I used to recommend that every young person
read Psalm 139. I believed it could bolster their self-image. More recently, I’ve concluded we all
would benefit from what it has to say about us and for the challenge it lays
before us.
Sometimes it is impossible to know clearly
what was going on in the mind of a psalmist.
Fortunately, we don’t have to know to understand and benefit from the
insights and example they leave us.
The writer of Psalm 139 may have been
facing false accusations from his enemies, accusations that directly attacked
his motives and behavior. This prompted
an appeal for God to examine his heart.
According to the psalmist, God has "searched" him. The words used carry the idea of being
examined intimately or in depth (the word suggests the idea of being
probed). As a consequence, God truly
knows the psalmist (139:1). Listen to
how the psalmist describes this in detail.
God knows the psalmist’s day-to-day
routine, and even his thoughts (139:2/3).
The most sophisticated GPS has nothing on God.
God
knows the words we speak before we speak them (139:4). Don’t scoff.
Sometimes, when a friend is about to face a particular situation we say,
"I know just what he'll say about that." Again, the idea implies an intimate knowledge
of the individual. The psalmist imagines
God possessing just such knowledge of him.
Note this: Our knowing how a friend will
respond in a certain situation doesn’t imply we have overruled our friend’s
freewill. It just means we know our
friend far better than we know any stranger.
And, as the psalmist might insist, none of us are strangers to God.
In the context of Psalm 139, it seems as if
the psalmist is so certain God will find nothing out of order that any
questioning of his motives is baseless.
If that perception is true, it doesn’t flow so much from spiritual
arrogance as it does from the frustration he feels at the assaults on his
character.
In any case, however he might have wished
to plead his case, his reflections on the God who knows him so well soon turns
to wonder and praise.
Reflections on the Committed One
As
the psalmist reflects on how God has been committed to him—and by implication
committed to every believer—he focuses on God’s presence and providence in his
life.
The Commitment of God Seen in His Presence
The Living Bible, in verse five, captures the picture of the omnipresent
God at work in his life: " You both precede and follow me." Even the most loving, caring parent cannot do
both.
The consequence of this is God's hand of
blessing placed on the life of the psalmist.
At this point, it might be helpful to put
what the psalmist is saying in perspective.
I’ve heard these verses used to warn people that they can’t get away
with any kind of misbehavior, that they can’t hide from God. This isn’t the writer’s goal. The psalmist does not see God as some cosmic
Pinkerton ("we never sleep"), watching to see if he is going to mess
up; he is there to protect and help. Nor
is God "watching from a distance;" he is nearby.
Here the singer begins a rapturous
reflection on the implications of what he has just said. He cannot fully fathom its meaning
(139:6). How God can be this close to
him and, indeed, to every believer is hard to grasp. At the same time, God can be with the
grieving widow in the funeral chapel and with the young soldier on the distant
battlefield.
At verse seven, the psalmist begins to
reflect on some of the ways Gods presence and power is displayed in his life.
He begins by asking a series of questions
intended to underscore the inescapable presence of God in his life.
In so doing, he introduces the subject of
God's Spirit. We have to wait for the
further revelation of the New Testament, to get a clearer picture of the person
and work of the Holy Spirit. But,
throughout the Bible—even on the first page—there are hints of the Spirit at
work. Only when we have the completed
Bible are there enough hints to craft the doctrine of the Trinity, but the
psalmist isn’t concerned about the doctrinal implications of what he is
saying: He wants to sing of the wonder
of God’s presence.
Nor
does he actually want to flee from God.
God's presence is to be appreciated and relished. There is no notion of Yahweh being a territorial
God.
In verse eight, the psalmist imagines going
to the highest heaven and then imagines himself making his “bed in Sheol.” Sheol was the abode of the dead but the
psalmist may not be inviting speculation as to the character of the world beyond
death. He is probably simply contrasting
the physically highest place anyone could imagine with the physically lowest
place anyone could imagine (cf. Lenski).
The key point is that he cannot be anywhere that God is not.
To further underscore this point, the
psalmist imagines himself riding "the wings of the morning" and
settling on the most remote part of the sea (139:9/10). What are these wings of the morning? Perhaps they were the winds stirred up by the
rising sun or the rays of the sun breaking over the eastern horizon and rushing
out to the western horizon. To the east
of the psalmist would have been a vast desert; to the west, a great sea.
The Jews were not a seafaring people. The sea was, to some extent, a place of
mystery and danger. Yet, even in such a
remote place, God's strong right hand would be there to hold and support him.
What does this mean to you and me?
God isn't going to abandon you…
-in the hospital room.
-on the campus.
-in the retirement home.
-on the battlefield.
-in the workplace.
-in the lonely hours when you wonder if
you'll ever be loved or can love.
In verses eleven and twelve, the psalmist
moves on to one other scenario: utter
darkness. Again, he plays a kind of
“what if” game. What if he tried to hide
from God in the darkness? And, again, he
couldn’t.
Darkness and light are alike to God. You cannot hide from God, supposing the
psalmist even wanted to. More
significantly, the circumstances of life--though they might surround us like
darkness--cannot cloak us from God's presence.
Psalm 23 speaks of walking though a valley
dark as death, yet being sure of God's presence. Perhaps both psalmists were imagining those
times when despair threatens to block out all the light around them. Even in those times, God is there.
The commitment of God revealed in his
purposeful providence
At this point, the psalmist turns from
considering God’s presence to considering his providence in his life.
