Thoughts on Psalm 139

These are very much my preliminary thoughts as I attempt to prepare for a sermon on this passage for this coming Sunday. Comments would be very much appreciated.

This is a psalm that is beloved by many Christians over the years, and has been the source of much reassurance. The traditional interpretation see the Psalmist making a discourse on the character and nature of God as it relates to the life of the Psalmist. In this sense, it is both a very personal and a very practical piece of literature. We are encouraged to rejoice in the omniscience of God because it means God cares for us, we are led to awe and amazement at the futility of attempting escape from Him and confronted with the need to be concerned with holiness, as once we understand the extent of God’s power, love and concern for the people of the earth, then slander and defamation of Him and His name becomes intolerable.

There is much merit in this approach, but I fear that it neglects one issue – how does this Psalm point us to Christ? We are aware that the Old Covenant in fulfilled in entirety by Christ, so surely when approaching a passage of the Old Testament, seeking Christ should be our primary aim, and yet this seems to be absent from the above approach.

The second approach I propose is to seek what the passage attributes to God, and then use this knowledge to identify Christ as God from the narrative of the Gospels. So, in verses 1-6 of the Psalm, the Psalmist praises God for his knowledge of him – “O LORD, you have searched me and know me!” (v. 1), “You discern my thoughts from afar” (v. 2). In the New Testament, we see that Jesus also shows these characteristics. He is able to know what people are thinking (e.g. Matthew 9:4), and shows knowledge of individuals and their true desires that would be impossible for a normal human being (e.g. the rich young ruler in Mark 10:17-22). In addition, John attributes Creation to the Word, who is then revealed to be Jesus Christ, in John 1:1-14, and this fits in with the description of God’s creative power in verses 13-16 of the Psalm. Finally, and most compellingly, the final section of the Psalm cries out for God to come in judgement of the wicked, which finds it’s fulfilment in the coming of Christ, in particular the second coming, but also in his first coming when the judgement against wicked men falls on Christ himself, so that the wicked who trust in him can go free.

This method does reinforce our view that Jesus is the same God as is described in the Old Testament, and so also provides a useful perspective on the teaching of the Psalm, but it still proves to be an unsatisfactory reading. Whereas the first view seems to neglect Christ and jump straight to the personal, the second view sees Christ (not in itself a bad thing!) but doesn’t do justice to the personal way that the Psalm is written.

The interpretation that I’m considering at the moment uses the significance of Psalm being a Psalm of David. David, of course, was God’s anointed King of Israel, and he is also presented as the Saviour of the people of Israel (e.g. in the battle with Goliath in 1 Samuel 17). Both of these roles are fulfilled ultimately in Jesus Christ, and so it is fair to read the passages concerning David as a foreshadow of the Christ. This has significance when reading of David’s experience, as our temptation is to place ourselves in David’s situation, where as if David is pointing forward to Christ, then we should see his experiences pointing us to the experiences of Christ. This applies to the Psalms attributed to David as well as the narrative passages concerning him in 1 and 2 Samuel. So how does this affect our reading of Psalm 139? My thoughts at the moment suggest that the discourse of God’s character in verses 1-18 would relate to the specific mission that God has through the incarnation of His Son, Jesus Christ. They show that what happened over the course of Jesus’ life was no accident, but were ordained at every point (v. 16). This then leads to the call for God’s judgement in verses 19-23 pointing not to the judgement at the end of the days, but more pointing to the judgement of God’s people taken in Jesus on the cross. This view also makes more sense of verses 22-24, which otherwise seems to be suggesting that David can call for a searching of himself confident that God will find nothing wrong with him.

I’m still quite unsure about this, and I apologise for any incoherence. As I mentioned, comment would be appreciated, as would the pointing out of any grievous error in my thought. In the meantime, I’ll be continuing my study. The sermon will probably be recorded, and I’ll try to get a copy up here as I get it.