Psalm 139/Commentary

Psalm 139

“Too Wonderful For Me”

“Any small thoughts that we may have of God are magnificently transcended by this psalm” (Kidner p. 463). God’s omniscience, omnipresence, and omnipotence are the subjects discussed in Psalm 139. This section of Scripture deals with weighty topics or deep theological truths, and yet such truths are intensely practical and personal, for they impact our daily lives.

The All-Seeing 139:1 “This statement of omniscience (God’s ability to know everything), is characteristically vivid and concrete….This divine knowledge is not merely comprehensive, like that of some receptor that misses nothing, capturing everything alike. It is personal and active: discerning us (2b); sifting us (3a, where searchest out is based on a term for winnowing); knowing our minds more closely (altogether) than we know them ourselves (2b,4); surrounding us (beset), and handling us (5)” (Kidner p. 464).

139:2 God knows everything about us, even the little details or things that we might consider to be trivial. The Lord knows his every move.

139:2 God even knows our innermost thoughts. “The Lord knew David penetratingly. David said God’s knowledge came as if He had scoured every detail of David’s life and thus knew him intimately” (Bible Knowledge Comm. p.

891). God knew not only David’s actions, but also his motivations (Hebrews 4:12-13). In light of such truths, we need to be completely honest with God, for nothing escapes His notice, nothing can be hidden from Him, nothing is forgotten by Him, He never errs, never changes, and never overlooks anything.

“God knows instantly and effortlessly all matter and all matters, all mind and every mind, all spirit and all spirits, all being and every being, all creaturehood and all creatures, every plurality and all pluralities, all law and every law, all relations, all causes, all thoughts, all mysteries, all enigmas, all feeling, all desires, every unuttered secret….” (Boice p. 1203).

Point to Note: “Psalm 139 is compelling in its descriptions of how close God wants to be to us.

He is not satisfied to be simply the reigning King, exalted in heaven, enthroned

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before a sea of angels. He desires to have a personal relationship with us on the deepest level” (Williams p. 481).

139:3 God’s eye follows our course through the day and is upon us when we retire. “He knows what we think about people. He knows our motives as we talk with them and make promises to them. He knows the path we take through the day, each pause, each detour” (Williams p. 482).

139:4 God is so aware of our inner thoughts, that He knows what we are going to say before we say it. This doesn’t mean that what we say has been predestined, but rather, God knows our thoughts before those thoughts are spoken to others (Mark 2:8).

139:5 Some see David at this point finding comfort in such knowledge, that is, David has found protection in such an all-knowing God. “Like a human father, God goes before us and behind us, as His hand guides us. He is not only distant in glory; He is present in care and concern” (Williams p. 483). Hence, for the faithful, God’s omniscience is comforting, yes He knows our every move, word and thought, but this also means that He knows the every move, thought and word of our enemies, and of honest hearts who are looking for the truth. Do we live our daily lives which such convictions?

139:6 David exclaims that God’s omniscience is just too extraordinary or amazing for him to grasp.

Point to Note: “All of our communication is monitored by Him, and He clearly knows us better than we know ourselves. I cannot help but speculate how my own thoughts and words would change if I really believed this….As Paul says, his goal is to bring every thought into captivity ‘to the obedience of Christ’ (2 Corinthians 10:5). Can we desire less?” (Williams pp. 482-483).

The All-Present 139:7 “Where can I go from Thy Spirit?”: Some feel that David’s initial reaction to God’s omniscience is a desire to escape from such penetrating knowledge. Yet this doesn’t sound like David, rather as Boice notes, “David is still meditating on God’s omniscience, noting that the reason why God sees everything and knows everything is that He is everywhere to see and know it. In fact, since the psalmist is making these points of theology personal, what impresses him is that God will always be wherever he goes. Try as he might, he would never be able to escape Him. But he is not fearing that or dreading it; he is comforted by the thought” (p. 1204).

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The thought of an all-knowing God does make some people uncomfortable, especially those who are trying to hide something from Him. If we are holding on to some secret or unforsaken sin---then we need to be unnerved by these verses (2 Corinthians 5:10).

