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139. Psalm 139

¹ You have searched me, LORD,
   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, LORD, know it completely.
⁵ You hem me in behind and before,
   and you lay your hand upon me.
⁶ Such knowledge is too wonderful for me,
   too lofty for me to attain.

    ⁷ Where can I go from your Spirit?
   Where can I flee from your presence?
⁸ If I go up to the heavens, you are there;
   if I make my bed in the depths, you are there.
⁹ If I rise on the wings of the dawn,
   if I settle on the far side of the sea,
¹⁰ even there your hand will guide me,
   your right hand will hold me fast.
¹¹ If I say, “Surely the darkness will hide me
   and the light become night around me,”
¹² even the darkness will not be dark to you;
   the night will shine like the day,
   for darkness is as light to you.

    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, Or How amazing are your thoughts concerning me 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.

    ¹⁹ If only you, God, would slay the wicked!
   Away from me, you who are bloodthirsty!
²⁰ They speak of you with evil intent;
   your adversaries misuse your name.
²¹ Do I not hate those who hate you, LORD,
   and abhor those who are in rebellion against you?
²² I have nothing but hatred for them;
   I count them my enemies.
²³ Search me, God, and know my heart;
   test me and know my anxious thoughts.
²⁴ See if there is any offensive way in me,
   and lead me in the way everlasting.

In verse fifth some read — behind and before thou hast fashioned me; ²⁰³²⁰³ Thus the Septuagint have ἔπλασάς με, Thou hast formed me. Similar is the rendering of the Syriac. Those who embrace this view take the verb, as if the root were יצר, yatsar. “But,” says Phillips, “it is certain that the root of צרתני must be צור, to afflict, press, besiege. Hence the meaning of the verse is, ‘Thou hast so pressed upon, or besieged me, both behind and before, that I find there is no escaping from thee; Thou hast placed thy hand upon me, so that I am quite in thy power.’ The whole passage is a figure, representing God’s thorough knowledge of man.” — Phillips. “Thou besettest me behind and before, i.e. thou knowest all my doings as perfectly as if I were begirt by thee on every side.” — Cresswell. but צור, tsur, often signifies to shut up, and David, there can be no doubt, means that he was surrounded on every side, and so kept in sight by God, that he could not escape in any quarter. One who finds the way blocked up turns back; but David found himself hedged in behind as well as before. The other clause of the verse has the same meaning; for those put a very forced interpretation upon it who think that it refers to God’s fashioning us, and applying his hand in the sense of an artizan to his work; nor does this suit with the context. And it is much better to understand it as asserting that God by his hand, laid as it were upon men, holds them strictly under his inspection, so that they cannot move a hair’s breadth without his knowledge. ²⁰⁴²⁰⁴ “Comme mettant la main sur eux pour los arrester par le collet, ainsi qu’on dit, tellement qu’ils ne peuvent bouger le moins du monde qu’il ne le scache.” — Fr.