Reading Psalm 139 with friends this morning, I noted something interesting. The first two thirds of the Psalm can be broken in to three parts, each focusing on a different aspect of God.
God Surpasses Human Knowledge
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.
In the first six verses, the focus is on God’s knowledge. As verse six sums up, God has a degree of knowledge which is impossible for humans to achieve. While we think man has achieved great things in knowledge, the Lord knew each accomplishment before us. His knowledge is so vast, and in some means different, that it completely encompasses our abilities.
God Is Not Limited By Human Space
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.
In the next section, the focus shifts from knowledge to space. Our human conception of space is such that if I am here, I am not there. This is not true for God, and the Psalmist realizes it. It’s not simply that God follows the Psalmist from heaven to Sheol to the other side of the sea, but that when the Psalmist reaches each place he realizes that God is there too.
A friend also pointed out that God does not see as we see. While darkness means we cannot see, “even the darkness is not dark to” God. Our human understanding of sight is not God’s sight.
God Exceeds Human Time
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.
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.
Finally, the psalmist examines God in time. Like our human understanding of space, our understanding of time is I was in the past, I am now, and I will be in the future. I am always in the present and have both a past and a future. Not so for God. Our days in the future are known to him “when as yet there was none of them.” God somehow exists in time as we do not.
The psalmist concludes with a section which reflects on these unknowable attributes of God, and there meaning for our lives:
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!
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!
24 And see if there be any grievous way in me,
and lead me in the way everlasting!
The final verses seem to be the only appropriate response to a God who is so utterly more than us in knowledge, space, and time.
