Psalms 139

Psalms 139:1-24

Psalms 139THE Psalmist describes God’s omnipresence and omniscience, Psalms 139:1-12, as attributes necessarily belonging to him as the Creator, Psalms 139:13-18, and appeals to them in attestation of his own aversion to the wicked, Psalms 139:19-24. From its collocation it is probable that this psalm records David’s exercises under the powerful impressions of the great Messianic promises in 2 Samuel 7, and is therefore to be regarded as a confession and profession made not merely for himself but for his successors on the throne of Israel, and intended both to warn them and console them by this grand view of Jehovah’s constant and infallible inspection.

1. (Psalms 139:1) To the Chief Musician. By David. A Psalm. Jehovah, thou hast searched me and knowest. As a later writer could have no motive for prefixing the title to the Chief Musician, it affords an incidental proof of antiquity and genuineness. Thou hast searched me, or continually searchest me.

The Hebrew verb originally means to dig, and is applied to the search for precious metals (Job 28:3), but metaphorically to a moral inquisition into guilt. See above, on Psalms 44:21, and compare Job 13:9. It is here used in the intermediate sense of full investigation. Thou hast known or knowest all that can result from such a scrutiny, not only my corruptions and infirmities but my cares and sorrows. . The object is not expressed in this verse, which is a summaryof the whole psalm, because the very object of what follows is to state it in detail.

2. (Psalms 139:2) Thou knowest my sitting and my rising; thou understandest as to my thought from afar. Sitting and rising or standing represent rest and motion, or all the various conditions of the living, waking man. See above, on Psalms 1:1; Psalms 27:2. In every posture, state, and occupation, thou knowest me. The next phrase does not merely signify, thou perceivest the meaning of my thought, but thou knowest all about it, its origin, its tendency, its moral quality; thou understandest (every thing) respecting it. From afar, unimpeded by local distance, by which men are prone to imagine the divine omniscience to be circumscribed. See Job 22:12-14, and compare with this verse Psalms 138:6, Jeremiah 23:23.

3. (Psalms 139:3) My path and my lair thou siftest, and with all my ways art acquainted. Path is here put for going, lair for lying, and these, like the terms of the preceding verse, for motion and rest, or the active and passive parts of human life. The poetical word lair is used to represent a Hebrew one, occurring only here, but the verbal root of which is used by Moses, Leviticus 18:23; Leviticus 20:16. The last verb means to be accustomed (Numbers 22:30), and then by a natural association, acquainted or familiar (Job 22:21). My ways, my condition and my conduct, what I do and what I suffer.

4. (Psalms 139:4) For there is not a word in my tongue, (but) lo, Jehovah, thou knowest all of it. The relation of the clauses may be also expressed thus in English, which, 0 Lord, thou knowest not, all of it (or altogether). In my tongue, in its power, or, as it were, in its possession. This verse merely applies to his words specifically what was said before of all his actions. The lo or behold is equivalent to see there, or to the act of pointing at the words as objects of sight and as actually present.

5. (Psalms 139:5) Behind and before thou dost beset me, and layest upon me thy hand. There is here an insensible transition from God’s omniscience to his omni-presence, out of which the Scriptures represent it as arising. Behind and before, i.e. on all sides. The idea of above and below is suggested by the last clause. Beset, besiege, hem in, or closely surround. Thy hand, or the palm of thy hand, as the Hebrew word strictly denotes.

6. (Psalms 139:6) Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; it is exalted, I cannot (attain) to it. The literal meaning of the Hebrew word is, wonderful knowledge away from me, or more than I (can comprehend); it is exalted, I cannot (do anything) as to it. With the word wonderful compare the use of the cognate verb, Deuteronomy 30:11, Proverbs 30:18. The knowledge meant is man’s finite knowledge of the infinite.

7. (Psalms 139:7) Whither shall I go from thy Spirit, and whither from, thy face shall I flee? The interrogation involves a denial of all possible escape from God’s inspection, when a guilty conscience prompts to seek one. Compare Amos 9:2.

8. (Psalms 139:8) If I scale the heavens, there (art) thou; and if I spread the grave, lo thou (art there). The word scale is used to represent a Hebrew verb occurring only here, and no doubt belonging to the dialect of poetry. The verb translated spread means specifically to spread a couch or make a bed. If I make sheol my bed, i.e. lie down in the grave or hell, in the wide old English sense. See above, on Psalms 6:5.

9. (Psalms 139:9) I will raise the wings of day-break. 1 will dwell in the end of the sea. By supplying if, although the sense is not materially changed, the form of expression becomes much less striking. The conditional construction is forbidden also, or at least rendered highly improbable, by the form of the second verb, expressing strong desire and resolution. The truth is, that we have here a bold transition. After speaking of guilty flight from God him-self, the Psalmist now speaks of anxious flight from other enemies, and as if visibly surrounded by them, here resolves to escape from them. This, which is Hengstenberg’s interpretation, is strongly favoured by the unconditional construction, although he himself retains the other.

