Saturday in the Word | Psalm 139

Reading this well known psalm again I had the thought that the words could have been penned by Adam just as easily as they written by David. In this psalm, David ruminates on God’s intimate knowledge of every detail of our lives and the beautiful truth that there isn’t anywhere we can go that is outside the Lord’s care. I find that thought very comforting as I journey through this challenging season I find myself in unexpectedly.

Search Me, O God, and Know My Heart

To the choirmaster. A Psalm of David.

 1 O Lord, you have searched me and known me!
² You know when I sit down and when I rise up;
    you discern my thoughts from afar.
³ You search out my path and my lying down
    and are acquainted with all my ways.
⁴ Even before a word is on my tongue,
    behold, O Lord, you know it altogether.
⁵ You hem me in, behind and before,
    and lay your hand upon me.
⁶ Such knowledge is too wonderful for me;
    it is high; I cannot attain it.

⁷ Where shall I go from your Spirit?
    Or where shall I flee from your presence?
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.

¹³ For you formed my inward parts;
    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.

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.

¹⁹ Oh that you would slay the wicked, O God!
    O men of blood, depart from me!
²⁰ They speak against you with malicious intent;
    your enemies take your name in vain.
²¹ Do I not hate those who hate you, O Lord?
    And do I not loathe those who rise up against you?
²² I hate them with complete hatred;
    I count them my enemies.

²³ Search me, O God, and know my heart!
    Try me and know my thoughts!
²⁴ And see if there be any grievous way in me,
    and lead me in the way everlasting!

Psalm 139 ESV

Psalm 139 contains elements of both hymn and lament. It starts out with praise for God’s presence and continual care (verses 1-18), but then leans into David’s difficulty in dealing with evildoers, those whose external behavior (he contends) offers evidence that they “hate God” (verses 19-22). As a hymn, it is a vibrant celebration of God’s intimate knowledge of us. As a lament, it conveys our human struggle with feelings of vulnerability and our desire for deliverance.

I can picture Adam, after the Fall, wrestling with this same dilemma, knowing his role in it. After all, Adam was the gatekeeper charged with tending to the Garden. He didn’t hate God. How could he?

I can’t help but wonder about the weight of disappointment and profound discouragement that Adam shouldered. As I read David’s words in Psalm 139, I could hear Adam’s voice saying “That’s me! That’s how I felt!”

Psalm 139’s themes of God’s intimate knowledge, presence, and creative power resonate deeply with Adam’s experience. Imagine Adam, the first human, reflecting on being “fearfully and wonderfully made” (v. 14), recalling how God formed him from the dust and breathed life into him. The psalm’s imagery of God knowing us before we are born (v. 16) aligns with Adam’s unique creation, as God formed him with intention before there was any human ancestry.

The psalmist’s meditation on God’s faithful presence (“Where shall I go from your Spirit? Or where shall I flee from your presence?” v. 7) could also fit Adam’s experience post-Fall—realizing that even in exile from Eden, God’s presence remained inescapable. Adam knee God to be faithful and good.

I find that there’s a deep richness in reading this psalm through Adam’s eyes, both as the first created being and as someone who walked with God in a way no other human did. If David is a man after God’s own heart (Acts 13:22), how more so is Adam, God’s first created human being?

Read Psalm 139. First, read it through David’s eyes and then read it through Adam’s gaze. Finally, read it from your perspective. I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised and blessed.

I look forward to hearing about your experience in the COMMENTS.

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Like this post? Please checkout these posts that I published this past week.

Don’t Kiss the Frogs: A Simple Approach to Healing

The Wonder of Simply Being

Man, O Man, You Know What is Good

Strategies for Reclaiming My Wellbeing

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Thanks for reading, my friend. Until my next post…

Be salty, stay lit.

Rainer Bantau —The Devotional Guy™

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The Stigma Stops Here.🛑

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