Home | What's New |
Mission Statement | Location|
Services | Calendar |
Lessons |
Committees | Activities |
Search | Links
Music, Search By: Hymnal / By Tune
/ Music Book |
Scott's Reference Library
Psalm 139:1 through Psalm 139:6 (NIV)
1 O LORD, you have searched me
and you know me.
2 You know when I sit and when I rise;
you perceive my thoughts from afar.
3 You discern my going out and my lying down;
you are familiar with all my ways.
4 Before a word is on my tongue
you know it completely, O LORD.
5 You hem me in—behind and before;
you have laid your hand upon me.
6 Such knowledge is too wonderful for me,
too lofty for me to attain.
13 For you created my inmost being;
you knit me together in my mother’s womb.
14 I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;
your works are wonderful,
I know that full well.
15 My frame was not hidden from you
when I was made in the secret place.
When I was woven together in the depths of the earth,
16 your eyes saw my unformed body.
All the days ordained for me
were written in your book
before one of them came to be.
17 How precious to me are your thoughts, O God!
How vast is the sum of them!
18 Were I to count them,
they would outnumber the grains of sand.
When I awake,
I am still with you.
Matthew Henry’s Concise Commentary on the Whole Bible
VERSES 1-6
God has perfect knowledge of us, and all our thoughts and actions are open
before him. It is more profitable to meditate on Divine truths, applying them to
our own cases, and with hearts lifted to God in prayer, than with a curious or
disputing frame of mind. That God knows all things, is omniscient; that he is
every where, is omnipresent; are truths acknowledged by all, yet they are seldom
rightly believed in by mankind. God takes strict notice of every step we take,
every right step and every by step. He knows what rule we walk by, what end we
walk toward, what company we walk with. When I am withdrawn from all company,
thou knowest what I have in my heart. There is not a vain word, not a good word,
but thou knowest from what thought it came, and with what design it was uttered.
Wherever we are, we are under the eye and hand of God. We cannot by searching
find how God searches us out; nor do we know how we are known. Such thoughts
should restrain us from sin.
VERSES 7-16
We cannot see God, but he can see us. The psalmist did not desire to go from the
Lord. Whither can I go? In the most distant corners of the world, in heaven, or
in hell, I cannot go out of thy reach. No veil can hide us from God; not the
thickest darkness. No disguise can save any person or action from being seen in
the true light by him. Secret haunts of sin are as open before God as the most
open villanies. On the other hand, the believer cannot be removed from the
supporting, comforting presence of his Almighty Friend. Should the persecutor
take his life, his soul will the sooner ascend to heaven. The grave cannot
separate his body from the love of his Saviour, who will raise it a glorious
body. No outward circumstances can separate him from his Lord. While in the path
of duty, he may be happy in any situation, by the exercise of faith, hope, and
prayer.
VERSES 17-24
God’s counsels concerning us and our welfare are deep, such as cannot be known.
We cannot think how many mercies we have received from him. It would help to
keep us in the fear of the Lord all the day long, if, when we wake in the
morning, our first thoughts were of him: and how shall we admire and bless our
God for his precious salvation, when we awake in the world of glory! Surely we
ought not to use our members and senses, which are so curiously fashioned, as
instruments of unrighteousness unto sin. But our immortal and rational souls are
a still more noble work and gift of God. Yet if it were not for his precious
thoughts of love to us, our reason and our living for ever would, through our
sins, prove the occasion of our eternal misery. How should we then delight to
meditate on God’s love to sinners in Jesus Christ, the sum of which exceeds all
reckoning! Sin is hated, and sinners lamented, by all who fear the Lord. Yet
while we shun them we should pray for them; with God their conversion and
salvation are possible. As the Lord knows us thoroughly, and we are strangers to
ourselves, we should earnestly desire and pray to be searched and proved by his
word and Spirit. if there be any wicked way in me, let me see it; and do thou
root it out of me. The way of godliness is pleasing to God, and profitable to
us; and will end in everlasting life. It is the good old way. All the saints
desire to be kept and led in this way, that they may not miss it, turn out of
it, or tire in it.