The same writer objects to the translation raise the wings, that before one can raise wings he must have them. But for that very reason the possession of themmay be presupposed, or considered as implied in the act expressed. The same combination is employed by Ezekiel (Ezekiel 10:16; Ezekiel 10:19), in a way that admits of only one translation. The Hebrew word is not the common one for morning, but one denoting day-break or the dawn. See above, on Psalms 57:8. The point of comparison appears. to be the incalculable velocity of light.

The extremity (or end) of the sea, is added to heaven and hell, in order to convey the idea of the most remote points.

10. (Psalms 139:10) Even there thy hand guides me, and thy right hand holds me. From the use of similar expressions to denote a friendly guidance and support, in Psalms 18:16; Psalms 55:6-8; Psalms 5:8; Psalms 23:3; Psalms 27:11; Psalms 73:24, and other places, Hengstenberg infers that this must mean, when I fly to the ends of the earth before my enemies, thou art still there to protect me, and that the psalm was therefore meant not merely to alarm but to console.

11. (Psalms 139:11) And 1 say, only darkness overwhelms me, night is the light become around me. The ideal situation is the same as in Psalms 139:9, one of danger and terror, in which he is constrained to say, nothing but darkness comes upon me, smites me, and the very light is turned to darkness round about me. According to this view of the passage, darkness, as in many other places, is a figure for calamity and danger. See Isaiah 1:10, Psalms 138:7. According to the usual interpretation, it denotes concealment from the eye of God.

12. (Psalms 139:12) Even darkness does not make (it) dark to him, and night like dayshines; as the darkness, so the light. The interpretation given of the foregoing verse does not necessarily affect the sense of this, which still meanspledge that nothing can prevent God’s seeing either sin or suffering, either the danger of his people or the malice of their enemies. Make dark, as in Psalms 105:28. To thee, literally from thee, i.e. so as to conceal from thee.

13. (Psalms 139:13) For thou possessest my reins; thou coverest me in my mother’s womb. The meaning of the first clause seems to be: thou hast in thy power and at thy control the very seat of my strongest sensibilities, my pains and plea- sures; and this subjection is coeval with my being, for even before birth I was under thy protection and command, as I am now. The sense of weaving, which is given to the last verb by some modern writers, rests on a mere etymological deduction, and has no foundation either in tradition or in usage. The for at the beginning of this verse marks the transition from the fact of God’s omniscience to its origin or reason in his creative character and rights. As a logical particle, the for relates, not to the immediately preceding verse, but to the whole preceding context. God is omnipresent and omniscent, for he is the maker of the universe.

14. (Psalms 139:14) I thank thee, because fearfully I am distinguished; wonderful (are) thy works, and (that) my soul knoweth right (well). He makes it a subject of grateful acknowledgment, that God has distinguished him or made him to differ from inferior creatures, both in constitution and in destiny. Because is in Hebrew a compound particle like for that, forasmuch as. Fearfully, literally fearful (things), but used adverbially, as in Psalms 65:5. It might here be rendered (by) fearful (things). The words corresponding to distinguished and wonderful are in Hebrew passive forms from cognate roots.

The particular statement of the first clause is resolved by the last into the general one, of which it is a mere specification. The concluding words express a strong and, as it were, experimental conviction of the truth.

15. (Psalms 139:15) Not hid was my frame from thee, when I was made in secret, embroidered in depths of the earth. The not hid is a meiosis, implying that God saw it clearly, and fully understood it, inasmuch as he himself created it. Frame, literally strength, as in Deuteronomy 8:17, but applied to the bones and sinews as the strength and framework of the body. See above, on Psalms 6:2, and compare Job 10:11. The common Hebrew word for bone differs only in the pointing. The word translated when is the relative pronoun, and may here retain its proper meaning, although then not easily translated, as its antecedent is latent in the phrase my frame, which may be thus resolved, the frame of me who was made, etc.

In secret, i.e. in the womb. Embroidered, which is the invariable meaning of the Hebrew verb, is a bold but beautiful expression for the complicated tissue of the human frame, in which so many and such various threads are curiously interwoven. Depths of the earth can only be explained as a comparative expression, corresponding to in secret and denoting the same thing, which it describes as no less dark and hidden from the view of men than subterraneous caverns, or as some suppose Sheol, the invisible world. See above on Psalms 63:9, and compare Job 1:21, where the figure is inverted, and the grave is confounded with the womb.

16. (Psalms 139:16) My unformed substance did thine eyes see, and in thy tools all of them are written, days are formed, and there is not one among them. This is one of the most obscure and doubtful verses in the book of Psalms. Its difficulty to our own translators may be gathered from the fact, that substance yet being unperfect answers to a single Hebrew word, and that my members is a gratuitous addition to the text. The first word in Hebrew occurs only here, but is clearly derived from a verb which means to roll or roll up (2 Kings 2:8), and may therefore be supposed itself to signify something rolled up or rolled together, and from this may be deduced the sense of something shapeless or unformed, or more specifically that of an mbryo or foetus. The next difficulty lies in the expression all of them, evaded in the English Bible by changing it to all my members, and then making this the subject of the plurals following. The best interpreters are now disposed to construe all of them with days by a grammatical prolepsis.