Focus shifts to the psalmist's own
body. He saw God involved in all the
intricate workings that made him a human being (139:13). This leads to the declaration in verse
fourteen: “I am fearfully and
wonderfully made.”
This is not an expression of
arrogance. It recognizes the wondrous
complexity of the human being and praises the creator. Young's translation captures an interesting
note: "(with) wonders I have been
distinguished." There is something
special about the human that distinguishes us from all the other animals, not
matter what similarities may be found in DNA or other components of our being.
Even before his birth God was involved in
the psalmist's life, carefully overseeing the miracle going on in the
womb.
For the psalmist, what went on in the womb was a mystery. No x-rays or ultrasounds could follow the
development of the child. But one thing
was clear, God was at work beyond what human eyes could behold.
Nothing the psalmist says in verses 14 and
15 is intended to address the issues of birth defects or congenital
disorders. There’s an appropriate place
for discussing these matters in detail but this isn’t it. Here the psalmist is content to simply praise
the Divine Weaver while acknowledging his own limited understanding.
Some writers have used these verses to try
to explain the problem or to explain it away.
That is almost certainly an arbitrary application of the verses.
Psalm 139 is not a theodicy, not a defense
of God. It does not address all the
questions we might have. Doubtless, the
psalmist knows this is a broken world where events and experiences might cause
us to question the very affirmations he is making. Other psalmists (see Psalm 22, for example)
will express feelings of being abandoned by God but, for now, this psalmist
holds fast to the notion that God has been with him from the beginning.
For now, maybe we should simply say the psalmist
is extolling the marvelous craftsmanship found in every human being, even in
those who might not measure up to that narrow standard we call “normal.”
God’s oversight of our lives does not end
when we are born. He looks ahead, beyond
the range of our limited vision.
Your
eyes foresaw my actions; in your book all are written down; my days were
shaped, before one came to be (Psalms
139:16).
This
verse, from the New American version, brings up the notion of God's
foreknowledge. Does this imply a kind of
predestination? Is our every action
already programmed into our character? Is
freewill real or an illusion?
Some translations seem to suggest that God "scheduled" or
"laid out" our days before we were born? Not every Christian would to endorse such
determinism.
It
seems more likely, as most translations agree, that the psalmist is speaking of
length of life. God knows how long we
will live. About a week before his
death, Jerry Falwell told a church group that he believed no one died until his
work was done. I disagreed with Falwell
on many things, but I think he voiced a genuine Christian perspective on that
issue.
The
English Standard Bible supports this notion:
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 were none of them.
Commenting on the verse, Lenski wrote: “This touches on the deep mystery of divine foreknowledge,
which our little minds can never begin to grasp. In this case the book of God is not the book
of life or the record of the deeds of men, but the book of divine
foreknowledge, where, as it were, the days are known at to their number, and a
blank page is provided for each.”
In a way beyond our comprehension, God
knows what we will write on that page but, unlike the kindergarten teacher, God
does not take our hand to form the letters for us. God knows how we will use our freewill; God
knows what the impact of our life will be.
Once again, the psalmist’s reflections have
prompted him to voice a note of wonder (17/18).
The word translated "precious" can mean weighty or
valuable. These thoughts were to be
treasured. But what thoughts? Most likely, the psalmist means God’s
thoughts about him. As the God’s Word translation puts it, “How
precious are your thoughts concerning me, O God!” The central idea seems to be that the
psalmist is thrilled at the thought the thought that God is thinking about
him.
Imagine that, the God of the universe is
thinking of you. In fact, when we look
at the wonders of creation, providence, and the larger picture of salvation as
it is portrayed in the Scripture, we realize that God is committed to us.
Responding to the Committed One
What is the proper response to the God who
is committed to us? We should be
committed to the Committed One.
Now, what would this commitment look like?
We ought to align ourselves to the will of
God for the larger world.
The psalmist understood that there were
those who would thwart God’s plans, if they could. There were those who would rob God of his
glory, if they could. There were those
who would fill the world God built with violence and hatred. How does the psalmist respond to this reality: He declares his commitment to God by
affirming that God's enemies are the psalmist's enemies (139:19-22). While such enemies might not be able to hurt
God, they may have been hurting the psalmist, wounding his spirit if not his
body. Nevertheless, the psalmist will
take his stand for God.
These words remind us of how human the
psalms are. These gut-level words show
how the psalmist feels. At the same
time, the words reminds us that it would be centuries before Jesus would say,
“Love your enemies.” We might not use
the same language the psalmist used, but our response to God should be shaped
by the same kind of resolute devotion.
We should open ourselves to God’s
transforming work as he molds us to become the persons he wants us to be.
The psalm ends with almost the same thought
with which it began, but here he takes the thought a step further: it becomes a prayer. He asks God to cleanse him of any fault that
might mar his relationship to God.
VanGemeren explains what the psalmist is doing in this final prayer; he
contrasts two ways, the way of the world and the way of God. “The psalmist desires nothing less than God’s
will.”
He trusts God to uncover any problem and
correct it so he might walk the "road of eternity." He is willing to be changed, changed by the
One whose commitment to him is beyond his understanding. He is willing to have God’s searchlight
shined into every corner of his heart, willing to see the dark things there
which he might have convinced himself never existed. He was willing to go through that difficult
self-revelation so his relationship with God might be at its healthiest.
Some say this beautiful psalm is about the
wonder of being human. That is certainly
true, but beyond that it is about the wonder of the God who is committed to us.