139:8-10 Hypothetical examples of where David might try to escape are given here. God commands His whole creation; there is no corner in which He is absent, either in life or in death. The word “Sheol”, would be the Old Testament word for Hades. And this would even include the torment side of eternity. In His judicial capacity, God is also present in Hell. In fact, the thing that makes hell so terrible is that it is run by God, it is not ruled by the devil (Revelation 20:10).

139:9 “If I take the wings of the dawn”: That is, if David were to fly at the speed of light from the east across the sky to the west, he still couldn’t escape from the presence of God. One can’t out-run God. “Probably means to flash from east to west as fast as the dawn’s early light streaks from horizon to horizon. Would that help? Even if it were possible, it would not enable us to escape God, for when we get to that far distant horizon, we find that God is already there before us” (Boice p. 1205).

139:10 In this verse we find David expressing his appreciation that God’s long arm is always with him. Geography cannot separate us from God! Some times people think, “If we could just leave this planet and journey to a distant solar system, then we would no longer be accountable to God”. Or, “if we could just travel back or ahead in time, then I would no longer be answerable to God”. But man is always accountable to God everywhere and anywhere, for God isn’t bound by space or time. And the faithful person, the person with a good heart wants to be accountable to God, they want God to be everywhere.

139:11-12 Both darkness and light are the same to God. He made them (Genesis 1:4-5); He commands them. There is no escape in them. What a wonderful verse to share with our children when they are afraid of the dark at night. Yet evil people often try to operate under the cover of darkness.

The All-Creative 139:13 One reason why God knows everything about us is that God created us.

God created us and He knows how we think and work. In addition, God just didn’t create man in general, but He is also the Creator of every specific individual. This verse is saying that God providentially supervises the formation of every child in the womb. God even saw David when David was forming in his mother’s womb! The word “weave” carries the idea of being “woven together”, like a cloth on a loom. David’s “inward parts” would certainly include far more

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than simply his internal organs, but rather such things as his conscience, mind, heart or soul (Genesis 1:26-27; James 3:9; Zechariah 12:1 “and forms the spirit of man within him”).

Point to Note: “These verses plainly teach the individuality of a child while it is still in its mother’s womb…But no one can read these verses thoughtfully today without considering their obvious meaning on the contemporary problem of abortion.

The chief issue in discussions about abortion concerns the identify of the fetus.

People who argue for the right of a woman to have an abortion—‘It’s my own body; I can do with it as I please’---usually argue that the fetus is not yet a person, but it only a part of the woman’s body, like a gallbladder or appendix that she can elect to have removed. That is why language describing the unborn child has changed so radically. A generation ago everyone referred to the unborn child as a baby, and pregnant women knew they were carrying a baby. It is hard for anyone to think calmly about killing a baby. So today people talk about the fetus or the embryo or even mere ‘tissue’ instead. To get rid of tissue doesn’t seem so bad. But this is not the way the Bible speaks of the unborn child” (Boice pp. 1209-1210).

Here is one of those places in the Bible where the Bible is still ahead of even modern advances in science. For many in the scientific community are still trying to find at what point the developing child is fully human, and the truth is, there isn’t one. There is an uninterrupted development of the child from the very moment of conception. If there is life, then the spirit or soul of the child is equally present (James 2:26). Notice how David speaks of his development in his mother’s womb. He doesn’t refer to “it”, rather he says, “my”, “me”, “my frame”, “I was made in secret”, “my unformed substance”. David is saying, what was developing in the womb—was me!

139:14 Anyone who has studied the human body must reach the same conclusion. What does such a statement reveal about the “understanding” of someone who claims that we are the product of chance and mindless evolution?

All of God’s works are wonderful (Genesis 1:31), but the believer senses more than any other part of God’s creation that he is fearfully and wonderfully made.

Are we amazed that we even exist, are we amazed at how well our minds and bodies functions? Do we value the life that God has given to us? And what am I doing with the body and mind which is fearfully and wonderfully made? Are we using our minds and bodies for unimportant purposes or grand purposes?

