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| Galaxy M 109 - All these are known by God ! |
Does God know me
sufficiently well to really care about
me? We often complain to one another
that we feel misunderstood by family or friends. “You
don’t really know me…”; “you
haven’t been in my shoes“; “You
haven’t been through what I have been through…”
Is there anyone that
does know you thoroughly? Most likely not – not even those who are
closest to us , but there is the
One who has made you!
Psalm 139 has
been said by some
to be one of the sublimest
compositions in the world[1]. Rabbi Ibn Ezra (1089 — 1164) born in Andalusia, Spain was one of the most
distinguished Jewish men of letters and writers of the Middle Ages. He was called The Wise, The Great
and The Admirable Doctor. He
wrote commentaries on most of the OT , including the Psalms , and he had
this to say about Psalm 139 : “This Psalm
is the most glorious of the theme of the
ways of God and is unequalled in the 5
books of the Psalter and in accordance with one’s understanding in the ways of
God and in the disposition of the soul will he be able to see into its
profundity.” It is not difficult to
endorse this point.
This is a wonderful
Psalm for it brings God very near to
us in a comforting and perhaps even in a
disturbing way. May God be pleased to use
the study of the Psalm in your soul in the most appropriate way !
We are not certain
on what occasion David was inspired to compose this Psalm. A. Anderson thinks that
this is an individual thanksgiving offered to God after he had been acquitted
by God.[2] Whatever the case may be, this Psalm covers some profound thoughts. The Psalm is made up of 2 parts :
(i)
Vv. 1-18 which may be subdivided
into three main themes :
·
God’s intimate knowledge of David (1-6)
·
God’s omnipresence (7-12)
·
God’s wonderful creation (13-18)
(ii)
Vv. 19-24 consists
of :
·
An imprecatory prayer (19-22)
·
A
prayer to God (23-24)
God’s
Intimate knowledge of David : The Omniscience of God (1-6)
[V1.] O LORD, you have searched me and known me! In the
very first verse David lays down the doctrine of
God’s perfect knowledge (omniscience) of us. He is probably trying to defend himself
against enemies or false accusers, (like Jeremiah in Jer
11:20 & 12:3; also 17:10) and he
needs an advocate to defend his integrity. He says: You have searched me.
The Hebrew word for search means to dig deep,
and is usually applied to the search for precious metals (see Job 28:3) .
You (lit you alone) have searched me and known me! Note
David’s awareness of the fact that he
knows that God knows him deeply
and personally. God has dug into David’s heart and has
bared it down to its very deepest being. The verdict is “God
declares me not guilty! “. Notice that
in the first verse he speaks of this searching in the past tense ”…you have searched me.” At the end of the Psalm (v.23) he prays in the present: “Search me oh God and know my heart.” God is the continuous searcher
of our hearts, and we must be thankful
that He is, and we should always pray that He would do this work always,
so that we may not sin against Him.
“And
known“
(me). In the Hebrew translation there is no ‘me’ after known i.e. you
have searched me and known!
The knowledge of God
extends,according to David,to at least
four areas:
1. To all our
movements, [v.2a] “You know when I sit down and when I rise up”;
2. To all our thoughts: [v.2b] "you discern my thoughts from afar." God knows more than our
actions. He knows our inner life; our secret thoughts. He knows what our thoughts have been, what they now are,
what they will be. He who has made your mind knows what your thoughts will be at all times. Because this is so , God knows what will
happen in the future, since He knows the thoughts of all men. He can know our thoughts without being the
Author of them.
3. To all our actions: [v.3] You search out my path and my lying down and are acquainted with all my
ways. Every step you take; every
private or public action – for my
entire life!
4. To all our words: [V.4] Even before a word
is on my tongue, behold, O LORD, you know it altogether.” God
knows what we are going to say , even before we say it .
Nothing may be
concealed before God – either good or bad. That is why we must always
have this thought in mind: God knows all my movements, all my thoughts all my actions . He even knows my words ahead
of time. A sobering thought! No wonder that
David now makes the next statement:
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| The DNA molecule |
v.5.
You hem me in, behind and before ,and lay your hand upon me. David is boxed in! David knows that he is in
the hand of an omniscient God – one who
knows everything. He can get away with nothing! One may fool one’s friends and
family, but one never fools God, and no-one
can get away from Him. Now, such
knowledge may be very intimidating, but not for David! The fact that this is a
comforting thought to David is now seen
in v.6:
v.6.
Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; it is high; I cannot attain it. David
marvels at the depth of God’s intimate knowledge
of him. Of course when we think of it, we hardly would think
that
David knew the intricacies of the
DNA molecule – utterly hidden from our
eyes , and yet containing every single detail or information of what we are. Every DNA molecule is an entire program of what we are (individually) ,
describing every part of our being into
every detail. This is the God who has made you , and who knows you .
How much information does DNA carry? Dr.
Werner Gitt, professor of information science gives us some insight into this
question in his thought-provoking book , “In
the Beginning was Information.” Dr. Gitt points out that the DNA
molecule has the highest density (storage capacity) of information of any
system known to man. As an illustration, he shows a small 32mm x 33mm
slide on which the entire Bible is printed. That is amazing enough.
But Dr. Gitt points out that the DNA molecule is 7.7 million MILLION times
more density of information than his 32mm slide. He goes on to point out that
if you took just one pinhead of genetic material and converted
all of its information into text, it would fill so many books that if you were
to stack them up, the stack of books would be 500 times the distance
from the earth to the moon!
The storage capability of DNA is nothing short of
mind-boggling. But as it turns out, the most crucial thing of all about
DNA isn’t the molecule itself, it’s the information that it
carries. Without that information, DNA is a dead molecule. Again,
it’s important to keep in mind that the information carried by DNA does not
reside in the molecule itself. That information exists independently and
separately from the physical medium of DNA. In many ways, it’s similar to
the ink on your newspaper. Ink does not posses any information in and of
itself. Ink that is simply spilled onto a sheet of paper cannot arrange
itself into information. In order to get an intelligible message, information
must be imposed upon the ink by an intelligent source outside of it, who
already has that information in his or her mind.
This shows us that
God has
minutely intimate knowledge of us! Therefore you can trust Him with His analysis of you in His word !
God’s
Omnipresence ( 7-12)
v.7
Where shall I go from your Spirit? Or
where shall I flee from your presence (lit. your face) ?[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.
Apparently, when people in Israel thought of ways of escape they looked first to the height and then to the depths (see Amos 9:2). David knows that neither
heaven ( the highest heights) nor hell ( the lowest depths) provide an escape
from God. The Universe is one big “ YOU ARE THERE!”
What about
travel in a horizontal direction? If I take the wings of the morning… can
you fly
as far east or west as you can , hoping
to escape? No place
on the earth can hide you. The
Marianna trench, in the Pacific Ocean at 11 km
below the sea, the deepest part of our ocean, cannot hide you. Darkness is no obstacle to God. God is light
in Himself and light by nature always
displaces darkness.
This
God
,wrote Francis Thompson (1859-1907) is
the hound of heaven. Here are the
first few lines from that poem which had
a profound influence upon J.R. Tolkien ( Lord of the Ring)
I fled Him, down the nights
and down the days;
I fled Him, down the arches of the years;
I fled Him, down the
labyrinthine ways
Of my own mind; and in the mist of tears
I hid from Him, and under
running laughter.
Up vistaed hopes I sped; And shot, precipitated,
Adown Titanic glooms of
chasmed fears,
From those strong Feet that
followed, followed after.
But with unhurrying chase,
And unperturbèd pace,
Deliberate speed, majestic
instancy,
They beat--and a Voice beat
More instant than the Feet--
"All things betray thee, who betrayest
Me."
God
cannot be escaped from. And those that think that they will
escape at the end, when Christ comes, had better think again. The
mountains which they call upon to fall upon them in that day, will not be able
to hide them. For them this attribute of God must be a very frightening
thought! For the Christian this is very comforting “…. Such knowledge is too wonderful for me !”(v.6)
God’s
wonderful creation ( vv.13-18)
God’s omniscience and God’s omnipresence are
non-communicable attributes of
God . He does not share them with mankind . They belong to the infinite Creator alone . As Creator ,He
is responsible for his creation. David says “ [13] For you formed (created) my inward
parts (lit. my kidneys[3])
; 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.
David now takes a
different line of thought in the
exposition of the knowledge of
God’s intimacy of him. Not only does God
know Him as he is in the present .He says that God knew him before birth. Before birth
he was already under the control and guardianship of God. No wonder
that David marvels:
[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.
The fact that he is
so intimately known by God , comforts David.These are precious thoughts – too
overwhelming to count – overwhelming like the information contained in a DNA molecule. And to think
that God has taken care to make each of
us different – no two people on the earth are the same. Spurgeon writes, “Imagine the world without a thinking , personal God! Conceive of a grim
providence of machinery!- a fatherhood
of law…”
May God be please
to put you to bed tonight with this
meditation, and then to awake tomorrow
morning, saying: “I
awake , and I am still with you!”
With Him,in Him and
for Him- intimately united with, and known by our Father! Amen.
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