Psalm 139 Omniscient, Omnipresent, Omnipotent God

Introduction

The Psalms are a beautiful collection of hymns and prayers. Often written in response to particular historical events, yet with a composition that allows future readers to still engage and use them in their own circumstances. We can think of the Psalms as Israel’s prayer book or hymn book. These would be, and still are, recited and sung as part of Jewish worship.

“The book of Psalms is poetry, but is laced with extremely strong theology.”

(Missler, C. Learn the Bible in 24 hours, 2002, p 94)

It is this balance of poetry and theology that makes the Psalms so helpful for both corporate worship and private devotion. As we read the Psalms we can identify with the “I” in each one; we can read them inserting ourselves as the first person.

Hebrew poetry was written with a parallelism of ideas rather than sound or time, it was composed more conceptually than perhaps we are used to, this should become clear as we study Psalm 139 together. (Missler C, ibid, p95).

In this study we are looking specifically at Psalm 139, perhaps one of the chief glories of the Psalter, a great personal prayer. (The Interpreter’s Bible, Volume 4, 1978, p712). As we read this Psalm we can see some clear sections within it.

• Verses 1-6: God’s omniscience

• Verses 7-12: God’s omnipresence

• Verses 13-18: God’s omnipotence

• Verses 19-24: The final prayer

We are going to dig into each of these sections in turn, studying the heart of the Psalm and how it applies to us today. We shall consider the tone of the Psalm, we shall see if it is simply a calm reflection on the greatness of God or if it is, or includes, a sense of lament as Tremper Longman III suggests. (Longman III, T. Tyndale Old Testament Commentaries Psalms, 2014, p452)

Personal Question

• Read the Psalm through, read it slowly and prayerfully.

• Does anything stand out, encourage, or challenge you?

God’s Omniscience

The first six verses of this Psalm speak of God’s omniscience, that is His complete knowledge of all things. Specifically the Psalmist, most likely David, is speaking of God’s knowledge of him. As we’ve already said we can read this with ourselves in the first person. This speaks to us of God’s knowledge of us.

Throughout this Psalm we see several merisms, pairs of opposites used to denote everything in between. In these opening verses David uses three such pairs.

• Verse 1: sit and rise.

• Verse 3: going out and lying down.

• Verse 3: behind and before

Each of these pairs illustrates the completeness of God’s knowledge about us. When we start in verse 1 we see how close God really is.

“O LORD, you have searched me and you know me.”

Psalm 139: 1

David is declaring that God knows him fully, that God has searched him. In Hebrew the word searched is ‘cha.qar’, meaning to search through, explore, and examine thoroughly. When I consider that definition I think of a scientist taking time to study at the deepest level how something is made. This is the way in which God knows us.

From here we get a sort of three layer club sandwich describing God’s omniscience.

“You know when I sit and when I rise;

you perceive my thoughts from afar.

You discern my going out and my lying down;

you are familiar with all my ways.

Before a word is on my tongue

you know it completely, O LORD.

You hem me in – behind and before;

you have laid your hand upon me.”

Psalm 139: 3-5

Each of the three merisms here act like the bread of this sandwich. What is the filling here?

• Verse 2: perceive my thoughts from afar.

• Verses 3-4: familiar with all my ways and words.

Let’s look at each of these in turn. David is saying that God knows his thoughts before he does. God can discern these thoughts from afar, this is speaking of the thoughts being far off, not God being far off. Before we have a thought God already knows it. The same is true of our words, David says. Before the word is on our tongue God knows it.

God is, as we can see in the second layer “familiar with all my ways” (verse 3). When we look at the Hebrew for this phrase we get a clearer understanding of what David is saying.

• All - kol: totality or everything.

• Ways - de.rekh: direction, course of life, moral character.

So God knows everything about us, the direction we are going and the deepest parts of our character.

