Psalm 139
In the Psalms we often read about very personal experiences. The psalm poets tell of your distress and their joy. They tell of victory and defeat. The whole range of human emotions is mentioned. It is as if an above-average number of deeply human experiences meet in this book. They are also experiences of people with your God.
“LORD, you have searched me out and known me.
You know my sitting and my standing up,
you understand my aspirations from afar.
My walking and my lying – you test it.
With all my ways you are familiar.”
Psalm 139:1-3
I am recognized
From the biblical story, we can see that the invisible God who made heaven and earth reveals Himself in the world and in history. In terms of Israel, the people could easily trace God’s actions with the people. To this day, Jewish festivals refer back to concrete experiences in their history and to concrete illustrations of God’s actions.
In this psalm, however, another level becomes visible. The psalm poet writes “You have searched me out and known me “. This is personal experience. Not only the whole people, but a personal living faith shines here. It is man in relationship with God. “You have searched me out and known me.” The psalm poet sees himself in this relationship. Or as Martin Buber describes it, that the relationship is neither in me nor in the other, but takes place between the two. It is the understanding of a God who turns to the individual and of man who is aware of it. Relationship is mutual.
The “I” here is the personal starting point of the writer.
You have explored and known me
When we as human beings are allowed to recognize that Almighty God knows us as we are, then there is infinite comfort in that. It answers man’s desire for living and deep relationship. It answers the desire to connect to the core of our lives. The relationship with God is a gift at all times. It takes place. It can be recognized as a longing and traced as a concrete experience, as here in this psalm. The relationship with God is based at all times on His turning to which we respond.
When we are “searched out and known” by God, we stand without mystery. Then He is present in our lives. Even what we dare not speak, He sees. “You know my sitting and my rising” speaks of all my activities. My life lies open before Him. My pain, my hoping, my hurts and where I have hurt others is included there. My doing and my being is not hidden, but known. In it I am saved. Inevitably I think of the words of Paul: “Rejoice in the Lord always… The Lord is near!” (Ph 4:4-7). The psalm poet and also Paul – and with them many other biblical writers – testify to the intimacy of enlivening true relationship. To be known by God is a great richness.
You understand my aspirations from afar
This part of the sentence belongs to the previous one. They are two ways of saying the same thing. If God knows my activities, then He sees and understands my aspirations from afar. It is also the case that He is near. My whole humanity is known, just as my ways of life are open. The psalm writer poems the same truth from different perspectives. “My walking and my lying down – you test it.” This gives the statement more color, more content. The personal connection becomes stronger. God is not a God who stays away, but tests – in the sense of “measuring out”. He understands the real value of what I do, and no doubt recognizes the right problems better than I do.
You are familiar with all my ways
God is familiar with my ways. That is a comforting statement. The concordant rendering translates “And for all my ways You have made provision “ (Heb. סָכַן, Sakan. English: “And for all my ways You have made provision”). This translation shows that He does not just stay at a distance, but is actively present. God is not only familiar with it (as if He has remote knowledge of it), but for all my ways He has made provision. I may realize that He is caring in my life’s journey.
The Hebrew sakan can express “care for,” and the root word also appears in the word for “overseer” (Koehler/Baumgartner, Wörterbuch zum hebräischen Alten Testament, p. 658), who carefully handles what is entrusted to him.
In Psalm 139 an active form is used, which in some translations is associated with intimacy (NIV: “you are familiar with all my ways”), which is also what is meant by the word “trust”. The active form, however, allows that here this trust does not rest in itself, but actively turns to man. Therefore, “And for all my ways You have made provision” (COT).
It is the care of God, the very positive attention, which the psalmist perceives and records in these words. Thus he writes a few verses further: “Wonderful are your works, and my soul knows it very well” (Ps 139:14). From this his trust is nourished, his confidence.
From this flows gratitude and praise to the God who has shown Himself very close to Him.
