Psalm 139 is best known for one line about being fearfully and wonderfully made, and read whole it is a stranger poem than that suggests. Its subject is being unable to get away. God knows every thought before it is spoken; verse 5 says he hems the writer in behind and in front, which is a besieging word. Then five escape routes are tried — heaven, the grave, the sunrise, the far sea, the dark — and none of them works. The reason turns out to be verse 13: you cannot get outside someone who made you from the inside. And the psalm ends by asking that God search the writer himself, immediately after he has declared that he hates his enemies.
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Sitting down, standing up, walking, lying down, and words before they reach the tongue. Verse 5 puts it physically: hemmed in behind and before, with a hand laid on him. Verse 6 admits the whole thing is more than he can take in.
Up to the heavens, down to Sheol, east on the wings of the dawn, west to the farthest sea, and finally into the dark. Each is answered the same way: you are there. The last one gets the best line — darkness is as light to you.
Because God was already inside. Formed his inmost being, knitted him together unseen, saw the unfinished body, and had his days written down before any of them happened. The being-known of verses 1 to 12 turns out to be authorship.
Not fear but appreciation: God's thoughts towards him are precious and uncountable, more than the sand. And then the quietest line in the psalm — when I wake up, I am still with you.
"O God, that you would slay the wicked." Bloodthirsty men, people who misuse God's name, and then a declaration: I hate them with perfect hatred. This is the same psalm, four verses from the end.
Having asked for his enemies to be dealt with, he asks God to search him instead — know my heart, test me, see if there is anything offensive in me, lead me in the way everlasting. The last word is about his own correction.
The first twelve verses are not soothing on their own terms. Verse 5's "you hem me in" translates a word used for laying siege to a city; verse 6 says the knowledge is too much for him. Then he tries five ways out — the sky, the grave, the far east, the far west, the dark — which is not what someone does when they are enjoying being known. The psalm is honest that total exposure feels like being cornered before it feels like being loved, and it does not hurry past that. What resolves it is not a change of feeling but a piece of information in verse 13.
Verse 14 is usually met alone, where it works as a statement about human worth. In place it is doing a job. The writer has just spent six verses failing to escape God, and verses 13 to 16 explain why the attempt was hopeless: God was present at his assembly, worked on his inmost parts, watched the unformed body, and wrote his days down in advance. So "fearfully and wonderfully made" is the reason there is nowhere to run. It is a claim about God's involvement rather than a compliment about the writer, which makes it sturdier — it does not depend on how good he happens to feel about himself.
Verses 19 to 22 are shocking and they are deliberately placed. A psalm about being intimately known asks God to kill people and declares perfect hatred for them. Then, with no transition, verse 23 asks God to search the writer's own heart and see whether there is anything offensive in it. That sequence is the most instructive thing in the psalm. He has just aimed the searchlight at his enemies, and his final move is to turn it on himself — not withdrawing the prayer, but submitting the person who prayed it for inspection. It is what an honest person does after saying something like verse 22 out loud.
Nothing in this psalm promises protection. There are enemies in it at the end and they are still there when it finishes. What it promises is that no location and no condition puts you outside God's reach or notice — including the grave, including the dark, including sleep, since verse 18 says he wakes up still with God. For anyone who has felt unseen or unaccounted for, that is a different and often more useful comfort than a promise about circumstances. It works in places a promise of safety cannot follow you into.
Church language, in ordinary English. Nothing here assumes you have heard the word before.
The escape attempt that sets up the whole poem. Heaven and the grave are the two furthest points a person could name, and both are answered with the same three words.
The turn on which the psalm's argument rests. God's knowledge is not surveillance from outside but the knowledge of someone who did the assembling.
The most quoted line in the psalm, and worth reading with verse 13 in front of it and verse 15 after. It is the middle of an explanation, not a stand-alone affirmation.
Days written down before any of them arrived. One of the Bible's strongest statements about God knowing a life in advance, and one Christians read in more than one way.
The ending, and the reason the psalm holds together. The man who has just declared perfect hatred asks to be searched himself, which is the only decent response to having said it.
