered,” that is, sheltered, protected, which suits the idea of the extreme delicacy of the parts, as in Psalms 140:7. See on Psalms 139:15.

Fearfully… wonderfully made—The Niphal participial form of the word “fearfully” usually takes the sense of terrible, dreadful. Psalms 45:4; Psalms 65:5. There is no such word as wonderful or made in the original. The Hebrew word simply means, distinguished, equal to favoured, honoured. “I will praise thee, for I am fearfully distinguished,” namely, by my rank of being, and this amazing care and contrivance of God in my origination.

15, 16. Substance—Literally, My strength; referring to the bones, or osseous system, as the solid basis of muscular strength. Their growth is a mystery. Ecclesiastes 11:5.

Made in secret— “Made” is the same word here as in Genesis 1:26, and the mediate making here is no less a mystery and the work of God than the immediate creative making there.

Curiously wrought—Literally, embroidered. Here is the variegated network of the human frame referred to.

Lowest parts of the earth—A delicate description corresponding to the “in secret,” just mentioned. The idea, not the word, is that of a sheol of darkness. Psalms 63:9. Perhaps it has also a pointing to “the dust of the ground,” Genesis 2:7.

My substance—The word denotes something rolled up, as a ball, literally, my infolded, or undeveloped substance.

Thy book—A figure conveying the minute accuracy of divine knowledge.

All my members—Hebrew, all of them. There is no better way of explaining this obscure passage than by referring the suffix pronoun them, (in כלם, kullam,) to the parts of that “substance,” or threads of that rolled up ball, just mentioned. Our version has it “members,” which is the idea, though not a translation.

Which in continuance were fashioned—Literally, During the days when they were fashioned.

When as yet there was none of them—Hebrew, And not one of them, or, not one amongst them. That is, not one member of the complicated arrangement failed, or was omitted. All was accomplished as it had been written in God’s book. The descriptions of Psalms 139:13-16 belong to a region of thought on human existence the most mysterious and difficult, whether viewed in the light of physiology or theology. The student in church history will at once recall the controversy on “traducianism” and “creationism,” and will observe the leaning of the psalmist toward the latter. The statements are as delicately and beautifully given in poetry as they are true to science. While the laws of antenatal physiology, as guarding the species, are admirably recognised, the presiding forethought of the Divine Creator, stamping individuality and adjusting it to a graciously proposed destiny, is equally confessed. The subject belongs to the abstrusest domain of theological anthropology, and the passage stands as a perpetual rebuke of the shameless atheism of modern evolutionists. See Lecture vii of Bishop Alexander, Bampton Lectures, 1876

17, 18. From this wonderful rehearsal of God’s knowledge, power, wisdom, and tender care, the psalmist breaks forth into exclamations of praise.

Precious… are thy thoughts— “Precious,” here, literally means weighty, then costly, rare, whence the idea comes of difficult to attain, and, in matters of thought, difficult to comprehend, answering to unsearchable. Romans 11:33.

If I should count—He puts them down as countless (see Psalms 40:5) in number, weighty in value, wonderful in wisdom.

When I awake—As often as I awake.

19-22. From the foregoing survey of the divine perfections the psalmist draws unbounded consolation and hope for the righteous. He now, however, sees that the same causes secure the ultimate, inevitable punishment of the wicked. Sin, in the light of God, now appears “exceeding sinful;” and before the omniscience and omnipresence of God, cannot escape its desert. The transition of the poem at this point is abrupt, but natural, upon the laws of antithesis.

Surely—The Hebrew is a strong asseveration. God will punish sin. It follows from his attributes.

Depart from me—The author will have no alliance with the enemies of God. Their guilt and their ruin are, before him, alike abhorrent; on the other hand, the glory of God attracts him.

20. For they speak against thee—This is the ground and nature of his hatred of the wicked.

22. I hate them with perfect hatred—Not the sinner apart from his sin, but as loving and cleaving to sin. His hatred is not personal, but moral and legal, as the connexion shows. When a man identifies himself with sin he is an enemy of God, and only in this sense can he become our enemy. Compare “thine enemies” and “mine enemies,” Psalms 139:20; Psalms 139:22

23, 24. Because of such sin and sinful men, the psalmist prays for a search of his own heart, that no enmity to God may be left there.

Way everlasting—Literally, way of eternity; so termed because it is old as eternity, being founded in the attributes of God, and because it leads to a blissful eternity; in both respects opposite to the brief and perishable way of the ungodly. Psalms 1:6.