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Psalms 139:9-19
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9
If I could fly on the wings of dawn, stopping to rest only on the far side of the ocean—
10
even there your hand would guide me; even there your strong hand would hold me tight!
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If I said, "The darkness will definitely hide me; the light will become night around me,"
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even then the darkness isn't too dark for you! Nighttime would shine bright as day, because darkness is the same as light to you!
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You are the one who created my innermost parts; you knit me together while I was still in my mother's womb.
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I give thanks to you that I was marvelously set apart. Your works are wonderful—I know that very well.
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My bones weren't hidden from you when I was being put together in a secret place, when I was being woven together in the deep parts of the earth.
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Your eyes saw my embryo, and on your scroll every day was written that was being formed for me, before any one of them had yet happened.
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God, your plans are incomprehensible to me! Their total number is countless!
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If I tried to count them—they outnumber grains of sand! If I came to the very end—I'd still be with you.
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If only, God, you would kill the wicked! If only murderers would get away from me—
Images for Psalms 139:9-19
Psalms 139:9-19 Meaning and Commentary
To the chief Musician, A Psalm of David. This psalm was written by David, when he lay under the reproach and calumnies of men, who laid false things to his charge; things he was not conscious of either in the time of Saul's persecution of him, or when his son Absalom rebelled against him: and herein he appeals to the heart searching and rein trying God for his innocence; and, when settled on his throne, delivered it to the master of music, to make use of it on proper occasions. According to the Syriac title of the psalm, the occasion of it was Shimei, the son of Gera, reproaching and cursing him as a bloody man, 2 Samuel 16:5. Theodoret takes it to be a prophecy of Josiah, and supposes that he is represented as speaking throughout the psalm. Aben Ezra observes, that this is the most glorious and excellent psalm in all the book: a very excellent one it is: but whether the most excellent, it is hard to say. It treats of some of the most glorious of the divine perfections; omniscience, omnipresence, and omnipotence. Arama says, the argument of it is God's particular knowledge of men, and his providence over their affairs.
Taken from John Gill's Exposition of the Bible
Copyright © 2011 Common English Bible