Not many passages in Scripture communicate the heart of God towards his people quite like Psalm 139. And rightfully so, it’s a popular passage that pulls at the heart and resonates with us at the deepest levels of what it means to be human. It’s a psalm of comfort and confidence – about how completely God sees us, how intimately He knows us, how deeply He loves us, and how intently He hears us.
Take a moment to steep yourself in the first twelve verses of Psalm 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.
For this post, I’d like to simply spend time ruminating on each verse, because each one—each word even—is a nourishment and salve to the soul. Let’s begin…
1 O Lord, you have searched me and known me!
“O LORD” stands for God’s personal name, Yahweh, communicating his covenant-making, covenant-keeping nature to his people. Yahweh is the name that specifically represents his steadfast love and faithfulness, his mercy and justice, and his commitment to never leave us or forsake us.
That type of God—infinite in tenderness and personalness towards us—searches us and knows us. All of our anxious thoughts. All of our heavy burdens. All of our prayers and petitions. All of our pains and pressures. All of our disappointment and despair. He knows what we need before we need it, and why. He knows what we desire and long for, and why. He knows the way we feel, the way we process, and why. He has searched out every dimension of what’s on our heart and mind—and known it completely.
2 You know when I sit down and when I rise up;
Even the smallest moments of our lives—such as our sitting down and rising up—actions we do not even count or consider, God counts and considers.
Our minds only have so much bandwidth to ponder the details—big and small—of our lives; but since nothing could seem more insignificant than the number of times we sit down and rise up each day, those trivial moments are automatically discarded in our minds. And yet, God gives thought to it. He’s counted every single time we sat down and gotten back up. That’s how closely God is watching and looking after us. But this truth conveys more than just the fact that God counts and considers; it means that what we consider to be so utterly insignificant to us—is evidently significant to God.
This ought to give us great hope: If the most meaningless things to us actually matter to God, then clearly, the most weighty things to us matter so much more to God. If our own sitting and rising do not command our own attention, but they do command the attention and care of God, then how much more then does our anxiety and anguish, despair and doubts, our trials and tribulations command the attention, care, and investment of God. We may be dismayed and be tempted to think that God doesn’t know… oh, but He knows all that much—and much more. And that is a comfort.
you discern my thoughts from afar.
Not only does God know what we’re thinking, but He also discerns our thoughts—He makes sense of them, especially when we cannot discern our own thoughts ourselves. When we struggle helplessly through own mental clutter and brain fog, God discerns our thoughts with absolute clarity and precision. What’s confusing and cryptic and convoluted to us… is crystal clear to Him. Through the indwelling presence of the Holy Spirit, God the Spirit in us helps us groan to God the Father for us, lifting up our heavy-heartedness and translating our messy-mindedness in a way that is too deep for words (Rom. 8).
Do you ever struggle to pray to God about all that is on your heart and mind? You just can’t find the words, or what to pray or how to pray about it? By grace, the Holy Spirit struggles with us—and prays for us according to His will—expressing everything that we tried petitioning about, if we knew everything He knew.
3 You search out my path and my lying down
and are acquainted with all my ways.
More than knowing our thoughts, God also knows our activity and our non-activity.
He searches out “my path” – i.e., my schedule, my meetings, my responsibilities, where I’m going, what I’m doing, who I’m with, when I’m arriving, how the day went. Our Apple Watch may count the quantity of our steps, but God knows the quantity and the quality of each step throughout the day.
He also searches out our “lying down” – i.e., when we stop, when we feel overwhelmed, when we rest, when we are exhausted, when we feel burned out. God knows when I’m going, going, going… and He also knows when I’m done and can’t do anything more.
He’s acquainted with all of our ways, the activity as well as the non-activity, and everything in between.
4 Even before a word is on my tongue,
behold, O Lord, you know it altogether.
This transition from verse 3 to verse 4 shows the completeness of how deeply God knows us. Verse 3 to verse 4 crescendos in intimacy.
Verse 3, for example, is all about how God takes notice of our external behavior: Our running, our doing, our stopping. Our excitement, our exhaustion. Our productivity, our leisure. Our good works, our sin. Our activity, our passivity. But verse 4 is all about how God intimately knows our internal condition: He knows our thought processes, desires, struggles, anxieties, cares, and concerns. Even before a word is on our tongue, He knows it altogether. In other words, God knows completely what we’re about to pray for before we even say the words. He knows what we’re trying to pray for, even when we don’t have the words.