Verses 13 to 16 are the most quoted passage in Scripture in arguments about abortion, and it is worth being straight about what they do and do not settle. What the psalm says is clear enough: God was involved before birth, the unformed body was not hidden from him, and the writer's days were counted before any of them began. Christians on more than one side of the question take that seriously, and those who oppose abortion are not misreading it when they say the passage treats the unborn as known and intended by God. What the passage is not is a legal or philosophical definition. It is a prayer of astonishment, written in poetry, whose purpose in the psalm is to explain why the writer cannot escape God — not to fix a moment when personhood begins. Quoting it as though it closed the argument asks a poem to do the work of an argument, and quoting it as though it said nothing at all ignores what it plainly does say. The other misuse is smaller: verse 14 is not a verse about self-esteem, and treating it as one detaches it from the reason it is there.
"Fearfully" here uses an older sense of the word, meaning in a way that produces awe — not anxiously. So the line means something like "I am made in a way that is startling and wonderful", and the credit is God's, not the writer's. It also has a job in the psalm. He has just tried five times to get away from God and failed, and verses 13 to 16 explain the failure: God was there at his making, working on his inmost parts, watching a body that was not finished yet. The verse is the reason there is nowhere to hide, which is why it does not depend on the reader feeling good about themselves.
The Hebrew verb suggests weaving or interlacing, the kind of work that is done carefully and by hand, and the psalm pairs it with God forming his "inmost being" — the internal, unseen parts. Verse 15 doubles the image by saying he was made "in secret" and in "the depths of the earth", both ways of naming a place no human being can look into. Taken together, the claim is that God's involvement with this person started before anybody else knew they existed, and went all the way down rather than being a finishing touch.
It does not use that language, and it is not trying to answer that question — but it says things that bear on it, and Christians disagree about how much weight they carry. What the text asserts is that God formed the writer's inner parts, that his unformed body was already visible to God, and that his days were written down before any of them happened. People who oppose abortion cite that fairly: the passage treats the unborn as known, intended and worked on. Others point out that it is a poem of praise rather than a definition, and that biblical poetry about God's care from the womb also appears in passages about calling and vocation rather than status. The honest summary is that Psalm 139 is real evidence in the discussion and not a settlement of it.
It is an invitation to be examined, and its placement is everything. The writer has spent the whole psalm describing God's total knowledge of him, mostly as something he could not escape — and then, at the end, having just asked God to kill his enemies and said he hates them completely, he asks for that same searching attention to be turned on himself. So it is not a devotional flourish. It is a man submitting his own anger for inspection. The request has two halves: find anything offensive in me, and then lead me in the right direction. He asks to be corrected, not just examined.
It is a question asked by somebody who has thought about it seriously, and the answers are geographical: up to the heavens, down to the place of the dead, east as far as the sunrise, west to the furthest sea, and then into the dark. Each is the extreme limit of a direction, and each gets the same reply — you are there. Notice the tone. This is not a comfortable meditation on God being everywhere; it reads like somebody checking the exits. What changes it from claustrophobia to comfort is verse 10, where the hand that finds him in those places is described as guiding and holding rather than catching.
Because the writer means it, and the psalm does not soften it. Verses 19 to 22 ask God to kill violent men who misuse his name, and the writer aligns himself completely with God's opposition to them — "perfect" here means whole or without reservation rather than morally admirable. Two things are worth holding. Jesus later explicitly tells his followers to love their enemies and pray for people who persecute them, so a Christian cannot simply adopt verse 22 as an instruction. And the psalm itself supplies the corrective: the very next verse asks God to search the man who just said it and show him anything offensive in his own heart. The passage is a record of what a person prayed, and what he did straight afterwards.
An image, used elsewhere in the Bible, of God keeping a record. Verse 16 says the writer's days were in it before a single one of them arrived, which is a statement about God knowing his life whole rather than about the existence of a physical volume. Christians read the implications differently. Some take it as strong evidence that every event is determined in advance; others read it as God's complete foreknowledge without treating it as a script. The psalm does not adjudicate that, and its own use of the idea is simpler — it is one more reason the writer cannot get outside God's knowledge of him.
Sheol is the Old Testament's word for the realm of the dead, where everyone was understood to go — not the later Christian picture of hell, and not a place of punishment in most Old Testament usage. Naming it alongside the heavens gives the writer the two furthest points on a vertical line: the highest place and the lowest. The claim is that God's presence has no upper or lower limit. It is also one of the more remarkable statements in the Old Testament, which usually describes Sheol as somewhere cut off from God's presence and praise. This verse says otherwise.
