Psalms 139:3-13

3 you scrutinize my daily activities. You are so familiar with all my ways

4 that before I speak even a word, ADONAI, you know all about it already.

5 You have hemmed me in both behind and in front and laid your hand on me.

6 Such wonderful knowledge is beyond me, far too high for me to reach.

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

8 If I climb up to heaven, you are there; if I lie down in Sh'ol, you are there.

9 If I fly away with the wings of the dawn and land beyond the sea,

10 even there your hand would lead me, your right hand would hold me fast.

11 If I say, "Let darkness surround me, let the light around me be night,"

12 even darkness like this is not too dark for you; rather, night is as clear as day, darkness and light are the same.

13 For you fashioned my inmost being, you knit me together in my mother's womb.

Psalms 139:3-13 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.