Psalm 139--Search Me, O God, and Know My Heart

Psalm 139
English Standard Version

Search Me, O God, and Know My Heart
To the choirmaster. A Psalm of David.
139 O LORD, you have searched me and known me!
2 You know when I sit down and when I rise up;
    you discern my thoughts from afar.
3 You search out my path and my lying down
    and are acquainted with all my ways.
4 Even before a word is on my tongue,
    behold, O LORD, you know it altogether.
5 You hem me in, behind and before,
    and lay your hand upon me.
6 Such knowledge is too wonderful for me;
    it is high; I cannot attain it.

7 Where shall I go from your Spirit?
    Or where shall I flee from your presence?
8 If I ascend to heaven, you are there!
    If I make my bed in Sheol, you are there!
9 If I take the wings of the morning
    and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea,
10 even there your hand shall lead me,
    and your right hand shall hold me.
11 If I say, “Surely the darkness shall cover me,
    and the light about me be night,”
12 even the darkness is not dark to you;
    the night is bright as the day,
    for darkness is as light with you.

13 For you formed my inward parts;
    you knitted me together in my mother's womb.
14 I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.
Wonderful are your works;
    my soul knows it very well.
15 My frame was not hidden from you,
when I was being made in secret,
    intricately woven in the depths of the earth.
16 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 was none of them.

17 How precious to me are your thoughts, O God!
    How vast is the sum of them!
18 If I would count them, they are more than the sand.
    I awake, and I am still with you.

19 Oh that you would slay the wicked, O God!
    O men of blood, depart from me!
20 They speak against you with malicious intent;
    your enemies take your name in vain.
21 Do I not hate those who hate you, O LORD?
    And do I not loathe those who rise up against you?
22 I hate them with complete hatred;
    I count them my enemies.

​23 Search me, O God, and know my heart!
    Try me and know my thoughts!
24 And see if there be any grievous way in me,
    and lead me in the way everlasting!

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This psalm starts with adoring the LORD for His omniscience.  He knows everything about us without us speaking and word and chooses to love us and help us, even though He knows the most inward parts of our hearts, souls, and minds.  He has seen everything said, done, and thought in secret that we though were concealed in darkness.  He will be an eyewitness to everything that is recorded in His books on the Day of Judgment.  Yet, to those He loves, He guards and protects us from harm--both from external and internal threats, for many times we are our own worst enemies.

The LORD is not only omniscient, but omnipresent.  His Spirit is in all places at all times.  We cannot go anywhere to hide from Him.  This is scary for those of us in rebellion to Him who are trying to hide and escape His wrath, but a comfort to those of us who are in fellowship with Him as there is nowhere that we can go on mission for Him that He will not be with us.  He may send us across the street or around the world to be His ambassadors and He will go before us, be right beside us and also be our rear guard.

The LORD did not stop His creative work on Day 6 of creation.  He continues to build, make, and weave together each person in their mother's womb.  It is the LORD who gives us life.  He knows all of our inward parts and is not disgusted by them.  They are a work of art that He created.  We point to these verses to make the Biblical claim that we have value and meaning from the moment of conception because we are God's creation.  We should protect life, especially human life because God is the giver of life.  Side note here that God is also the one that is allowed to take life and tell others when they are allowed to justifiably take a life (war, self-defense, or the state using capital punishment to punish those who are guilty of high-handed sins of rebellion).  Life is given by the LORD, belongs to the LORD all our days and one day He will tell us that our days are up because He alone has our days numbered, whether they are few or many.  He owes no explanation to anyone for the number of days He has given us because we deserved none of them.  Speaking of his own life, the prophet Job said of the LORD, "The LORD giveth, and the LORD taketh away.  Blessed be the Name of the LORD."

All these things lead us to conclude, "His ways are higher than our ways, and His thoughts are higher than our thoughts."  We also want to ask questions like, "Who can know the mind of God?"  Yet, we desire to know what He thinks about things because what He thinks is the only opinion that really matters.  Therefore, He has revealed Himself and His mind to us through His Word and that is why we should love the Bible--the Old Testament and the New Testament, and we should love the Holy Spirit who indwells us and helps us to have the mind of Christ too.  God knows infinitely many things that we could never fully know or understand.  The psalmist says that we could count all the grains of sand on all the earth and the thoughts of God would outnumber them.  We could similarly say this for the dust of the earth or the stars in the heavens.  All are meant to represent an uncountable number that represents the idea of "infinity" in the Bible.  The more we understand about God, the more it makes us love Him.

The LORD will also judge the wicked men who believe they have gotten away with their rebellion.  As the people of God, we try to warn others to repent and believe the gospel because, "The vilest offender who truly believes, that moment from Jesus, a pardon receives."  We all were once under the LORD's wrath and condemnation.  We were in darkness, but He brought us from darkness to light, from death to life, and from rebellion to obedience.  We were enemies, but now we are His children by Adoption--co-heirs with God the Son, and one day to be the Bride of Christ.  Those who die in rebellion to God having never believed on the substitutionary atonement of Christ for salvation and not believing that Jesus is Lord will be judged by their works and will be found guilty by the eyewitness testimony of God Himself.  Nothing will be concealed on that day of judgment.  Justice will be done, for God is both Just and the Justifier.  That means that He has the right to declare judgment on those who reject the way in which He has made for us to be declared righteous.  Jesus is the only Way of salvation!

The psalmist ends by asking the LORD to search within him and find all the dirtiness and clean him from the inside out.  God knows our hearts and thoughts better than we do and can reveal to us when we have sinful motives hidden deep within us.  The LORD is happy to make us more into His likeness and into the image of the Son of God so that we once again will be good image-bearers as we were when He originally made Adam and Eve, "In the image of God He created them.  Male and female, He created them."