Psalms 139 - ESV - Bible Reading / Study Notes

Psalm 139

Search Me, O God, and Know My Heart

To the choirmaster. A Psalm of David.

139:1   O LORD, you have searched me and known me!
2   You know when I sit down and when I rise up;
    you discern my thoughts from afar.
3   You search out my path and my lying down
    and are acquainted with all my ways.
4   Even before a word is on my tongue,
    behold, O LORD, you know it altogether.
5   You hem me in, behind and before,
    and lay your hand upon me.
6   Such knowledge is too wonderful for me;
    it is high; I cannot attain it.
7   Where shall I go from your Spirit?
    Or where shall I flee from your presence?
8   If I ascend to heaven, you are there!
    If I make my bed in Sheol, you are there!
9   If I take the wings of the morning
    and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea,
10   even there your hand shall lead me,
    and your right hand shall hold me.
11   If I say, “Surely the darkness shall cover me,
    and the light about me be night,”
12   even the darkness is not dark to you;
    the night is bright as the day,
    for darkness is as light with you.
13   For you formed my inward parts;
    you knitted me together in my mother’s womb.
14   I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.¹
  Wonderful are your works;
    my soul knows it very well.
15   My frame was not hidden from you,
  when I was being made in secret,
    intricately woven in the depths of the earth.
16   Your eyes saw my unformed substance;
  in your book were written, every one of them,
    the days that were formed for me,
    when as yet there was none of them.
17   How precious to me are your thoughts, O God!
    How vast is the sum of them!
18   If I would count them, they are more than the sand.
    I awake, and I am still with you.
19   Oh that you would slay the wicked, O God!
    O men of blood, depart from me!
20   They speak against you with malicious intent;
    your enemies take your name in vain.²
21   Do I not hate those who hate you, O LORD?
    And do I not loathe those who rise up against you?
22   I hate them with complete hatred;
    I count them my enemies.
23   Search me, O God, and know my heart!
    Try me and know my thoughts!³
24   And see if there be any grievous way in me,
    and lead me in the way everlasting!⁴

Footnotes

[1] 139:14 Or for I am fearfully set apart
[2] 139:20 Hebrew lacks your name
[3] 139:23 Or cares
[4] 139:24 Or in the ancient way (compare Jeremiah 6:16)

Commentary

God's total and intimate knowledge of the individual.

v1-4: God's thorough knowledge of me; my actions, my thoughts, my plans, my words; we have confidence that this knowledge is not used to destroy, although we deserve judgment, but to build up and to teach; "you know it completely," indicating a thorough knowledge. This knowledge is not to induce fear in us, but confidence in the God who knows us thoroughly.

Several African tribes have names for God that reflect His omnipresence:

God "is everywhere at once" (Bena); "He who is everywhere" (Bamum); "God who is met everywhere" (Banyarwanda); "The One you meet is everywhere" (Kono).

v5: His hand upon me, to build up and to protect. See Job 1.10; the enemy's accusation was that God had hedged in Job.

v6: Such things are had to grasp; we like to think that God is somehow under our control, yet the truth is very different.

v7-10: Nowhere to hide, for God is omnipresent; illustrated in Jonah. For us, the problem is not so much running away in a physical or geographic sense, but straying from God's ways in our actions and attitudes. If we embrace the attitudes of unbelievers, God is still there.

v11-12: Nothing is hidden from God; our joyful times, our sorrowful times, are all alike to God; our secret sins, our secret acts of mercy, are all known to God.

v13-16: The creation of the individual; formed by God, 'skilfully wrought,' lit. 'embroidered' as by a weaver (see Ex 35.35; 38.23). The very complexity of human-kind testifies to the wonderful power of God, our creator. We are to be made more like Christ, but this is a secret work and a skilful work, done in the heart.

Since God has written in a book those days "fashioned for me," I have every confidence that there will be glorious.

'I'm here not because I look in a mirror, but because I look in the word and say that I am one of the wonders of God.' (David Devenish Demolishing Strongholds)

v17-18: He who knows me best loves me most; this relationship is maintained by God's faithfulness. His thoughts towards me are many, too vast to count, but they are the route of His blessings into my life.

v19-22: The psalmist shares God's attitude towards sinners; not a personal bitterness to individuals, but a righteous hatred of their attitudes and actions. In contrast, we are to be friends with the friends of God.

v23-24: Closing prayer; a genuine willingness to be searched by God; this is totally consistent with the statements that God knows us;

to check my attitudes as well as my actions;
to check my words as well as my works.

"Search" means 'ransack' such that any "offensive way" be exposed and dealt with. Again our confidence is that He will lead me in the way everlasting, the way of truth and righteousness.

This is a personal prayer, less appropriate perhaps in a public meeting.