Read the whole thing, including the part about hating people. It is only twenty-four verses, and the ending changes how the famous bit sounds.
The first half is not the warm poem it is usually quoted as. God knows when the writer sits and stands, follows his path, and knows his sentences before he says them. Verse 5 says God hems him in behind and in front, and the Hebrew word there is the one used for putting a city under siege. Verse 6 admits the whole thing is too much for him. And then verses 7 to 12 are a man checking the exits: the sky, the grave, the sunrise, the far ocean, the dark. Every one comes back the same — you are there.
That is the setup for the famous verse. “Fearfully and wonderfully made” is not a compliment dropped into the middle of the psalm; it is the answer to why the escape attempt failed. God did not learn about this man from outside. He assembled him. You cannot get away from someone who was present at your making, and verse 16 pushes it further: the days were written down before any of them happened.
Then read verses 19 to 22, which almost never get quoted. The same psalm asks God to kill violent men and says, flatly, I hate them with complete hatred. It is jarring, and it is meant to be there.
Because of what happens next. With no transition at all, verse 23 says: search me, O God, and know my heart. See if there is any offensive way in me. He has just aimed God’s total knowledge at his enemies, and his last act is to point it at himself.
That is the shape of the psalm, and it is worth more than the nursery-wall version. It is not about feeling good about how you were made. It is about a man who could not get away from God, worked out why, and then asked to be examined.
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What the commentaries say about Psalm 139
Three commentaries, oldest last. Each is shown in full with its author and licence, and every scripture reference inside them links through to the verse.
Tyndale Open Study Notes on Psalm 139
Tyndale House Publishers, released openly in 2023
Short, plain-English notes written for people reading the Bible for the first time. They explain what a word meant to its original audience, why a detail is there, and where else in Scripture the same idea shows up. If you only read one set of notes on this page, read this one.
13 notes on Psalm 139
Verse 1
Ps 139 In this wisdom psalm, the psalmist opens every aspect of his being, character, behavior, and speech to God’s examination. As hard as life is, he wants to ensure his own growth in wisdom so that he does not come under God’s judgment of the wicked (141:5; 142:3; 143:8, 10; 144:3-4). Further, the poet recognizes that he cannot escape from the Lord. His sense of stress disappears when he considers the Lord’s loving care for him, even before birth (139:13-18). He then invites the Lord to continue examining him as he walks in the path of wisdom (139:23-24).
139:1-6 The Lord knows the psalmist well; God has examined him thoroughly, in an inescapable examination that is painful at times (Job 7:17-19).
Verse 2
139:2 The phrase sit down or stand up refers to daily activities (cp. Deut 6:6-9).
Verse 3
139:3-6 The Lord’s omniscience and omnipotence provide comfort to the godly, but they imprison the hearts of the wicked (2:3).
Verse 6
139:6 The Lord’s wonderful understanding lies beyond the psalmist’s ability to comprehend (see Judg 13:18).
Verse 7
139:7-12 The psalmist expresses his awe at the Lord’s omnipresence.
Verse 8
139:8 down to the grave: God has total access to his entire creation—even the most hard-to-reach places.
Verse 9
139:9 ride the wings of the morning: This poetic expression describes traveling eastward, as far as the sunrise, if that were possible. • the farthest oceans: This expression takes the traveler in the opposite direction, far to the west.
Verse 13
139:13 The delicate, inner parts of the body include a person’s very being. • Even when hidden in his mother’s womb, the psalmist was guided by the Lord.
Verse 17
139:17 How precious are your thoughts about me: God’s investigation reveals loving care. Fellowship with the Lord provides riches beyond description.
Verse 19
139:19-24 The psalmist’s sense of awe leads him to consider the wicked and to reflect on himself. The Lord, as the examiner of all people, judges the wicked for their destructive acts and speech; thus, the psalmist prays that he will not be among them.
Verse 21
139:21 I hate: Rejection of evil is a mark of wisdom (see 1:1; 5:4-6).
Verse 23
139:23-24 The psalmist’s prayer against the wicked leads him also to reflect on himself; he does not presume that he is righteous. This prayer has been repeated by believers over the centuries.
Verse 24
139:24 The path of wisdom leads to everlasting life (see 1:6; Prov 4:18; 6:23).
