After spending the month of June struggling with the difficult book of Job, Psalm 139 is a welcome breath of fresh air! Where Job was dark and challenging, Psalm 139 is much more hopeful and much more readable.
We probably should have had read Job at the end of the summer rather than the beginning. We did Job first because Job shows up first in the Bible where all the poetry books are clustered. I say we maybe should have looked at it last because Job may be intended to be a critique of the other traditional wisdom literature. Perhaps it is sarcastic, perhaps a satire. Think of what Mark Twain was to American culture of his day. He wrote important truths, but they were a bit warped. They were sarcastic. Perhaps Job is like that. We don’t know.
By contrast Psalm 139 is easily at the core of theology and wisdom literature of its day. The psalm breaks into four parts. We read it in those four parts. Let’s look at each.
Part 1 is verses 1-6. The very first word of the psalm is Yahweh – the name of God never or rarely spoken allowed by Jews. “Yahweh, you have searched me and known me.” This part is clearly about God.
The second word is “you”. The second verse starts with you. The third verse starts with you, as does the fifth verse. This is all about God, and about how God knows a person completely and totally.
The word know (or known) show up seven times in the psalm. Maybe that’s deliberate. Maybe that’s a coincidence. Whatever the case, the number seven is a number that symbolizes completeness. God’s knowledge is complete.
As the psalmist says, “Such knowledge is too wonderful for me…” This can be intimidating. It is impossible to hide any thought or feeling from God. God even knows your thoughts of trying to hide your thoughts from God! So it’s best to just be honest.
At the same time such knowledge is wonderful. Why bother hiding anything from God? Just be honest at all times and in all situations. If you find yourself enraged at something that perhaps you don’t think you should be enraged at. Or perhaps you’re disgusted by something you don’t think you should be disgusted at, go ahead and share those feelings and questions with God too. God knows.
We want to be good people, but we live in an immensely complex world. We do not know as much as we want to know. Much of the news and information we receive, from whatever source we get it, is not reliable. If you want to be a conscientious, sincere, honest person in our world today… someone who works hard, truly deserves the lifestyle that you have, is not excessively environmentally damaging, and wants to just be a truly good citizen in your community, good luck! Sure, you can fool yourself by finding sources of information that tell you what you want to hear, and tell you that you’re a great person. But are you actually? Or on the other hand you can depress yourself by finding sources of information that will undercut every virtue you’ve ever valued. But are you actually bad?
Where is the authentic, conscientious guidance that we want to depend upon? You’re not going to find it in popular culture or news.
The creeds tell us that we will be judged by Jesus. The scripture tells us in several places that we are accountable to God for what we do. God alone knows and God alone judges rightly. But how do we know what is right?
All I’ll say is it requires critical thinking. Question everything that agrees with you and question everything that disagrees with you. Life takes work. There are no cookie cutter approaches to life and there are no shortcuts. And do all things with honesty and humility, for God alone knows the full truth.
The second part of the psalm is verses 7 to 12. There we are reminded that it is impossible to hide from God’s presence. No matter where you go, God is there. This psalm takes the idea of God being omnipresent even a step further than most other Jewish thought. Verse 8 says, “…if I make my bed in Sheol, you are there.” Sheol is the place of the dead. So, God is present even in death and among the dead.
Psalm 139 is one of those places in scripture which remind us that to exist is to be in God’s presence. And existence apart from God is impossible. The ancient Hebrews didn’t do much with the idea of hell as eternal punishment. That’s more of a Greek idea that wanders its way into Hebrew thought. Jesus does use it and so do the New Testament writers. But however you understand hell, and even though it is mind-bending to say it, hell itself cannot exist apart from God’s presence. Again, you cannot exist if God does not make existence possible. An atheist can deny God’s existence all he or she wants. Or a person could hate God and rebel against God all he or she wants. But there is just no getting away. There is no getting away from God’s presence just like there is no getting away from God’s knowledge.
The third part of the psalm is verse 13 to 18. There we read that it was God who knit us together when we were still in our mother’s womb. And there is where we read that we are fearfully and wonderfully made. The images are warm and rich and wonderful.
The all powerful, all knowing, all present God who is too big to comprehend, crafted each of us uniquely and individually among the billions of people on the earth. God makes good things. God does not make mistakes. And God does not make junk. Never ever let anyone tell you that you are less than the wonderful thing God made you to be. You are valuable, capable, and wonderful.
At the same time, recognize the same value and potential in others.
Two things need to be noted about this section. One is great. The other is hard. First the great thing.
You’re probably familiar with the idea of God creating people the way a potter creates something out of clay. The prophet Jeremiah uses that imagery. So does Isaiah. St. Paul uses it in his letter to the Romans. It’s a great image. But this psalm does not use potter and clay imagery. Clay pots were the disposable vessels of that day. Things that were woven were not. A potter can turn out something quickly. Weaving takes time. In contrast to the usual potter and clay image this psalm talks about God as weaver and ourselves as woven. We are indeed carefully crafted by God, not a production line of disposable crockery.
That takes us to the hard thing. This psalm often finds its way into arguments about abortion. I should probably do an entire sermon on abortion based upon this text. But that is not what this psalm has in mind. I’m just going to be general and brief. God has given to many people the creative power to conceive new life – the ability to have God set to work weaving a new being that will bear God’s image. It is a wonderful and amazing power. Those who use that power carelessly and then decide to abort the results out of convenience or shame stand convicted by this psalm. It is the destruction of God’s handiwork for the sake of convenience.
I have worked with some people who have had abortions. And if they are conscientious at all, and they have decided to have an abortion for convenience sake then they bear those emotional scars for the rest of their lives.
And then there are abortions done for medical needs: mother’s life, fetal abnormalities. These are especially difficult because if we claim that God weaves together wonderful things, then what went wrong? There’s no short or easy answer to that. The only thing we can do is insist that God has indeed done a wonderful thing; but there is no way, with the limits of our knowledge, for us to understand it. People who have had abortions by medical need bear scars too. But here we find God’s presence and care coming alongside them fully acknowledging the grief and pain they feel. We live in a broken world. We do not understand it. But we know God is with us.
The final part of the psalm is usually left out when it is used in worship. Verses 19-24 ask God to kill the wicked. It talks about hating people with a perfect hatred.
If the writer of the psalm has been known by God since conception and woven together by God, then has God also not done the same with the wicked people?
That is a good question! But that is not the point of this psalm. Several of the psalms use hate language. We’ll look at one of them later this month. There is an important theme that runs through all of them, and all of the hatred language. The psalm writers are not seeking personal revenge for wrongs done to them. The psalm writers are turning to God and asking that God set things right. It is a “thy kingdom come, thy will be done” type of request.
Ultimately the hate is not so much a personal feeling as it is the writer’s way of saying that he or she opposes those who oppose God.
No one knows the situation that caused the writing of Psalm 139. But it appears that the writer is in serious trouble because of being wrongly accused of doing something. It is a cry for help to God. It is also a statement of faith and confidence in God’s protection.
Psalm 139 is a fun piece of literature. It is a favorite psalm among many people. God actively pursues us and will not let us get away. It invites both fierce loyalty to God and a safe and complete surrender of our whole selves to God. I suggest turning to it often as part of your own devotional life.
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