As we finish this sandwich we encounter the curious phrase “You hem me in” (verse 5). Until recently I’d always considered this as being led and of having the protection of a rear guard. If we consider Job 1: 10 we can get this sense of protection, Satan accuses God of over protecting Job. But perhaps it is not just that.

“Is it good or bad that God hems him in completely (using another merism [before and behind]? The verb (sûr) is often used of a siege (1 Sam 23: 8, 2 Sam 20: 15). Someone who is hemmed in is confined and enclosed, so it could be taken negatively. Of course, it could also be read in a very positive light.”

(Longman III, T. Tyndale Old Testament Commentaries Psalms, 2014, p452)

This is an important insight, which may also apply to the phrase “you have laid your hand upon me” (verse 5). It leads to the question: is David comforted by God’s omniscience or is he challenged by it? How should we respond as we consider God’s omniscience?

David closes out this first stanza in a way that, I think, shows he is both comforted and challenged.

“Such knowledge is too wonderful for me, too lofty for me to attain.”

Psalm 139: 6

The use of wonderful could, according to Longman III (ibid.) be considered as difficult or overwhelming. This is how it can seem for us. On the one hand it is wonderful to be so fully known by God, while at the same time it can be difficult to comprehend, even overwhelming.

As we consider being hemmed in, and under God’s hand we can certainly see God’s protection in this. It may seem restrictive, but God is keeping us safe. Often such restrictions bring us freedom. We are truly free in God, following Him and not bound by sin and shame that would truly restrict us.

We need limits to really enjoy freedom. Take the simplistic example of football. The rules may seem restrictive, but a game played without them is not freer, it is chaos. When we play to the rules we have greater freedom because of the greater order and security the rules provide.

When God knows us so completely as described in this Psalm we may, on occasion, feel limited. But in truth we are always freer in Him than anywhere else.

Personal Question

• How do you feel as you consider God knows all your thoughts, words, and actions?

• Spend time giving thanks for God’s protection.

God’s Omnipresence

In verses 7-12 we get two questions and two answers. Again we see merisms used to convey that God is everywhere; the heavens and the depths, the dawn or the east and the far side of the sea or the west, darkness and light, night and day.

This section can also be read as a positive statement of God’s omnipresence or as a negative one. The Psalmist, in these rhetorical questions, is declaring both truth and frustration.

“Where can I go from your Spirit?

Where can I flee from your presence?”

Psalm 139: 7

For us we can also utter such questions as positive truths or negative frustrations. As we read the answers given to these rhetorical questions we see that there is nowhere we can go to escape from God. We can learn the lesson that Jonah learnt in the storm and in the fish.

“Turn where the soul may, however, it can find no rest or peace till at last it confesses that evasion is impossible, that in nothing but surrender is fullness of life to be found.”

(The Interpreter’s Bible, Volume 4, 1978, p715)

In asking these questions we may be expressing frustration but we are also declaring truth. It is as we rest in the truth and wonder of God’s omnipresent nature that we find freedom. We see, from verses 8-12 that God is everywhere.

• Verse 8: heavens and depths.

• Verse 9: sunrise and sunset.

• Verse11: darkness and light.

• Verse 11: day and night.

When we read this list we can think of creation in Genesis 1. Each of the pairs is created by God, so of course God is present in them all.

There is security in this. Wherever we may flee to God is there. It is a case of no escape, but is not a case of imprisonment. God, in His love for us, is wherever we may run to. No matter how dumb our actions may be God, in His love, is there for us. He is there to protect, to lead, to forgive. We simply need to acknowledge Him, and ask for the help again, much like the prodigal son in Luke 15. This may even be a daily experience.

“More often it is a day by day choice between good and bad, between truth and error, between beauty and ugliness, love and selfishness, obedience and rebellion. There is nothing we can say about such deep and frequent struggles but that everything depends on them, and in comparison nothing else matters.”

(The Interpreter’s Bible, Volume 4, 1978, p715)

Personal Question

• Do you feel security or frustration at God’s omnipresence?

