Home	Our Hope
Bible Study		November 28, 2010
Psalm 139 and the Omniscient, Omnipresent, Creator God

Introduction

This lesson covers a psalm that talks about two of God's qualities: omniscience (knowing everything) and omnipresence (being everywhere at the same time) and his role as a creator. Traditionally people believe the psalmist was King David, but there are reasons to doubt this. Whatever the case, the psalm is valuable to us.

Psalms are poems that were meant to be sung. But poems present a real problem for translators, and that results in problems for the readers. In style, poems tend toward abstraction and symbolism and therefore rely heavily on the reader having the same reference framework of beliefs, culture, and experiences. If the translator has little in common with the poet, it can be difficult to correctly translate the poem.

Poems also sometimes exchange clarity for rhyme and meter. But neither rhyme nor meter can be translated. So the translator does his best to clearly describe the meaning. We'll see that different translators translate it differently

In this psalm the psalmist is speaking of himself to God, but what he says is also true of us, and this study will be presented as if the psalmist was talking about us.

The Verses

Omniscience

The first group of verses talks about God's omniscience.

O Yahweh, You have searched me and known me.
2You know when I sit down and when I rise up;
You understand my thought from afar.
3You scrutinize my path and my lying down,
And are intimately acquainted with all my ways.
4Even before there is a word on my tongue,
Behold, O Yahweh, You know it all.
5You have enclosed me behind and before,
And You have put Your hand upon me.
6Such knowledge is too wonderful for me;
It is too high, I cannot attain to it. (Psalm 139:1-6)

In verse 1, the psalmist says that God has searched us and known us. This is a theme that we see in many other places in the Bible. God is able to see right to the core of our being and know us not for the clothes we wear, or the image we present to others, but as we truly are.

God knows all the things that we do. But more importantly he knows the thoughts that drive the things we do - why we do what we do. The Aramaic translation says the second half of verse 2 this way: "[…] you have understood my reasonings," that is, the way I was thinking.

And God knows all of this without having to figure it out or guess. Where a human might need to be present to watch the actions of a person to determine why the actions were taken and what the person is like inside, God is not like that. God knows the insides first, though he is in Heaven.

The Prophetic Perfect verb tense is being used here as well. In this tense, God speaks of something as having been completed even though it hasn't happened yet. So the psalmist is saying that God already knows every thought we will ever have. He will detail this in verse 4.

This tense is often lost in English translations because there is no equivalent in English. A more accurate translation would say something more like, "From the beginning, you have always understood my thoughts," but that adds a lot of words, so the translation is usually more like "You understand my thought."

Verse 3 continues with more examples of God's omniscience. But now instead of talking about the things we do in the present the psalmist talks about the future, the plans we make and the things that will happen to us.

Verse 4 tells us that God knows what we are about to do before we do it. The verse uses speaking as an example, saying that before we have committed to saying the first word of something, God already knows all of what we will say. The idea is applicable to all the things we do, not only speaking.

Verse 5 isn't very clear in any translation. Many translations interpret it to mean that God limits us, that is, he surrounds us or hems us in, and his hand protects us. The Aramaic translation and some others interpret it more like God has known us from our beginning to our end, and his hand guides us. This is consistent with the theme of omniscience seen in the other verses.

In verse 6, the psalmist wonders at such great knowledge and exclaims that he cannot even grasp the idea of such knowledge.

Luke also talks about God knowing everything … and revealing it.

There is nothing concealed that will not be disclosed, or hidden that will not be made known. What you have said in the dark will be heard in the daylight, and what you have whispered in the ear in the inner rooms will be proclaimed from the roofs. (Luke 12:2-3)

Given a God that knows everything we think, do, and say, how should we live our lives?

Omnipresence

In the second group of verses, the topic is God's omnipresence.

Where can I go from Your Spirit?
Or where can I flee from Your presence?
8If I ascend to Heaven, You are there;
If I make my bed in Sheol, behold, You are there.
9If I lift up the wings of the dawn,
If I dwell in the remotest part of the sea,
10Even there Your hand will lead me,
And Your right hand will lay hold of me.
11If I say, "Surely the darkness will bruise me,
And the light around me will be night,"
12Even the darkness is not too dark for You,
And the night is as bright as the day.
Darkness and light are alike to You. (Psalm 139:7-12)

Considering the previous group of verses, in verse 7 the psalmist is wondering where we could go to get away from the omniscience of God.

Verse 8 shows the psalmist describing the limits of dimensions, but what are they? These are the variations available in other translations.

The correct translation is: From Heaven at the top to Sheol, the place of the dead, at the bottom.

In verse 9, the psalmist speaks of physical dimensions, though in a metaphorical way. The "wings of the dawn." Probably because the atmosphere seems to disappear at night, but the dawn brings it into existence again, the psalmist considers the idea of being at the place where dawn creates the atmosphere.

Then he moves to the opposite end of that dimension, the most remote part of the sea, that is, the deepest part. The psalmist considers living there. Whether in one place or the other or somewhere in between, the psalmist says, God would be there to guide us and hold us.