139:15 The word “frame” probably refers to his body. The expression “depths of the earth” is a metaphor for the deepest concealment, i.e., the hiddenness of the womb. The terms “skillfully wrought” or intricately wrought, suggests the complex patterns and colors of the weaver or embroiderer. In fact the expression “skillfully wrought” means “embroidered”, like a colorful piece of cloth. “Suggesting his veins and arteries” (Bible Knowledge Comm. p. 892).

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139:16 “My unformed substance”: His unformed substance would be his embryo. There could be no stronger statement concerning the sanctity and dignity of the unborn child than is given in this verse and context. And David says that this unformed substance—was “me”.

139:16 “The days that were ordained for me”: This doesn’t mean that David’s life was predestined or written in stone and he didn’t have any freewill.

For David did sin and obviously God didn’t plan that event (2 Samuel 11).

Kidner notes that this verse can mean that David’s development in the womb and outside the womb was all pre-programmed. That is, his embryonic members were likewise planned and known before the many stages of their development.

“A powerful reminder of the value He sets on us, even as embryos” (p. 466).

The All-Caring God 139:17-18 In these two verses David reflects on the abundance of God’s thoughts toward him. Such a powerful God actually thinks about me! Such a God actually cares about me! In the Bible we learn the depth of such concern and love (John 3:16). God did not merely create us and then let us go, God is always thinking about you and me! Every moment God is looking at me, every moment God is hoping that I would do what is right, in every given situation God is pulling for me—wow! God’s thoughts concerning me far outnumber even the individual grains of sand on the seashore. Even when David wakes up after a nap or a night’s sleep, God is still watching over him. He may have lost consciousness of God in sleep, but God never lost consciousness of him. The fact that God thinks about you every moment—is that thought “precious to you”?

“Such divine knowledge is not only wonderful but precious, since it carries its own proof of infinite commitment: God will not leave the work of His own hands, either to chance or to ultimate extinction” (Kidner p. 466).

The All-Holy 139:19-22 The very clarity of the truths in the first part of this psalm makes any evil or boasting against God—intolerable to the writer. When one is impressed with the truths about God and His greatness, as one re-enters the atmosphere the earth creates, one is struck with the true abhorrence of rebellion against such a wonderful Creator. For all the strong language in these verses, the hatred of this section is not spite, but rather zeal for God. “It is worth noting that David’s resolve was not necessarily easy, since the unscrupulous can be convenient allies, and the scoffers can be daunting opponents” (Kidner p. 467).

David isn’t being self-righteous in these verses, rather, because God is so

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exquisitely described in verses 1-18 and obviously deserves our praise and worship, to rebel against Him, is absolute evil.

139:22 “I hate them with the utmost hatred”: Sometimes we say, “Hate the sin, but love the sinner”. It is nice advise, but it is also hard to do since love of the sinner, if we are not extremely careful, leads first to a love of the sinner’s sinful ways (or at least overlooking them). “David was not at all sure that he could successfully love one and hate the other…It only means that he did not want to be with those who were openly marked by evil or were hatching evil actions” (Boice p. 1211).

Making The Personal Application 139:23-24 Far from being self-righteous, David wants to make sure that the evil he hates is not in his own heart! “His avoidance of evil people is not because he is too good for such people, but because he cannot trust himself (1 Corinthians 15:33) in evil company…He is prone to the same sins” (Boice p. 1211).

Points to Note: 1. Far from wanting to hide from God, David pleads that God would search him entirely and bring to light and confront him with any evil that might be in his life and heart. 2. In spite of the fact that David is surrounded by evil men, David insists upon having himself examined. David is not the type of person who excuses himself because others are far more evil than he is. 3. “Happy the Christian who prays thus every day! Who puts himself into the presence of the all-seeing God, who stands in His light, and is willing to have anything and everything which is not right brought to light and judged. This is the true walk ‘in the light’. Even the thoughts must be so dealt with (2 Corinthians 10:5)” (Boice p. 1212). 4. “Having judged God’s enemies. David is quite willing to place himself under the same judgment---to have the Lord turn the spotlight on his inner being…This is the intimacy that God wants to have with us” (Williams p.

488). 5. Notice that David calls sin a “hurtful way”—whether to God or man— recognizing that sin is never an isolated incident.

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