• Spend time declaring the truth of God’s omnipresent nature and allow that to draw you to His love for you again.

God’s Omnipotence

In this third stanza, verses 13-18, we see the Psalmist consider God’s omnipotence from the perspective of his own creation. Once again we can read this in the first person, inserting ourselves into the Psalm.

At the very start of this stanza we see how intimately God knows us.

“For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mothers womb.”

Psalm 139: 13

The words “inmost being” convey a sense of our foundations. When we look at the Hebrew here we see the word ‘kil.yah’, which translates as ‘kidneys’. For the Hebrews this was the seat of emotions. Our emotions are fundamental to who we are, they are how we respond to situations. God created that deepest part of who we are.

Further, God has knitted us together. I am not a knitter, but my wife is. When I see her knit it is something she does with love and care. What she produces is delightful and it adds to our home something new and wonderful. In the same way God knit you together, He took care in your creation and He delights in the result.

“I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;

your works are wonderful, I know that full well.”

Psalm 139: 14

As we consider how God made us praise and thanksgiving are our natural responses. After all, we are “fearfully and wonderfully made”. God made us with reverence (fearfully) to be set apart and distinct, made for Him (wonderfully). We see this reiterated as David declares that God’s works, of which I am one, are wonderful. In this statement there is a sense of God’s work being marvellous and difficult to fully comprehend.

What follows in verses 15 and 16 is a repetition of these basic statements. Of how God created us. As we read this we need to remember this is poetry and not science. This poetry should lead us to reverence, where science leads us to knowledge here we should be led to praise.

“Let knowledge grow from more to more,

But more reverence in us dwell.”

(Tennyson, A. L. In Memoriam A.H.H https://poets.org/poem/memoriam-h-h)

These two verses tell me God was there in my creation, and He knows all the days of my life. The theme of verse 16 is expanded in verses 17 and 18.

“How precious to me are your thoughts, O God!

How vast is the sum of them!

Were I to count them, they would outnumber the grains of sand.

When I awake, I am still with you.”

Psalm 139: 17-18

Not only has God ordained the days of my life, not only was God there in my creation, weaving me together in the secret place, but He thinks about me with innumerable thoughts. Verse 17 could really read “how precious about me are your thoughts, O God!”.

It is really saying that God thinks about each of us and that those thoughts, or intentions for us are so precious. When we realise this, when we see how much God is for us we are drawn again to Him in reverence and worship.

Personal Question

• Give thanks to God for He has made you and has a plan for you.

• Ask Him to show you something more of His plan for you.

The Final Prayer

Having worked through God’s omniscience, omnipresence, and omnipotence the Psalm now shifts to a final prayer. This prayer draws on all three previous stanzas. It does seem like a surprising twist at this point, but it offers us some practical advice.

When faced with some threat or danger we can, and should, remember that God knows all, is everywhere, and is all powerful.

“What, then, shall we say in response to this? If God is for us, who can be against us?”

Romans 8: 31

When we remember who God is (read Romans 8: 28-39 for a full picture of who God is and who we are) we can bring every situation we may face before Him knowing that He is for us.

In remembering this we can then turn to prayer for our situation, much like David does in verses 19-22, and as we do this we should also turn to a prayer of surrender.

“Search me, O God, and know my heart;

test me and know my thoughts.

See if there is any offensive way in me,

and lead me in the way everlasting.”

Psalm 139: 23-24

Having declared at the start that God has searched him, perhaps with some frustration or ambivalence (Longman III, T. Tyndale Old Testament Commentaries Psalms, 2014, p454) it is now the genuine prayer of his heart.

We too can go this journey; from frustration at being fully known and surrounded to delight in, and desire to be fully known and surrounded.

Personal Question

• Ask God for His help in whatever situation you are in right now.

• Ask God to search you and know you as an act of surrender to Him.