When verse 10 says that God would be there to guide us and hold us, that takes us back to verse 5 and reinforces the idea that verse 5 is talking about the limits of understanding, and not about limiting us.

The translation into "bruise" in verse 11 is very poor. Most translations use a word like "overwhelm" or "cover." The psalmist is giving us another dimension, night and day, and considering whether God is present there and able to see. His point is best conveyed in the NIV translation: "If I say, 'Surely the darkness will hide me and the light become night around me.'" He speaks metaphorically of the light of night being darkness, in contrast to the light of day being brightness. In our techno society, we wouldn't think of it that way.

Then verse 12 says that even the darkness and night are like day to God. Darkness is no hindrance to him. His point is that God is present there to see what happens.

Creator God

The third group of verses talks about how God created us.

For You formed my inward parts;
You wove me in my mother's womb.
14I will give thanks to You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made;
Wonderful are Your works,
And my soul knows it very well.
15My frame was not hidden from You,
When I was made in secret,
And intricately woven in the depths of the earth;
16Your eyes have seen my unshaped substance;
And in Your book all of them were written
The days that were formed for me,
When as yet there was not one of them. (Psalm 139:13-16)

We take the birth process for granted sometimes, I think. We forget all the complicated interactions that must take place to produce a baby, and yet we are required to understand none of it for it to happen. The process is automatic. We understand more of the process now than the psalmist would have, which should leave us even more amazed, but we think of it as natural and forget that it is God who is doing the creating and that the result is a new life in God's world, a new life loved by God.

If we take a moment to think of all the things in our bodies that have to continue to work in order for us to continue to live, we could become fearful that our bodies could fail us at any time. But - for the most part - all the body's machinery continues on despite the work and injuries we put our bodies through. Our bodies are wonderfully made.

The psalmist says that before we were alive, God knew the days of our lives, where and when we would start life, what we would do in life, and how we would die. God's vast knowledge of all mankind is beyond our understanding, but even more amazing is that he loves us, creatures who are in no way his equal.

How precious are Your thoughts to me, O God!
How vast is the sum of them!
18If I should count them, they would outnumber the sand.
When I awake, I am still with You. (Psalm 139:17-18)

We've looked at the omniscience of God, the omnipresence of God, and at God as the creator of all mankind. That should leave us feeling very small and unimportant, yet that God cares for each individual person. Every thought of a God like that should be precious to us, but mankind finds ways to deny that.

The meaning of the line beginning with "When I awake" is not clear to anyone. The word "awake" is used elsewhere in the Bible to talk about waking up during the night. It could be that the psalmist finds himself awake at night thinking of God as he is given this psalm to write.

The word "awake" is used elsewhere in the Bible to talk about waking up from death. It could be that the psalmist is saying that someday he will awake from death to find that God is still with him.

Oh that You would slay the wicked, O God!
O men of bloodshed, depart from me.
20For they speak against You wickedly,
And Your enemies take Your name in vain.
21Do I not hate those who hate You, O Yahweh?
And do I not revile those who rise up against You?
22I hate them with the utmost hatred;
They have become my enemies. (Psalm 139:19-22)

Verses 19 through 22 are somewhat of a mystery because they seem out of place. The psalmist has been describing the greatness of God up to this point. Now, in essence, the psalmist is saying God's enemies are his enemies, and he despises them as God does. The point seems to be to show that he does not walk in their ways or have any desire within him to do so. Their evils against God disgust him. So this group of verses is really about the psalmist and his relationship with God.

Perhaps the connection to the Omniscient verses and the Omnipresent verses above is found in the last clause, "They have become …." These people did not change to become his enemies. The psalmist changed. He is becoming one with the Omniscient, Omnipresent Creator god.

Search me, O God, and know my heart;
Try me and know my anxious thoughts;
24And see if there be any hurtful way in me,
And lead me in the everlasting way. (Psalm 139:23-24)

Having described God as all-knowing (omniscient) and everywhere (omnipresent), the psalmist implores God to search him and test him to find any flaw he has and to lead him on the correct path. He has worked out the flaws he knows he has, or he is still working on them, but he knows that people aren't good at finding flaws in themselves. So he asks God to expose those flaws to him.

This should be the attitude and desire of every Christian as well. It isn't always easy to look at our flaws, which gives us no desire to find them, and it usually is a battle to overcome them, but that is the way of the Christian.

Summary

The psalmist, whoever he is, highlights two aspects of God, his omniscience and omnipresence, and also his role as creator. He says things like: even before I was born, you knew everything I would say. On the omnipresence side, he says things like: whether I travel to the farthest or darkest places in the physical world or the spiritual world, God is there, and he sees. On the creator side, he says things like: Before my first day of life, when I was still a clump of cells (unshaped substance), you knew every day of my life.

Then he turns the topic to: What should we do with such an amazing God? His answer is that we should become like him, and we should ask him to help us become like him.