Tyndale Open Study Notes © Tyndale House Publishers, licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. Reformatted for the web by BibleHearth; wording unchanged. CC BY-SA 4.0 · Read the original
Matthew Henry's Commentary on the Whole Bible on Psalm 139
Matthew Henry, 1706–1714
A pastor writing for his own congregation three hundred years ago. Henry is less interested in historical background than in what a chapter asks of the person reading it, which is why he is still quoted in sermons today. He is warm, direct, and unafraid to apply a text to you.
Before you start: Written in the early 1700s. The sentences are long and some words have shifted meaning since — "conversation" means how a person lives, "want" means to lack something. Read it slowly; it rewards that.
Chapter overview and 3 notes on Psalm 139
What this chapter is doing
Some of the Jewish doctors are of opinion that this is the most excellent of all the psalms of David; and a very pious devout meditation it is upon the doctrine of God's omniscience, which we should therefore have our hearts fixed upon and filled with in singing this psalm. I. This doctrine is here asserted, and fully laid down (Psa 139:1-6). II. It is confirmed by two arguments: - 1. God is every where present; therefore he knows all (Psa 139:7-12). 2. He made us, therefore he knows us (Psa 139:13-16). III. Some inferences are drawn from this doctrine. 1. It may fill us with pleasing admiration of God (Psa 139:17, Psa 139:18). 2. With a holy dread and detestation of sin and sinners (Psa 139:19-22). 3. With a holy satisfaction in our own integrity, concerning which we may appeal to God (Psa 139:23, Psa 139:24). This great and self-evident truth, That God knows our hearts, and the hearts of all the children of men, if we did but mix faith with it and seriously consider it and apply it, would have a great influence upon our holiness and upon our comfort.
To the chief musician. A psalm of David.
Verse 1
David here lays down this great doctrine, That the God with whom we have to do has a perfect knowledge of us, and that all the motions and actions both of our inward and of our outward man are naked and open before him.
I. He lays down this doctrine in the way of an address to God; he says it to him, acknowledging it to him, and giving him the glory of it. Divine truths look fully as well when they are prayed over as when they are preached over, and much better than when they are disputed over. When we speak of God to him himself we shall find ourselves concerned to speak with the utmost degree both of sincerity and reverence, which will be likely to make the impressions the deeper.
II. He lays it down in a way of application to himself, not, "Thou hast known all," but, "Thou hast known me; that is it which I am most concerned to believe and which it will be most profitable for me to consider." Then we know these things for our good when we know them for ourselves, Job 5:27. When we acknowledge, "Lord, all souls are thine," we must add, "My soul is thine; thou that hatest all sin hatest my sin; thou that art good to all, good to Israel, art good to me." So here, "Thou hast searched me, and known me; known me as thoroughly as we know that which we have most diligently and exactly searched into." David was a king, and the hearts of kings are unsearchable to their subjects (Pro 25:3), but they are not so to their Sovereign.
III. He descends to particulars: "Thou knowest me wherever I am and whatever I am doing, me and all that belongs to me." 1. "Thou knowest me and all my motions, my down-sitting to rest, my up-rising to work, with what temper of mind I compose myself when I sit down and stir up myself when I rise up, what my soul reposes itself in as its stay and support, what it aims at and reaches towards as its felicity and end. Thou knowest me when I come home, how I walk before my house, and when I go abroad, on what errands I go." 2. "Thou knowest all my imaginations. Nothing is more close and quick than thought; it is always unknown to others; it is often unobserved by ourselves, and yet thou understandest my thought afar off. Though my thoughts be ever so foreign and distant from one another, thou understandest the chain of them, and canst make out their connexion, when so many of them slip my notice that I myself cannot." Or, "Thou understandest them afar off, even before I think them, and long after I have thought them and have myself forgotten them." Or, "Thou understandest them from afar; from the height of heaven thou seest into the depths of the heart," Psa 33:14. 3. "Thou knowest me and all my designs and undertakings; thou compassest every particular path; thou siftest (or winnowest) my path" (so some), "so as thoroughly to distinguish between the good and evil of what I do," as by sifting we separate between the corn and the chaff. All our actions are ventilated by the judgment of God, Psa 17:3. God takes notice of every step we take, every right step and every by-step. He is acquainted with all our ways, intimately acquainted with them; he knows what rule we walk by, what end we walk towards, what company we walk with. 4. "Thou knowest me in all my retirements; thou knowest my lying down; when I am withdrawn from all company, and am reflecting upon what has passed all day and composing myself to rest, thou knowest what I have in my heart and with what thought I go to bed." 5. "Thou knowest me, and all I say (Psa 139:4): There is not a word in my tongue, not a vain word, nor a good word, but thou knowest it altogether, knowest what it meant, from what thought it came, and with what design it was uttered. There is not a word at my tongue's end, ready to be spoken, yet checked and kept in, but thou knowest it." When there is not a word in my tongue, O Lord! thou knowest all (so some read it); for thoughts are words to God. 6. "Thou knowest me in every part of me: Thou hast beset me behind and before, so that, go which way I will, I am under thy eye and cannot possibly escape it. Thou hast laid thy hand upon me, and I cannot run away from thee." Wherever we are we are under the eye and hand of God. perhaps it is an allusion to the physician's laying his hand upon his patient to feel how his pulse beats or what temper he is in. God knows us as we know not only what we see, but what we feel and have our hands upon. All his saints are in his hand.
