Psalms 139:18

If I should count them, they are more in number than the sand,...., That is, if I should attempt to do it, it would be as vain and fruitless as to attempt to count the sands upon the seashore, which are innumerable; Psalms 11:5.

If I should count them, they are more in number than the sand: when I awake, I am still with thee. If I should count them, they are more in number than the sand - "which cannot be measured nor numbered" (Hosea 1:10).

To wit, by my thoughts and meditations. Thy wonderful counsels and works on my behalf come constantly into my mind, not only in the day time, but even in the night season, which is commonly devoted to rest and sleep; whensoever I awake, either in the night or in the morning. These are my last thoughts when I lie down, and my first when I rise.

Psalms 139:18 [If] I should count them, they are more in number than the sand: when I awake, I am still with thee.Ver. 18. If I should count them, &c.] q.d. They are infinite and immmerable. Archimedes, that great mathematician, bragged, that he could number all the sands in the habitable and inhabitable world, but no man ever believed him. See 1 Samuel 13:5 2 Samuel 17:11 Psalms 78:27. When I awake, I am still with thee] Still taken up with some holy contemplation of thy works and wisdom. These thoughts I fall asleep with, and these I awake with. As I rake up my fire overnight, so I find it in the morning.

(18) If I should . . .—The original is more expressive:— “Let me count them—more than the sand they are many: I have awaked—and still with thee.” With the countless mysteries of creation and providence the poet is so occupied, that they are his first waking thought; or, perhaps, as the Hebrew suggests, his dreams are continued into his early thoughts. “Is not the vision He? tho’ He be not that which He seems? Dreams are true while they last; and do we not live in dreams?” : Higher Pantheism.

Verse 18. If I should count them] I should be glad to enumerate so many interesting particulars: but they are beyond calculation. When I awake] Thou art my Governor and Protector night and day. I am still with thee.] All my steps in life are ordered by thee: I cannot go out of thy presence; I am ever under the influence of thy Spirit. The subject, from the 14th verse to the 16th Psalms 139:14-16 inclusive, might have been much more particularly illustrated, but we are taught, by the peculiar delicacy of expression in the Sacred Writings, to avoid, as in this case, the entering too minutely into anatomical details. I would, however, make an additional observation on the subject in the 15th and 16th verses. Psalms 139:15-16 I have already remarked the elegant allusion to embroidery, in the word רקמתי rukkamti, in the astonishing texture of the human body; all of which is said to be done in secret, בסתר bassether, in the secret place, viz., the womb of the mother, which, in the conclusion of the verse, is by a delicate choice of expression termed the lower parts of the earth. The embryo state, גלם golem, has a more forcible meaning than our word substance amounts to. גלם galam signifies to roll or wrap up together; and expresses the state of the fetus before the constituent members were developed. The best system of modern philosophy allows that ino semine masculino all the members of the future animal are contained; and that these become slowly developed or unfolded, in the case of fowls, by incubation; and in the case of the more perfect animals, by gestation in the maternal matrix. It is no wonder that, in considering these, the psalmist should cry out, How precious, or extraordinary, are thy thoughts! how great is the sum - heads or outlines, of them! The particulars are, indeed, beyond comprehension; even the heads - the general contents, of thy works; while I endeavour to form any tolerable notion of them, prevail over me - they confound my understanding, and are vastly too multitudinous for my comprehension.

18. moe] For this archaism cp. Psalms 69:4. when I awake &c.] His last thoughts as he falls asleep are of God; and when he awakes, he finds himself still in His Presence, still occupied in contemplating the mystery of His Being. Cp. Psalms 63:6. The Targum, “I awake in the world to come, and I am still with Thee”; and Symm. “I shall awake, and I shall be for ever with Thee,” interpret the words of the resurrection, but this cannot be their original meaning.

If I should count them - If I could count them. They are more in number than the sand - Numberless as the sand on the sea-shore.

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