For thou hast possessed my reins; thou didst cover me in my mother's womb.
The psalm's first twelve verses press one fact home. God has searched the writer, and there is nowhere His eye does not reach. Verse 13 gives the reason for that knowledge: God formed this life at its very start. With that, the whole mood of the psalm changes.
Up to this point the sense of being watched has brought no comfort. One writer shows where relief enters:
Knowing that God sees everything and is everywhere cannot make a person at home in God's presence. Just the opposite. God's eye on him is no comfort. From under that eye he cannot escape, wherever he goes (1–12). What then can bring relief? The answer to this is very simple and very blessed. God's thoughts as revealed can do it. The Psalmist's thoughts about God have not done it. So up to verse 12 he is uneasy. In verse 13, however, he strikes a different note. The first thing that brings relief is remembering that God thought of him when he was in his mother's womb (13–16).
The word behind this phrase points to what is deepest and most hidden in a person. One commentator takes it literally and draws a lesson from the organ itself:
Everything about every individual is perfectly known to God, for He formed even the inward parts or kidneys, as the original really is, sometimes called "reins" because of being in driving control. The kidneys filter impurities from the blood, just as we are responsible to filter out all that is inconsistent with truth. God has made us with this ability, whether or not we use it rightly. But from the womb of one's mother, God is active in forming the individual (v. 13), and this fact awakens the praise of the psalmist's heart.
Older translations call these inward parts "the reins". God made that innermost place in a person, and that gives Him a right there no one else has:
"For You have acquired my reins" is the keynote of what follows. "The reins" stand for the very innermost parts. In the Old Testament they mean the deepest recesses of the mind. That is where the basic moral questions are weighed and settled — the good received and the evil rejected. God is the Master here — Lord of the conscience. Conscience keeps reminding us of Him and calls us before His judgment seat. He has gained this right over us by the fact the psalmist states next: that He is our Maker. "You have acquired my reins: You covered" — or, perhaps, "did interweave me in my mother's womb." Marvellous power was at work there — not aimlessly, but with purpose and plan.
The One who searches in verses 1–12 is no distant onlooker. His hands did the work:
We are the work of His hands. Here it is man as man, so that the earth out of which he was fashioned at first is like the womb out of which we were born. God has formed us, whether in the womb of dust or of our mother, the place where we were nothing before we were. The same God has always thought of us along the road. This is how confidence is gained. Gained this way, it still reaches to all God's creative knowledge and power. If He sees in the dark, He keeps in the dark.
This forming happened where no human eye could follow. Yet it was never out of God's sight:
What mysteries are wrapped up in the development of the unborn child! Every part unfinished, but not flawed — mysteries of nature, body, mind, soul and spirit; mysteries known to God alone. God knew every part before it existed, and it was written in His book. While the body was being formed, God's eye rested on it. How blessed for the Christian to realise that God was interested in him before he existed… There has never been a moment in our lives when God was not interested in us, watching over us and caring for us with an infinite and eternal love. And there never will be, for all eternity.
This has a direct bearing on how a person measures their own worth:
We do not become valuable by what we do (even if it is to marry), but are valuable because God has created us and we are precious in His eyes (see Ps. 139:12–16).
Many readers look for pictures of Christian truth in this verse. One writer allows that as application, but not as the foundation:
Christians are naturally disposed to find in all this the typical presentation of Christian truths. But however this may do as application, the literal meaning must come first, and be the foundation of all the rest. It is true that this speaks to us only of the Creator, and leaves the question of sin unbottomed. Yet a soul that has realized redemption can and will come back to God's creative thoughts, with fresh understanding of the truth that He cannot "forsake the work of His own hands."
- Maker — God did not just watch the writer's beginning. He formed the innermost part and wove the body together in the womb, with purpose and plan.
- Right — because He is Maker, He is Master of the conscience. He owns the deepest place in us, where we take in good and turn away evil.
