1 LORD, you have searched me, and you know me. 2 You know my sitting down and my rising up. You perceive my thoughts from afar. 3 You search out my path and my lying down, and are acquainted with all my ways. 4 For there is not a word on my tongue, but behold, LORD, you know it altogether. 5 You hem me in behind and before. You laid your hand on me. 6 This knowledge is beyond me. It’s lofty. I can’t attain it. 7 Where could I go from your Spirit? Or where could I flee from your presence? 8 If I ascend up into heaven, you are there. If I make my bed in Sheol, behold, you are there! 9 If I take the wings of the dawn, and settle in the uttermost parts of the sea, 10 even there your hand will lead me, and your right hand will hold me. 11 If I say, “Surely the darkness will overwhelm me. The light around me will be night,” 12 even the darkness doesn’t hide from you, but the night shines as the day. The darkness is like light to you. 13 For you formed my inmost being. You knit me together in my mother’s womb. 14 I will give thanks to you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Your works are wonderful. My soul knows that very well. 15 My frame wasn’t hidden from you, when I was made in secret, woven together in the depths of the earth. 16 Your eyes saw my body. In your book they were all written, the days that were ordained for me, when as yet there were none of them. 17 How precious to me are your thoughts, God! How vast is their sum! 18 If I would count them, they are more in number than the sand. When I wake up, I am still with you. 19 If only you, God, would kill the wicked. Get away from me, you bloodthirsty men! 20 For they speak against you wickedly. Your enemies take your name in vain. 21 LORD, don’t I hate those who hate you? Am I not grieved with those who rise up against you? 22 I hate them with perfect hatred. They have become my enemies. 23 Search me, God, and know my heart. Try me, and know my thoughts. 24 See if there is any wicked way in me, and lead me in the everlasting way.
Psalm 139 — You Have Searched Me and Known Me
The psalm about being completely known, and about there being nowhere far enough away to be unreached.
What Psalm 139 Means
Psalm 139 is about being known, and it refuses to make that comfortable straight away. It opens with a total inventory: you know my sitting down and my rising up, you understand my thought from far off, you know my words before I say them. Read in the wrong mood, the first verses are close to claustrophobic, and the psalm seems aware of it. It does not rush to reassure. Then the famous passage on escape. If I ascend to heaven you are there, if I make my bed in Sheol you are there, if I take the wings of the dawn and settle at the far side of the sea, even there your hand will lead me. The list is exhaustive on purpose. Height, depth, distance, and finally darkness, which the psalm says is not dark to God at all. What turns the psalm is what this knowing is for. The middle section moves to being formed in the womb, knit together, made in secret, and the tone shifts from surveillance to craftsmanship. The one who knows everything is the one who made it. Being fully known stops being exposure and becomes recognition. It ends by inviting the very thing it began by describing: search me, know my heart. Having established that God sees everything, the psalmist asks him to look.
Liturgical Use in the Catholic Church
Psalm 139 appears in the Liturgy of the Hours and is widely used in reflection on the dignity of human life from conception, drawing on its account of being formed in the womb.
Praying Psalm 139 — A Simple Practice
Read the first six verses and notice your own reaction, because it is diagnostic: being fully known is either a threat or a relief, and which one it is tells you something about what you think God is like. Then read to the end, where the psalm answers that question. It is a good psalm for anyone who feels unseen and for anyone who feels too seen.
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