IV. He speaks of it with admiration (Psa 139:6): It is too wonderful for me; it is high. 1. "Thou hast such a knowledge of me as I have not of myself, nor can have. I cannot take notice of all my own thoughts, nor make such a judgment of myself as thou makest of me."? 2. "It is such a knowledge as I cannot comprehend, much less describe. That thou knowest all things I am sure, but how I cannot tell." We cannot by searching find out how God searches and finds out us; nor do we know how we are known.
Verse 7
It is of great use to us to know the certainty of the things wherein we have been instructed, that we may not only believe them, but be able to tell why we believe them, and to give a reason of the hope that is in us. David is sure that God perfectly knows him and all his ways,
I. Because he is always under his eye. If God is omnipresent, he must needs be omniscient; but he is omnipresent; this supposes the infinite and immensity of his being, from which follows the ubiquity of his presence; heaven and earth include the whole creation, and the Creator fills both (Jer 23:24); he not only knows both, and governs both, but he fills both. Every part of the creation is under God's intuition and influence. David here acknowledges this also with application and sees himself thus open before God.
1. No flight can remove us out of God's presence: "Whither shall I go from thy Spirit, from thy presence, that is, from thy spiritual presence, from thyself, who art a Spirit?" God is a Spirit, and therefore it is folly to think that because we cannot see him he cannot see us: Whither shall I flee from thy presence? Not that he desired to go away from God; no, he desired nothing more than to be near him; but he only puts the case, "Suppose I should be so foolish as to think of getting out of thy sight, that I might shake off the awe of thee, suppose I should think of revolting from my obedience to thee, or of disowning a dependence on thee and of shifting for myself, alas! whither can I go?" A heathen could say, Quocunque te flexeris, ibi Deum videbis occurrentem tibi - Whithersoever thou turnest thyself, thou wilt see God meeting thee. Seneca. He specifies the most remote and distant places, and counts upon meeting God in them. (1.) In heaven: "If I ascend thither, as I hope to do shortly, thou art there, and it will be my eternal bliss to be with thee there." Heaven is a vast large place, replenished with an innumerable company, and yet there is no escaping God's eye there, in any corner, or in any crowd. The inhabitants of that world have as necessary a dependence upon God, and lie as open to his strict scrutiny, as the inhabitants of this. (2.) In hell - in Sheol, which may be understood of the depth of the earth, the very centre of it. Should we dig as deep as we can under ground, and think to hide ourselves there, we should be mistaken; God knows that path which the vulture's eye never saw, and to him the earth is all surface. Or it may be understood of the state of the dead. When we are removed out of the sight of all living, yet not out of the sight of the living God; from his eye we cannot hide ourselves in the grave. Or it maybe understood of the place of the damned: If I make my bed in hell (an uncomfortable place to make a bed in, where there is no rest day or night, yet thousands will make their bed for ever in those flames), behold, thou art there, in thy power and justice. God's wrath is the fire which will there burn everlastingly, Rev 14:10. (3.) In the remotest corners of this world: "If I take the wings of the morning, the rays of the morning-light (called the wings of the sun, Mal 4:2), than which nothing more swift, and flee upon them to the uttermost parts of the sea, or of the earth (Job 38:12, Job 38:13), should I flee to the most distant and obscure islands (the ultima Thule, the Terra incognita), I should find thee there; there shall thy hand lead me, as far as I go, and thy right hand hold me, that I can go no further, that I cannot go out of thy reach." God soon arrested Jonah when he fled to Tarshish from the presence of the Lord.
