Psalm 139 Part 2

In 139:10 we find David was so assured of the constant presence of God’s hand of love and care that not even death and the grave could separate him from God’s love – as Paul would later write in Rom 8:38-39. To David, God’s presence was like a constant light in the darkness v12. As the pillar of cloud illuminated Israel in the wilderness (Ex13:21), so with God’s presence ‘the night shines as the day.’

V13 speaks of the fact that God knew David from before his birth, as a child conceived and developing in the womb. The fact that God knows and cares for children in the womb means that God’s concern for life begins at conception. It means that God’s people have a responsibility to also know and care for children in the womb. Some people argue for the moral right to have an abortion because the mother has the right to do as she pleases with her own body. However, Ps139 demonstrates that God sees another person in the mother’s womb.

We are ‘fearfully and wonderfully made.’ V14 declares. The workings of the human body are stunning in their design, extremely complicated in their function and execution. We know far more than David ever did about how we are made, and it should make us full of more awe and praise than David ever had. If we are marvellously wrought before birth, what shall we declare concerning the Lord’s dealings with us after we have quit His secret workshop? What shall we say as He directs our pathway through the pilgrimage of life. How marvellous and even more mysterious is the new birth?

The work of God in fashioning the body of the individual has made some people wonder about the presence of birth defects, and what that may mean regarding God’s work. We should regard such birth defects as injuries to God’s original design, and even as a person may be injured out of the womb, so they can be injured while still in the womb and in the process of formation. Such injuries are the result of the fall and the corruption it introduced into the world.