- Reach — His eye rested on every member before it existed, so there has never been a moment of any life outside His care.
- Worth — God created us and holds us precious, and that is where our value comes from, not from what we achieve.
- Result — the eye that made the writer uneasy in verses 1–12 now becomes his reason for praise.
I will praise thee, for I am fearfully, wonderfully made. Marvellous are thy works; and [that] my soul knoweth right well.
The psalmist has just traced how fully God knows him, and found nowhere to hide — then at verse 14 his tone breaks into praise. What turns the strain of being fully known into worship, and why does he say fearfully as well as wonderfully made?
Up to this point in the psalm the searching eye of God brings no comfort at all. One writer traces the exact moment the mood changes, and locates it in the memory of God's care before birth.
What then can bring relief? The answer is very simple and very blessed. God's thoughts as revealed can do it. The psalmist's thoughts about God have not done it. So up to verse 12 he is uneasy. In verse 13 he changes his tone. The first thing that brings relief is remembering that God thought of him when he was in his mother's womb. That memory changes his whole key. "I praise You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made." He has stopped thinking about himself. He is now taken up with God.
The praise rests on a claim God has over the deepest part of a person — the "inward parts" of the previous verse. The claim is not random. It is the right of the One who made them.
The older word "reins" means the very innermost parts. In the Old Testament it stands for the deepest part of the mind. That is where a person settles the basic moral questions, takes in the good and turns down the evil. God is the Master there. He is Lord of the conscience, which keeps reminding us of Him and calls us before His judgment seat. He has this right over us for the reason the psalmist now gives: He is our Maker… Great power was at work there. It did not work aimlessly, but with purpose and plan.
The same eye that examines him now watched over him as he was formed. So the psalmist can end the psalm by inviting that examination.
The psalmist (Ps. 139:13-16) is troubled that God's eye is always on him. He has only to look back and think how that same eye watched over him before he was born, while his finely woven body was still taking shape. How could he do anything other than welcome the eye of such a One to search him through and through?
Another writer sets the same movement in order: God searches everything, the psalmist owns himself God's handiwork, and only then asks to be searched.
God searches everything. Even so, the psalmist says, "I am fearfully and wonderfully made." He sees that he is God's handiwork. Only then can he ask God to search him: "Search me… try me." It is real grace looking at us.
One writer compares the wonders in the sky with the person looking at them.
Astronomers turn their telescopes to the sky to see the marvellous works of God. But the most marvellous work of all is the astronomer himself. I am fearfully and wonderfully made. But do our souls know this well?
The word is not a spare adjective. It takes in what man is morally as well as physically — a single creature capable of the highest and the lowest.
Look at man; is he not most skilfully and wonderfully put together? See in the same person the loftiest flights of thought, and the most degrading passions! Physically and morally, we are fearfully and wonderfully made.
One writer keeps to the plain subject: these verses describe the forming of the natural body. He allows a picture-meaning beyond that, but only as a second sense:
Read these verses together, and leave out the words that older Bibles print in italics as added words. Then you will see that the subject is the creation of the natural body. With what we know now, we can see that it may also carry a figurative meaning.
Another writer shows what makes being fully seen by God end in praise rather than dread: Christ.
Suppose we could not link Christ with this psalm. Suppose we could not go on from it to see ourselves as God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus, with everything done under His eye. Then the thought of being shown as we are in His presence would fill us with dread instead of praise.
- Searched. The psalm opens with a man uneasy under an eye he cannot escape; verse 14 is where that unease breaks.
- Made. Relief comes from one memory: the same eye watched him take shape before birth. God's thoughts about him settle him, not his thoughts about God.
- Owned. God formed his innermost parts, so He holds a Maker's right over conscience and life. And He formed with purpose and plan.
- Fearful. The word covers more than the body. One person holds the highest thoughts and the lowest desires together.
- Welcomed. He knows he is God's handiwork. So he ends by inviting the very searching he once dreaded, and turns it into praise.