Psalms 139

You Have Searched Me and Known Me

1For the director. Of David. A psalm. Yahweh, you have searched me and known me.

2You yourself know my sitting down and my rising up; you discern my thoughts from afar.

3You sift out my going and my lying down, and you are familiar with all my ways.

4For there is not a word on my tongue — behold, Yahweh, you know all of it.

5Behind and before you have hemmed me in, and you have laid your palm upon me.

6Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; it is too high — I cannot attain it.

7Where can I go from your Spirit? And where can I flee from your presence?

8If I ascend to the heavens, you are there; if I make my bed in Sheol, behold, you are there.

9If I take up the wings of the dawn, if I dwell at the far edge of the sea,

10even there your hand would lead me, and your right hand would take hold of me.

11If I say, “Surely darkness will cover me, and the light around me will become night,”

12even the darkness is not dark to you, and the night shines like the day; the darkness is as the light.

13For you yourself created my inmost parts; you wove me together in my mother’s womb.

14I praise you, for I am fearfully, wonderfully made; wonderful are your works, and my soul knows it well.

15My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in secret, when I was intricately woven in the depths of the earth.

16Your eyes saw my unformed substance, and in your book all of them were written — the days that were formed, when not one of them yet was.

17How precious to me are your thoughts, O God! How vast is the sum of them!

18Were I to count them, they would be more than the sand; when I awake, I am still with you.

19If only you would slay the wicked, O God — you men of bloodshed, depart from me! —

20who speak of you with malice; your adversaries lift up falsehood.

21Do I not hate those who hate you, Yahweh, and loathe those who rise up against you?

22With complete hatred I hate them; they have become enemies to me.

23Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts.

24and see if there is any hurtful way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.

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Cross-references in this chapter

Where this passage connects across Scripture — each link typed and reasoned, part of the AIT Bible Nexus Chart.

You Have Searched Me and Known Me

• parallel Amos 9:1 — Both describe the impossibility of escaping God's reach in Sheol, the heavens, and the depths of the sea.
• echoed in Job 11:7 — Shared imagery of heaven above and Sheol below marking the extremities beyond which one cannot escape God's reach.
• thematic 2 Kings 19:27 — Shared distinctive motif of God knowing one's sitting down and rising up (and going out and coming in).
• thematic Amos 9:2 — Both picture the futility of fleeing God whether ascending to heaven or descending to Sheol.
• thematic Daniel 2:14 — Both declare that darkness is not dark to God, who knows what is in the darkness while light dwells with him.
• thematic Ecclesiastes 11:1 — Both point to the mysterious formation of the unborn in the womb as beyond human knowledge, known only to God the maker.
• thematic Jeremiah 23:24 — Both develop the omnipresence of God, that no one can hide from him who fills heaven and earth.
• thematic Jeremiah 17:10 — Both affirm that Yahweh searches and knows the human heart and mind.
• thematic Jeremiah 23:23 — Both affirm God's omnipresence—no one can hide from him who fills heaven and earth.
• thematic Job 10:11 — Both describe God forming and knitting the body together in the womb.
• thematic Job 10:1 — Both portray God knitting together the body with skin, flesh, and bones in the womb.
• thematic Job 23:1 — Job's search in every direction (forward, backward, left, right) without finding God is the inverse of the psalmist's inability to flee God's presence in any direction.
• thematic Job 26:1 — Both affirm God's presence and knowledge extending even into Sheol/the realm of the dead.
• thematic Job 31:1 — Both affirm that God sees and counts all a person's ways and steps.
• thematic Job 34:16 — Both affirm that no darkness can hide anyone from God.
• thematic Proverbs 20:1 — Both describe God searching the innermost being of a person.
• thematic Psalms 56:8 — Both share the image of God recording a person's life in his book.
• thematic Psalms 26:2 — Both petition God to test/examine the psalmist's heart and mind.