Psalm 139:13

EXPLANATORY NOTES AND QUAINT SAYINGS

Verse 13. Thou hast possessed my reins. From the sensitiveness to pain of this part of the body, it was regarded by the Hebrews as the seat of sensation and feeling, as also of desire and longing ( Psalms 72:21 Job 16:13 19:27). It is sometimes used of the inner nature generally ( Psalms 16:7 Jeremiah 20:12 ), and specially of the judgment or direction of reason (Jer 11:20 12:2). --William Lindsay Alexander, in Kitto's Cyclopaedia.

Verse 13. Thou hast possessed my reins. The reins are made specially prominent in order to mark them, the seat of the most tender, most secret emotions, as the work of him who trieth the heart and the reins. --Franz Delitzsch.

Verse 13. Thou hast covered me in my mother's womb. The word here rendered cover means properly to interweave; to weave; to knit together, and the literal translation would be, "Thou hast woven me in my mother's womb", meaning that God had put his parts together, as one who weaves cloth, or who makes a basket. So it is rendered by De Wette and by Gesenius (Lex.). The original word has, however, also the idea of protecting, as in a booth or hut, woven or knit together, -- to wit, of boughs and branches. The former signification best suits the connection; and then the sense would be, that as God had made him -- as he had formed his members, and united them in a bodily frame and form before he was born -- he must be able to understand all his thoughts and feelings. As he was not concealed from God before he saw the light, so he could not be anywhere. --Albert Barnes.