2. No veil can hide us from God's eye, no, not that of the thickest darkness, Psa 139:11, Psa 139:12. "If I say, Yet the darkness shall cover me, when nothing else will, alas! I find myself deceived; the curtains of the evening will stand me in no more stead than the wings of the morning; even the night shall be light about me. That which often favours the escape of a pursued criminal, and the retreat of a beaten army, will do me no kindness in fleeing from them." When God divided between the light and darkness it was with a reservation of this prerogative, that to himself the darkness and the light should still be both alike. "The darkness darkeneth not from thee, for there is no darkness nor shadow of death where the workers of iniquity may hide themselves." No hypocritical mask or disguise, how specious soever, can save any person or action from appearing in a true light before God. Secret haunts of sin are as open before God as the most open and barefaced villanies.
II. Because he is the work of his hands. He that framed the engine knows all the motions of it. God made us, and therefore no doubt he knows us; he saw us when we were in the forming, and can we be hidden from him now that we are formed? This argument he insists upon (Psa 139:13-16): "Thou hast possessed my reins; thou art Master of my most secret thoughts and intentions, and the innermost recesses of my soul; thou not only knowest, but governest, them, as we do that which we have possession of; and the possession thou hast of my reins is a rightful possession, for thou coveredst me in my mother's womb, that is, thou madest me (Job 10:11), thou madest me in secret. The soul is concealed form all about us. Who knows the things of a man, save the spirit of a man?" Co1 2:11. Hence we read of the hidden man of the heart. But it was God himself that thus covered us, and therefore he can, when he pleases, discover us; when he hid us from all the world he did not intend to hide us from himself. Concerning the formation of man, of each of us,
1. The glory of it is here given to God, entirely to him; for it is he that has made us and not we ourselves. "I will praise thee, the author of my being; my parents were only the instruments of it." It was done, (1.) Under the divine inspection: My substance, when hid in the womb, nay, when it was yet but in fieri - in the forming, an unshapen embryo, was not hidden from thee; thy eyes did see my substance. (2.) By the divine operation. As the eye of God saw us then, so his hand wrought us; we were his work. (3.) According to the divine model: In thy book all my members were written. Eternal wisdom formed the plan, and by that almighty power raised the noble structure.
2. Glorious things are here said concerning it. The generation of man is to be considered with the same pious veneration as his creation at first. Consider it, (1.) As a great marvel, a great miracle we might call it, but that it is done in the ordinary course of nature. We are fearfully and wonderfully made; we may justly be astonished at the admirable contrivance of these living temples, the composition of every part, and the harmony of all together. (2.) As a great mystery, a mystery of nature: My soul knows right well that it is marvellous, but how to describe it for any one else I know not; for I was made in secret, and curiously wrought in the womb as in the lowest parts of the earth, so privately, and so far out of sight. (3.) As a great mercy, that all our members in continuance were fashioned, according as they were written in the book of God's wise counsel, when as yet there was none of them; or, as some read it, and none of them was left out. If any of our members had been wanting in God's book, they would have been wanting in our bodies, but, through his goodness, we have all our limbs and sense, the want of any of which might have made us burdens to ourselves. See what reason we have then to praise God for our creation, and to conclude that he who saw our substance when it was unfashioned sees it now that it is fashioned.
Verse 17
Here the psalmist makes application of the doctrine of God's omniscience, divers ways.