In thy book all of them are written, namely, all my days, as they were planned, projected, or decreed, before as yet one of them had really existed. Written and formed are then parallel expressions. All of them are written, days are delineated or depicted. By days (translated in our Bible in continuance) we are then to understand not merely the length but the events and vicissitudes of life. See Job 14:5, Psalms 56:8. This is one of those cases in which the difficulty lies in the particular expressions, while the general import of the passage is clearly determined by the context.

Instead of not, the keri or marginal reading in the Hebrew Bible has to him, a variation to which no one has succeeded in attaching a coherent sense. Precisely the same difference of text exists in Psalms 100:3.

17. (Psalms 139:17) And to me how precious are thy thoughts, O God! How great is the sum of them! Having presented this impressive view of God’s omniscience, he now tells how he is himself affected by it. So far from thinking it a hardship to be subject to this scrutiny, he counts it a most valuable privilege. However others may regard this truth, to me, my judgment and my feelings, how costly, valuable, are thy thoughts, i.e. thy perpetual attention to me. For the true sense of precious, see above, on Psalms 36:7; Psalms 45:9. Great is the sum, literally strong (or many) are their sums, an expression which can hardly be retained in our idiom.

18. (Psalms 139:18) I will count them,–(but no)— more than sand they are many— I awake and still I (am) with thee. The first clause is equivalent to a conditional proposition, If I would count them, etc., but far more striking and poetical in form. See above, on Psalms 40:5. I am still with thee has the same essential meaning with the similar expression in Psalms 73:23, namely, I am still in the society or company. But there the reference is chiefly to divine protection, here to meditation on the divine attributes. Thou art still before me as an object of adoring wonder, not by day only, but by night; not merely in the watches of the night, but even in my sleep. See above, on Psalms 1:2; Psalms 16:7; Psalms 63:6.

19. (Psalms 139:19) If thou wilt slay, 0 God, the wicked (man)! And ye men of blood, depart from me? The first clause is in fact, though not in form, the expression of a wish. If thou wouldst but slay! In form, there is no aposiopesis, which may be variously supplied by adding, I will praise thee, I will rejoice, it will be just, or the like. Men of bloods, murderers or murderous men. See above, on Psalms 5:6; Psalms 26:9; Psalms 55:23. Depart from me is the same expression as in Psalms 6:8; Psalms 119:15, but the main idea here is that of disavowal or repudiation. Oh that God would slay them, and until he does, I desire to have no communion with them. Compare Job 21:14, Matthew 7:23.

20. (Psalms 139:20) Who speak of thee for wickedness and take in vain— thy foes. Speak of thee, or name thee, use thy name, for the accomplishment of wicked ends. The other clause will then be strictly parallel, and take (thy name) in vain, as in Exodus 20:7. For the meaning of this difficult expression, see above, on Psalms 24:4. The subject of the proposition is placed emphatically at the end.

21. (Psalms 139:21) Thy haters, O Jehovah, shall not I hate, and with thine assailants be disgusted? The simple future in the first clause comprehends several distinct shades of meaning. Do I not, may I not, must I not, hate those hating thee? Hate them, not as man hates, but as God hates. See above, on Psalms 5:5. The construction of the verb and preposition in the last clause is the same in Hebrew and in English. Be disgusted, literally sicken or disgust myself, abhor, or loathe. Thine assailants, those rising up against thee, as rebellious enemies. The Hebrew word is a noun formed from the participle used above, Psalms 17:7; Psalms 59:1.

22. (Psalms 139:22) (With) perfection of hatred do I hate them, as enemies they are to me. Literally they are for enemies, i.e. I so esteem them. As enemies of God, they must be mine.

23. (Psalms 139:23) Search me, God, and know my heart; try me, and know my thoughts. The last expression is emphatic, meaning even my most anxious and disturbed thoughts, into which corruption might most easily find entrance. See above, on Psalms 94:19, the only other place where the Hebrew word occurs. In this verse, he again appeals to the divine omniscience for the purity of his intentions, and thus comes back to the point from which he started.

24. (Psalms 139:24) And see if a way of pain be in me, and guide me in a way of eternity. In the first clause some translate, the way of an idol, an idolatrous way. But the meaning idol is not justified by usage. A way of pain is one that leads to suffering and misery hereafter. The opposite of this is a way of eternity, by which some understand: an everlasting way, as distinguished from the perishable way of sinners, Psalms 1:6. Others, more probably, the way that leads to everlasting life.

Usage, however, is in favour of a third and very different interpretation, which gives the Hebrew phrase here the same sense with a kindred one used by Jeremiah (Jeremiah 6:16), to wit, that of old or ancient way, the one pursued by prophets, patriarchs, and saints of old. Similar expressions are found in Jeremiah 18:15, Job 22:15, applied, in a bad sense, to the course pursued by ancient sinners. The prayer, however, still amounts to the same thing, to wit, that God would lead him in the good old way, which is itself the way to everlasting life.