He knows all of our groans; all of our sighing, all of our tears; and all of our longing is not hidden from Him (Psalm 38:9). God knows the way we are wrestling with X, working through Y, wondering about Z, worrying about A, walking through B, wading through C, and waiting in between it all.
5 You hem me in, behind and before,
and lay your hand upon me.
An initial read of that verse might conjure up the image of a loving father tucking-in his child before bedtime. “You hem me in, behind and before,” i.e., tuck them in tightly, warmly, snugly. Then, “and lay your hand upon me,” i.e., a personal touch, a signal of love, a time for rest.
But the Hebrew word for ‘hem me in, behind and before’ invokes an image quite different from a cuddly lullaby, bedtime experience. The Hebrew literally means ‘besiege’ – similar to how one nation would besiege a city for takeover. Besieging was a warfare tactic whereby a nation would completely surround a city or town, functionally cutting off all imports and exports so that the city would be drained of its own resources—and would, therefore, be forced into absolute dependence on the nation besieging them.
Verse 5 conveys something similar: God lovingly ‘besieges’ us—of course, not as a wartime tactic against us—but undoubtedly for spiritual warfare as He fights for us. Powerfully, God completely encircles around us. From all sides, God is there. Lovingly, He often drives us into forcible dependence so that we learn to draw on His resources, not merely our own. Wisely, He drains us of our weak autonomy, so that we can be strong in His strength.
But not only does He surround us and besiege us in love—He also lays his hand on us. The picture is compelling: God is not just on all sides… He’s above us, too. No matter where we go or look or strive – He is with us.
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.
God assures us that through the highs and lows, the mountaintops or the valleys, even the most extreme cases, such as Heaven or Sheol… God is with us. And that’s the greatest assurance we could ever have.
There are two repeated words in this section that ought to resonate deeply with us: “Where…” and “If…” Our deep concern about where to go, what do to, and what might happen.
We come to God constantly with our “Where, God?” and “What if, Lord?” statements.
“God, where are you in this?”
“God, where do I go?”
“God, what if… I do this, and this happens?”
“God, what if… it doesn’t change?”
“God, what if… they don’t understand?”
But every “where” and “what if” is followed by “you are there!”
Not just a statement of truth, but a proclamation of promise.
The imagery of verse 10, also, is moving: “even there your hand shall lead me, and your right hand shall hold me.” With one hand, God is pointing out the direction. He’s leading us. With His other hand, God is holding on to us. He’s keeping us.
Interestingly, David makes it a point to emphasize that it’s God’s “right hand,” in particular, that holds us; and it’s God’s other hand that leads us. Throughout Scripture, the “right hand” is a symbol of power. So by referencing both ‘hands’ of God as it were, David is emphasizing an important truth: God, indeed, is leading His children; but more important than knowing where we’re going, or where and how God is leading, is the deep assurance that we’re held and kept in perfect power in the process. More important than knowing the where, what, when, how, why… is knowing Who holds onto us through it all, and He’s committed to never letting us go. The ‘left hand’ of God may change, directionally and circumstantially, but the ‘right hand’ of God holds us unchangeably and powerfully.
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.
We will all find ourselves in valleys of deep darkness, where we say to ourselves, “Surely, God is not here. Surely, it’s too dark. Surely, it’s too messed up. Surely, it’s too broken. Surely, it too irredeemable. Surely, it’s too far gone. Surely, I’m too old. Surely, I’m too young. Surely, I’m too inexperienced. Surely, they wouldn’t understand. Surely, the probabilities, possibilities, percentages, and problems are stacked against me!”
But God assures us that no darkness is too dark for Him. In fact, even that kind of darkness that comes to our mind – that kind of darkness, to God, is as bright as day.
With God, there is always hope, light, clarity, and confidence. There might be a cloud of deep darkness overhanging you right now, but God also sees what’s around it and behind it and before it and beyond it—and God has good in store even through it, as He promises to make all things work for the good of those who love Him (Romans 8:28).
Only twelve verses into Psalm 139, and we’ve seen promise and providence, peace and a much bigger perspective—all rooted in God’s heart for us, His commitment to us, of His sovereignty over us, and His intimate involvement in our lives—at every level. The One who loves you most, knows you best.
How does Psalm 139 encourage you? Challenge you? Calm you?