I. He acknowledges, with wonder and thankfulness, the care God had taken of him all his days, Psa 139:17, Psa 139:18. God, who knew him, thought of him, and his thoughts towards him were thoughts of love, thought of good, and not of evil, Jer 29:11. God's omniscience, which might justly have watched over us to do us hurt, has been employed for us, and has watched over us to do us good, Jer 31:28. God's counsels concerning us and our welfare have been, 1. Precious to admiration: How precious are they! They are deep in themselves, such as cannot possibly be fathomed and comprehended. Providence has had a vast reach in its dispensations concerning us, and has brought things about for our good quite beyond our contrivance and foresight. They are dear to us; we must think of them with a great deal of reverence, and yet with pleasure and thankfulness. Our thoughts concerning God must be delightful to us, above any other thoughts. 2. Numerous to admiration: How great is the sum of them! We cannot conceive how many God's kind counsels have been concerning us, how many good turns he has done us, and what variety of mercies we have received from him. If we would count them, the heads of them, much more the particulars of them, they are more in number than the sand, and yet every one great and very considerable, Psa 40:5. We cannot conceive the multitude of God's compassions, which are all new every morning. 3. Constant at all times: "When I awake, every morning, I am still with thee, under thy eye and care, safe and easy under thy protection." This bespeaks also the continual devout sense David had of the eye of God upon him: When I awake I am with thee, in my thoughts; and it would help to keep us in the fear of the Lord all the day long if, when we awake in the morning, our first thoughts were of him and we did then set him before us.
II. He concludes from this doctrine that ruin will certainly be the end of sinners. God knows all the wickedness of the wicked, and therefore he will reckon for it: "Surely thou wilt slay the wicked, O God! for all their wickedness is open before thee, however it may be artfully disguised and coloured over, to hide it from the eye of the world. However thou suffer them to prosper for a while, surely thou wilt slay them at last." Now observe, 1. The reason why God will punish them, because they daringly affront him and set him at defiance (Psa 139:20): They speak against thee wickedly; they set their mouth against the heavens (Psa 73:9), and shall be called to account for the hard speeches they have spoken against him, Jde 1:15. They are his enemies, and declare their enmity by taking his name in vain, as we show our contempt of a man if we make a by-word of his name, and never mention him but in a way of jest and banter. Those that profane the sacred forms of swearing or praying by using them in an impertinent irreverent manner take God's name in vain, and thereby show themselves enemies to him. Some make it to be a description of hypocrites: "They speak of thee for mischief; they talk of God, pretending to piety, but it is with some ill design, for a cloak of maliciousness; and, being enemies to God, while they pretend friendship, they take his name in vain; they swear falsely." 2. The use David makes of this prospect which he has of the ruin of the wicked. (1.) He defies them: "Depart from me, you bloody men; you shall not debauch me, for I will not admit your friendship nor have fellowship with you; and you cannot destroy me, for, being under God's protection, he shall force you to depart from me." (2.) He detests them (Psa 139:21, Psa 139:22): "Lord, thou knowest the heart, and canst witness for me; do not I hate those that hate thee, and for that reason, because they hate thee? I hate them because I love thee, and hate to see such affronts and indignities put upon thy blessed name. Am not I grieved with those that rise up against thee, grieved to see their rebellion and to foresee their ruin, which it will certainly end in?" Note, Sin is hated, and sinners are lamented, by all that fear God. "I hate them" (that is, "I hate the work of them that turn aside," as he explains himself, Psa 101:3) "with a sincere and perfect hatred; I count those that are enemies to God as enemies to me, and will not have any intimacy with them," Psa 69:8.
III. He appeals to God concerning his sincerity, Psa 139:23, Psa 139:24. 1. He desires that as far as he was in the wrong God would discover it to him. Those that are upright can take comfort in God's omniscience as a witness of their uprightness, and can with a humble confidence beg of him to search and try them, to discover them to themselves (for a good man desires to know the worst of himself) and to discover them to others. He that means honestly could wish he had a window in his breast that any man may look into his heart: "Lord, I hope I am not in a wicked way, but see if there be any wicked way in me, any corrupt inclination remaining; let me see it; and root it out of me, for I do not allow it." 2. He desires that, as far as he was in the right, he might be forwarded in it, which he that knows the heart knows how to do effectually: Lead me in the way everlasting. Note, (1.) The way of godliness is an everlasting way; it is everlastingly true and good, pleasing to God and profitable to us, and will end in everlasting life. It is the way of antiquity (so some), the good old way. (2.) All the saints desire to be kept and led in this way, that they may not miss it, turn out of it, nor tire in it.
Matthew Henry's Commentary on the Whole Bible (Matthew Henry, 1706–1714). Public domain. Reformatted for the web by BibleHearth; wording unchanged. Public domain · Read the original