Psalms 139:1-18

For the director of music. Of David. A psalm.

1 You have searched me, LORD, and you know me.

2 You know when I sit and when I rise; you perceive my thoughts from afar.

3 You discern my going out and my lying down; you are familiar with all my ways.

4 Before a word is on my tongue you, LORD, know it completely.

5 You hem me in behind and before, and you lay your hand upon me.

6 Such knowledge is too wonderful for me, too lofty for me to attain.

7 Where can I go from your Spirit? Where can I flee from your presence?

8 If I go up to the heavens, you are there; if I make my bed in the depths, you are there.

9 If I rise on the wings of the dawn, if I settle on the far side of the sea,

10 even there your hand will guide me, your right hand will hold me fast.

11 If I say, “Surely the darkness will hide me and the light become night around me,”

12 even the darkness will not be dark to you; the night will shine like the day, for darkness is as light to you.

13 For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb.

14 I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well.

15 My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place, when I was woven together in the depths of the earth.

16 Your eyes saw my unformed body; all the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be.

17 How precious to me are your thoughts,^[a] God! How vast is the sum of them!

18 Were I to count them, they would outnumber the grains of sand— when I awake, I am still with you.

Psalms 139:1-18 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.

Cross References

• 1. S Psalms 17:3; Romans 8:27
• 2. Psalms 44:21; Jeremiah 12:3
• 3. 2 Kings 19:27
• 4. Psalms 94:11; Proverbs 24:12; Jeremiah 12:3; Matthew 9:4; John 2:24
• 5. 2 Kings 19:27
• 6. S Job 31:4
• 7. S Hebrews 4:13
• 8. S 1 Samuel 25:16; Psalms 32:10; Psalms 34:7; Psalms 125:2
• 9. S Psalms 131:1
• 10. Job 42:3; Romans 11:33
• 11. Jeremiah 23:24; John 1:3
• 12. Deuteronomy 30:12-15; Amos 9:2-3
• 13. Job 17:13; Proverbs 15:11
• 14. Psalms 23:3
• 15. Psalms 108:6; Isaiah 41:10
• 16. Job 34:22; Daniel 2:22
• 17. Psalms 119:73
• 18. S Job 10:11
• 19. Isaiah 44:2,24; Isaiah 46:3; Isaiah 49:5; Jeremiah 1:5
• 20. Psalms 119:164; Psalms 145:10
• 21. S Job 40:19; Psalms 40:5
• 22. Ecclesiastes 11:5
• 23. S Job 10:11
• 24. S Psalms 63:9
• 25. S Job 33:29; S Psalms 90:12
• 26. S Psalms 92:5
• 27. S Job 5:9; Psalms 40:5
• 28. Psalms 40:5
• 29. S Job 29:18
• 30. S Psalms 3:5

Footnotes

• [a]. Or "How amazing are your thoughts concerning me"