Psalm 139
Theme
Search Me, O God, and Know My Heart
Outline
1-6, God is Everywhere Present 7-16, He Made and Knows Us 17-24, The Psalmist's Hatred of Sin, and Desire to be Tried of God
Key Verse
(139:1) O LORD, You have searched me and known me.
Notes
David opens Ps 139 declaring that God has searched and known him (139:1), becoming familiar with all his ways (139:3), and he closes the psalm asking God to search him, know him, reveal any hurtful way in him, and put him on the way everlasting (139:23–24). Near the beginning of the psalm David acknowledges that God discerns all his aims (139:2), and near the end he proclaims how precious to him are God’s aims (139:17). The Lord knows David’s unspoken words (139:4) and yet unlived days (139:16). David confesses such knowledge to be too wonderful for him (139:5–6) and acknowledges that he himself is one of God’s wonderfully made wonderful works (139:13–15). At the heart of Ps 139 stands David’s meditation that God is inescapably everywhere: in heaven or Sheol, from dawn to dusk, in darkness or light (139:7–12).