Psalms 139:1

1 {To the chief Musician. A Psalm of David.} Jehovah, thou hast searched me, and known [me].

Psalms 139:1 Meaning and Commentary

Psalms 139:1

O Lord, thou hast searched me, and known [me].
] The omniscience of God reaches to all persons and things; but the psalmist only takes notice of it as respecting himself. God knows all men in general, and whatever belongs to them; he knows his own people in a special manner; and he knows their particular persons, as David and others: and this knowledge of God is considered after the manner of men, as if it was the fruit of search, to denote the exquisiteness of it; as a judge searches out a cause, a physician the nature of a disease, a philosopher the reason of things; who many times, after all their inquiries, fail in their knowledge; but the Lord never does: his elect lie in the ruins of the fall, and among the men of the world; he searches them out and finds them; for be knows where they are, and the time of finding them, and can distinguish them in a crowd of men from others, and notwithstanding the sad case they are in, and separates them from them; and he searches into them, into their most inward part, and knows them infinitely better than their nearest relations, friends and acquaintance do; he knows that of them and in them, which none but they themselves know; their thoughts, and the sin that dwells in them: yea, he knows more of them and in them than they themselves, ( Jeremiah 17:9 Jeremiah 17:10 ) . And he knows them after another manner than he does other men: there are some whom in a sense he knows not; but these he knows, as he did David, so as to approve of, love and delight in, ( Matthew 7:23 ) ( 2 Timothy 2:19 ) .

Psalms 139:1 In-Context

1 {To the chief Musician. A Psalm of David.} Jehovah, thou hast searched me, and known [me].

2 *Thou* knowest my down-sitting and mine uprising, thou understandest my thought afar off;

3 Thou searchest out my path and my lying down, and art acquainted with all my ways;

4 For there is not yet a word on my tongue, [but] lo, O Jehovah, thou knowest it altogether.

5 Thou hast beset me behind and before, and laid thy hand upon me.