Psalm 139
v.1
O Lord, you have searched me and you know me.
Yahweh is being addressed as the judge who is in possession of all the information for judging the psalmist’s case wisely and fairly.
v.5-6
You hem me in—behind and before; you have laid your hand upon me. 6Such knowledge is too wonderful for me, too lofty for me to attain.
Being hedged behind, David cannot stop or quit because he is being herded forward. Being hedged before, he cannot accelerate or push ahead, he can only move forward at the pace the Lord sovereignly sets for him. He can’t work up momentum, and he can’t quit. Then, he’s under the mighty hand of God, which means he can’t move to the left or right either. He is a man without options. And his evaluation of this place of constraint, restraint, and harnessed direction? David could have been tempted by this as highly constrictive and controlling, but instead he called it such high knowledge he cannot attain it!
“You hem me in behind and before”—another merism—signifies God’s omniscience is inescapable. “And lay (the palm of) your hand upon me” signifies God’s decisive control. “Such knowledge … I cannot attain” (lit. “cannot scale”) signifies God’s knowledge of him. His intimate omniscience is unfathomable.
v.17-18
How precious to me are your thoughts, O God! How vast is the sum of them! 18Were I to count them, they would outnumber the grains of sand. When I awake, I am still with you.
The “thoughts” of God are too magnificent, too numerous, and too exalted for a human being to comprehend, whose “thoughts” are fully known to the Lord. But the Lord’s love is real.
I love to remember that You, my God, are thinking of me. I am not distressed or alarmed by that recollection. I do not say, ‘How terrible are thy thoughts unto me, O God.’ But ‘How precious’—how consoling, how full of promises of blessing to me—‘are thy thoughts unto me, O God! how great is the sum of them!
“You lull me to sleep and You awake me in the morning. And when I open my eyes, You are still there.” Happy believer, who is always with God! Why should not You and I, dear friends, always be consciously in the presence of God? We are never right unless we are in that condition—and if we ever begin to forget God, we are in a wrong state of heart. If we can live, from day to day, without realizing that God is near us, we are falling into a sad and dangerous condition.
CharlesSpurgeon from exposition
God never thinks of His people in a harsh way. He never has an unkind thought concerning even the most erring of those who are His own children. He looks upon them as a father looks upon his child, with intense affection, pitying them when they stray from Him. And if, sometimes, He chides them for their wrongdoing, even then He does but veil the purpose of His love that He may accomplish it the better.
He is always aiming at that which will promote our best health, our truest wealth, and our ultimate perfection. At times, clouds come between our souls and our God, but His love is always shining. O beloved, if the Lord had not thought very tenderly of us, He would have cut some of us down long ago as cumberers to the ground.
He looks far ahead, He takes eternity into the compass of His thoughts. And He judges what is best to do for us, not merely under the aspect of an hour, or a week, or a month, or even of a whole life below, but He puts eternity into the scale and orders all things well for everlasting ages.
v.21
Do I not hate those who hate you, O LORD, and abhor those who rise up against you?
We are to love our own enemies, but we are not to love God’s enemies. We are to forgive our personal enemies, but we cannot forgive God’s enemies. That man loves not truth who does not hate a lie and he loves not the right who has no anger against wrong. We are living in an age in which we are practically told that truth and error are the same, that the devil’s lie and the divine revelation may lie down together. If we will not endorse this falsehood, men call us bigoted or dogmatic. Bless the Lord, we mean to be a great deal more dogmatic than we have been, and to stick even closer to the truth of God than we have hitherto done, if that be possible.
CharlesSpurgeon from exposition
v.23-24
Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. 24See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.
You will see much that will grieve You and much that You will have to amend, but still, I would not wish to hide anything from You, my Lord. Lies not all my hope, my very heaven, that way? The glances of Your eye, are they not the very medicine that shall cure my soul-sickness, or at least, the means by which I shall get the medicine that will heal me of the dire disease of sin?”