Psalm 139 Part 1

One of David’s most excellent psalms, a sublime and delicately crafted chiasm; a commentary on God’s divinity and the psalmist response to His greatness. Divided into 4 sections of 6 verses with each section focusing on a different attribute of God: Vs1-6 speaks of His omniscient, yet it is not just that God knows everything – He knows me! V7-12 speaks of His Omnipresence, yet it is not just that God is everywhere – He is everywhere with me! In Vs13-18 He is Omnipotent, but it is not just that God created everything – He created me! Vs 19-24 God’s attribute of righteous holiness is focused on. Our small thoughts about God are transcended by this psalm, yet it remains an intensely personal song from first to last. Notice the contrasting proliferation of the first person pronouns ‘I’, ‘me” and ‘my’ with the second person pronouns of ‘You’ and ‘Your.’ These verses are warmly personal.

David used the proverbial phrase of v2 to say that God knew everything about him, even the most everyday things. As Jesus would later say, God knows the number of hairs on our head (Matt 10:30). God not only knew the smallest aspects of David’s everyday life; He also knew his thoughts. God knows our words before we speak them, and there is nothing of us hidden from the all-knowing God. As David wrote, You ‘are intimately acquainted with all my ways’ (v3.) David knew that the true God cared enough to have searched and known each human being. He understood that God knew him and his condition better than he knew himself, (v6). This a wonderful and humble place to be.

In the second stanza (V7-12) David considered the truth that God is present everywhere, and there is not a feather blowing in some obscure corner of the universe that is hidden from Him. God’s sovereignty extends to the whole created universe. God is everywhere, but he is not everything. The ‘wings of the morning’ refer to the spread and speed of light as it fills the morning sky from the east to the west. Light itself cannot outrun God’s presence and knowledge.