Psalms 139:13-24

13 You created every part of me; you put me together in my mother's womb.

14 I praise you because you are to be feared; all you do is strange and wonderful. I know it with all my heart.

15 When my bones were being formed, carefully put together in my mother's womb, when I was growing there in secret, you knew that I was there -

16 you saw me before I was born. The days allotted to me had all been recorded in your book, before any of them ever began.

17 O God, how difficult I find your thoughts; ¹ how many of them there are!

18 If I counted them, they would be more than the grains of sand. When I awake, I am still with you.

19 O God, how I wish you would kill the wicked! How I wish violent people would leave me alone!

20 They say wicked things about you; they speak evil things against your name.

21 O Lord, how I hate those who hate you! How I despise those who rebel against you!

22 I hate them with a total hatred; I regard them as my enemies.

23 Examine me, O God, and know my mind; test me, and discover my thoughts.

24 Find out if there is any evil in me and guide me in the everlasting way.

Psalms 139:13-24 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. +2139.17Ben Sira 18.5-7.

Footnotes

• [a]. how difficult I find your thoughts; [or] how precious are your thoughts to me.
• [b]. [Probable text] they speak . . . name; [Hebrew unclear.]
• [c]. the everlasting way; [or] the ways of my ancestors.