Psalms 139

LORD, you have searched me, and you know me.

1O LORD, thou hast searched me, and known me.

Note"LORD" in small capitals marks the personal name of Israel's God, four Hebrew consonants usually written YHWH. Jewish readers said "Lord" aloud in its place, and English translations have followed that custom ever since. "Searched" translates a verb used of digging into the ground or exploring a country, investigating something thoroughly, not glancing at it.

2You know when I sit down and when I get up. You understand what I am thinking from far away.

2Thou knowest my downsitting and mine uprising, thou understandest my thought afar off.

Note"Sitting down and getting up" is a Hebrew way of naming two opposite ends of something to mean the whole of it, here, everything a person does from waking to resting. Compare "coming and going."

3You watch my path and my resting place closely. You know everything about the way I live.

3Thou compassest my path and my lying down, and art acquainted with all my ways.

4Before a word is even on my tongue, LORD, you already know it completely.

4For there is not a word in my tongue, but, lo, O LORD, thou knowest it altogether.

5You close me in behind and in front. You have laid your hand on me.

5Thou hast beset me behind and before, and laid thine hand upon me.

NoteThe verb behind "close me in" (KJV "beset") is used elsewhere of laying siege to a city or hemming someone in on all sides. The Hebrew does not settle whether this feels like protection or confinement, and readers have taken it both ways.

6Knowing like that is too amazing for me. It is far above me, and I cannot reach it.

6Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; it is high, I cannot attain unto it.

7Where could I go to get away from your Spirit? Where could I run to escape from you?

7Whither shall I go from thy spirit? or whither shall I flee from thy presence?

Note"Spirit" translates Hebrew *ruach*, which also means breath and wind, the active, moving power of God rather than a separate being. "Escape from you" is literally "flee from your face"; a person's "face" in Hebrew stands for their presence and attention.

8If I climb up to the heavens, you are there. If I make my bed among the dead, you are there too.

8If I ascend up into heaven, thou art there: if I make my bed in hell, behold, thou art there.

NoteThe KJV's "hell" is Hebrew *Sheol*, the underworld where all the dead were thought to go, good and bad alike. It is not a place of punishment; the sense is simply the realm of the dead, as far down as "the heavens" are up.

9If I took the wings of the dawn and went to live at the farthest edge of the sea,

9If I take the wings of the morning, and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea;

Note"The wings of the dawn" pictures daybreak sweeping west across the sky at impossible speed. "The farthest edge of the sea" means the far western limit of the Mediterranean, the end of the known world. East to west, the two phrases cover the whole earth.

10even there your hand would guide me, and your right hand would hold me tight.

10Even there shall thy hand lead me, and thy right hand shall hold me.

NoteThe right hand was the strong hand, and in Hebrew idiom the hand of power, rescue, and favor, not simply one hand rather than the other.

11If I say, "Surely the darkness will cover me," even the night will turn to light around me.

11If I say, Surely the darkness shall cover me; even the night shall be light about me.

12The darkness does not hide anything from you. The night shines as bright as the day. To you, dark and light are the same.

12Yea, the darkness hideth not from thee; but the night shineth as the day: the darkness and the light are both alike to thee.

13You are the one who made my insides. You wove me together inside my mother.

13For thou hast possessed my reins: thou hast covered me in my mother’s womb.

NoteKJV "reins" means the kidneys. Hebrew located the deepest, most private feelings and the conscience in the kidneys, much as English locates them in the heart. The second verb means to weave or knit, as cloth is made on a loom.

14I praise you, because I was made in a way that fills me with awe and wonder. Everything you make is amazing, and I know that very well.

14I will praise thee; for I am fearfully and wonderfully made: marvellous are thy works; and that my soul knoweth right well.

NoteThe Hebrew is compressed and has been read more than one way: "I am fearfully and wonderfully made," or "you are fearsome and wonderful" in what you do. Either way "fearfully" means awe-inspiring, not frightening. "My soul" translates *nephesh*, the whole living self, not an inner part separate from the body.

15My body was not hidden from you when I was being made in a hidden place, woven together deep out of sight.

15My substance was not hid from thee, when I was made in secret, and curiously wrought in the lowest parts of the earth.

NoteKJV "curiously wrought" means skillfully embroidered, the verb is the one used for the multicoloured needlework of fine fabric. "The lowest parts of the earth" is a figure of speech for a place hidden deep out of sight; it stands here for the womb, though the wording also echoes the earth from which the first human was formed, and the psalm leaves both senses open.

16Your eyes saw me when I was still unformed. Every part of me was written in your book, shaped day by day, when not one of them yet existed.

16Thine eyes did see my substance, yet being unperfect; and in thy book all my members were written, which in continuance were fashioned, when as yet there was none of them.

NoteThe word behind "unformed" (KJV "my substance, yet being unperfect") appears nowhere else in the Hebrew Bible; it seems to mean something still shapeless and incomplete, an embryo. The rest of the verse is genuinely unclear in Hebrew: the writing in the book may be of the body's parts, as the KJV takes it, or of the days of a life, as many modern translations take it. A "book" here means a scroll kept as a record, like a register.

17God, how precious your thoughts are to me! How huge the whole number of them is!

17How precious also are thy thoughts unto me, O God! how great is the sum of them!

18If I tried to count them, there would be more of them than grains of sand. When I wake up, I am still with you.

18If I should count them, they are more in number than the sand: when I awake, I am still with thee.

Note"When I wake up" may mean simply waking from sleep, or may be a wordplay: the same Hebrew consonants can be read as "I come to the end": that is, of counting. The line has been read both ways since ancient times.

19God, I am sure you will kill the wicked. So get away from me, you men who spill blood.

19Surely thou wilt slay the wicked, O God: depart from me therefore, ye bloody men.

Note"Men who spill blood" translates "men of bloods"; the plural of blood in Hebrew regularly means bloodshed, so the phrase means murderers or those guilty of violent death.

20They say evil things about you. Your enemies use your name for lies.

20For they speak against thee wickedly, and thine enemies take thy name in vain.

NoteThis verse is one of the most damaged in the psalm and its Hebrew is uncertain at several points. "Use your name for lies" echoes the commandment against taking God's name in vain: to "lift up" a name meant to swear by it, so the charge is swearing false oaths in God's name rather than mere bad language.

21LORD, don't I hate the people who hate you? Don't I feel disgust for those who rise up against you?

21Do not I hate them, O LORD, that hate thee? and am not I grieved with those that rise up against thee?

Note"Feel disgust" renders a verb of loathing or quarreling with; the KJV's "grieved" carried that stronger sense of revulsion in 1611, not simply sadness.

22I hate them completely. I count them as my own enemies.

22I hate them with perfect hatred: I count them mine enemies.

Note"Perfect" here means complete or whole, with nothing held back, the older English sense of the word. It does not mean morally faultless.

23Search me, God, and know my heart. Test me, and know what worries me.

23Search me, O God, and know my heart: try me, and know my thoughts:

Note"Test me" uses the language of assaying metal, heating it to find out what it really is. "What worries me" translates a rare word meaning disquieting or branching thoughts, the kind that trouble a person at night.

24See if there is any wrong way in me, and lead me in the way that lasts forever.

24And see if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.

NoteThe Hebrew phrase rendered "any wrong way" can mean a way that causes pain or hurt, or a way that leads to an idol; both readings are old and neither can be ruled out. "The way that lasts forever" can equally be translated "the ancient way", the same Hebrew word covers the distant past and the endless future.