The Daily Office · Psalm 139:1–6

You have searched me

Psalm 139:1–6

1O LORD, you have searched me and known me!

2You know when I sit down and when I rise up; you discern my thoughts from afar.

3You search out my path and my lying down and are acquainted with all my ways.

4Even before a word is on my tongue, behold, O LORD, you know it altogether.

5You hem me in, behind and before, and lay your hand upon me.

6Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; it is high; I cannot attain it.

What's happening here

Psalm 139 is one of the most personal in the Psalter — a long interior monologue addressed directly to God, with no royal court, no national crisis, no enemies until the jarring turn at verse nineteen. The first six verses describe a God who knows too much, and the psalmist cannot decide whether to be grateful or overwhelmed. The verb that opens the psalm repeats again and again through the section. The Hebrew word is not the knowledge of facts.

The word that matters

יָדַעyada'

Hebrew · to know — by experience, by contact, not by report

Yada is the Hebrew Bible's primary verb for knowing, and it covers terrain English splits up. The same verb is used for Adam knowing his wife (a euphemism for sexual intimacy), for a shepherd knowing his sheep, for God knowing Abraham. Yada is never the knowledge of facts about something; it is the knowledge that comes from contact. When Psalm 139 says, "O LORD, you have searched me and known me," the speaker is not reporting that God has data. He is reporting that God has come close.

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