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.
My bones were not hidden from thee when I was made in secret, curiously wrought in the lower parts of the earth.
God's eye, which the psalmist first tried to escape, now rests on the place where no human eye ever looked — the hidden beginning of his own body. It shows the unborn body as God's own work, known to Him before anyone else knew it existed.
Verse 15 sits at a hinge in the psalm. Until now the psalmist has been uneasy under a gaze he cannot escape. Here the same truth turns into comfort. One writer traces the change:
In the third part of the psalm there is a change. A tender thankfulness comes in. He thinks of how, in his mother's womb, this same all-knowing God had been at work, building the marvellous structure of the future man in mysterious secrecy. God's thoughts toward him now become precious to him. And now it is only happiness that the unsleeping Eye is on him, sleeping or waking.
Another writer names what did not bring relief, and what did:
Knowing that God knows everything, and that He is everywhere, cannot make a believer feel at home with Him. Just the opposite. God's eye on him is no comfort. He cannot escape from under that eye, wherever he goes… In verse 13, however, he strikes a different note. The first thing that brings him relief is remembering that God thought of him when he was in his mother's womb.
The older translations read "curiously wrought" where the ESV has "intricately woven." One writer gives the plainer word behind it — embroidered:
Scripture uses this verb in a striking passage in this wonderful psalm, the 139th, which traces God's thought and care of man from his beginnings in the womb: "My substance was not hidden from You, when I was made in secret, and curiously wrought" — that is, embroidered — "in the lowest parts of the earth." And indeed, nothing pictures the fine interweaving of nerves, veins and arteries so well as a marvellous embroidery. This is true of all men. Can God then be lacking in consideration and tenderness for a being on whom He has bestowed such wonderful care?
Commentators differ over the phrase the ESV renders "the depths of the earth." One writer takes it as the stuff the body is made of, not a place, and reads the "frame" as our bony structure:
He goes on to speak of these marvels: the bony framework that holds up the flesh, and the delicate embroidery of vessels and nerves branching through it. God worked all of this in secret, in "underparts of earth." Surely that does not mean the ground, which would hardly have been true of Adam. It means that human substance which is only animated dust.
Another hears an echo of Adam, formed from the ground:
Certainly one's frame was not hidden from God. His Creator had acted in secret with marvellous skill "in the lowest parts of the earth" (v. 15). This may be a reference to Adam's being formed from the dust of the earth (Genesis 2:7).
One writer dwells on what stood in God's book before the body existed:
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. He had written it in His book. Before it really existed, while it was being formed, God's eye rested upon it. How blessed for the Christian to realise that God was interested in him before he had any being.
Being made by God means belonging to God. One writer adds that we study the sky and miss the greater wonder nearer home:
But He has taken our inmost being as His own. He has made us for Himself. We are His, we belong to Him… Astronomers point their telescopes at the heavens to see the marvellous works of God, while the most marvellous works of all are there in the astronomer himself. I am fearfully and wonderfully made. But do our souls know this well?
- Secret — the verse describes what no one watched: God worked on the frame in a place hidden from every human eye.
- Seen — that secret was never secret from God; His eye was on each member before any of them existed.
- Embroidered — the older word "curiously wrought" means embroidered, like the woven nerves, veins and arteries of the body.
- Debated — writers differ over "the lowest parts of the earth": one reads the dust our bodies are made of, another an echo of Adam formed from the ground.
- Praise — the eye the psalmist first fled becomes the reason he worships; being made by God means belonging to God.
Thine eyes did see my unformed substance, and in thy book all [my members] were written; [during many] days were they fashioned, when [as yet] there was none of them.
The verse closes David's account of his own beginning: before he had a body, God had a record of him. The verse says two things at once. God watched the unformed body take shape in the womb. And His book already held the days that no one had yet lived.
Up to this point the psalm has been uneasy. One commentator traces the turn:
How can a saint come to feel at home in God's presence? Knowing that God knows everything, and is everywhere, cannot do it. Rather the opposite. God's eye on him is no comfort. Wherever he goes, he cannot escape that eye. What then can bring relief? God's thoughts, as He has revealed them, can do it. The Psalmist's own thoughts about God have not done it… In verse 13 he strikes a different note, and the first thing that brings relief is the memory that God thought of him while he was in his mother's womb. That memory has completely changed his tone. "I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; my soul knows it very well" (14). He has turned right away from thinking about himself, and is now taken up with God.
God did not watch an accident take shape. He worked with knowledge that ran ahead of the work:
And the Lord knew perfectly the substance of every individual long before this formation took place. He did not have to experiment to find what might work. Instead, everything about that person stood written in His book — figuratively speaking, of course — long before he existed. How little indeed can we understand such wisdom!
The same God who shaped the first man out of dust shapes each person out of nothing:
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 as the womb out of which we were born. God has formed us, be it in the womb of dust or of our mother, the place where we were nothing before we were.
Older translations read the middle of the verse as "in Your book all my members were written." Read that way, God's interest in a person starts before the person does. One writer carries that thought across a whole life:
God knew every part of the body before it existed. He had written it in His book. And while that part was still forming, before it truly existed, His eye rested on it. What a blessing for a Christian to realise that God took an interest in him before he existed at all! And to realise, as Paul did, that God's eye was on him from his mother's womb (Galatians 1:15). There has never been a moment in our lives — and there never will be, for all eternity — when God was not interested in us. He watches over us and cares for us with an infinite and eternal love.
The verse has sometimes been pressed into service to prove other doctrines. One commentator pushes back, while leaving room for a wider use:
People have often put forward another passage in Psalm 139 as proof that it gives us a plain revelation about the Church of God… Leave out the words printed in italics, and read these verses together. You will see that the subject is the creation of the natural body. Yet with the knowledge we now have, we can easily see that it may also have a figurative application.
Because the Searcher is also the Maker, the psalm can end with an invitation instead of an escape attempt:
If the Psalmist (Psalm 139:13-16) was troubled that God's all-seeing eye was always on him, he had only to look back. That same eye watched over him before he was born, while his finely woven body was slowly forming. How could he do anything but welcome the eye of such a One to search him through and through?
God wrote the record before we had achieved anything. One writer applies this to believers who feel passed over:
Behind this lies the old error that my value depends on what others think of me… We do not become valuable by what we do — not even by marrying. We are valuable because God has created us, and we are precious in His eyes (see Psalm 139:12-16).
- Seen — God's eye rested on the unformed body while it was still forming, before it existed.
- Written — God's book recorded everything about a person long before that person existed.
- Made — The Maker never experimented. He forms us in the womb of dust and in the womb of our mother, where we were nothing before we were.
- Welcomed — The eye that searches us is the eye that watched us form. So we can invite the search instead of running from it.
- Valued — Worth comes from being God's creation and precious in His eyes, not from what we manage to do.