[If] I take the wings of the dawn [and] dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea,
God's knowledge of this man has covered every step, every word, every thought, until it feels like a net he wants out of. Verse 9 is his most extreme escape plan: travel at the speed of daybreak to the loneliest edge of the ocean.
The two halves of the verse combine speed and distance. Light from the rising sun crosses the sky in a moment. The far side of the sea was the emptiest place anyone in that world could name.
Suppose the swift rays of the morning sun carried him to the distant parts of the ocean, where no one lives. Even there he could not hide. God's hand would lead him, and God's strong grip would hold him.
The picture is about solitude, not just distance. What meets him there changes it:
Here it is a matter of relation to the Omnipresent, and that in dependence. The wings of the morning and the uttermost parts of the sea seem to convey complete solitude. But "even there Your hand shall lead me, and Your right hand shall hold me."
The urge to run starts with what the man sees when he looks at his own life.
The godly man thinks of his own failure in responsibility, and the God who knows everything overwhelms him. He would gladly flee from the presence of God and escape His all-searching gaze. He finds, however, that God is not only all-knowing but also everywhere present. There is no escape from the Spirit of God. No place that God cannot enter. No solitude where God is not. No darkness that can hide from God.
One man in Scripture set out on that voyage. Jonah was a prophet told to go east. He sailed west across the sea instead.
Foolish man! He had probably often read and sung the Psalm of David that asks, "Where shall I go from Your Spirit? Or where shall I flee from Your presence?… If I take the wings of the morning and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, even there Your hand shall lead me, and Your right hand shall hold me." (Psalm 139:7-12) Yet "Jonah rose to flee to Tarshish from the presence of the LORD."
We repeat the same failure:
Have we not, like him, tried to go west when God has told us to go east?… And have we not had to learn, to our sorrow and shame, how useless such attempts are? We have also learned how near God's hand is to deliver those who call on Him out of the prison of self-inflicted distress.
Turn the verse around, and the same reach looks different:
The deepest self-searching — the most thorough sifting of all that the heart holds — goes together with the fullest enjoyment of assured peace and confidence in God. His right hand holds that soul in the grip of sure salvation. His precious thoughts of peace rest on it through every experience of its pilgrim journey.
Nothing about that ought to frighten someone who belongs to God:
There is no terror in this remembrance of God's all-pervading presence. For He who fills all things is the Saviour of His own (Eph. 4:10). The Searcher of His people's hearts is also the Redeemer of their souls.
Here commentators press a careful distinction. Knowing that God is everywhere does not, by itself, settle anyone.
The sense that God knows everything and is everywhere cannot provide that. The opposite is true. God's eye on him is no comfort. He cannot escape from under that eye, wherever he goes. To whatever place he might take himself, that eye would still be on him (verses 1-12). 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.
The same presence meets us in Christ:
Scripture also bears witness that our Lord Jesus Christ is present everywhere, as God alone can be. How sweet the comfort His living words bring to everyone God's grace has saved: "Behold, I am with you always."
- Flight. The verse pictures the fastest, loneliest escape a person could try: sunrise speed to the far edge of the sea.
- Failure. Jonah tried it. He sailed west when God sent him east. The same instinct still drives us into self-inflicted distress.
- Hand. What waits at the end of the run is a hand that leads and holds — the Searcher of hearts is also the Redeemer of souls.
- Relief. Knowing God is everywhere brings no comfort by itself. His revealed thoughts do. Our own thoughts about God did not settle the psalmist.
- Promise. The reach that cannot be escaped becomes the reach that cannot fail: "Behold, I am with you always."
Even there shall thy hand lead me, and thy right hand shall hold me.
The psalm has just tried every hiding place a person could imagine and found God already there. This verse turns the escape around: God's hand does not only find the runaway at the far edge of the world; it leads him and holds him there.
Verses 7 to 12 record an escape attempt that fails at every point. One writer traces why:
When the godly man thinks of how he has failed in his responsibility, God's complete knowledge overwhelms him. He would gladly run from God's presence and escape His all-searching gaze. But he finds that God is not only all-knowing; He is also everywhere. There is no escape from the Spirit of God. No place can shut God out. No solitude is without Him. No darkness can hide anyone from Him.
Verse 9 speaks of the wings of the morning and the far edge of the sea. One writer explains what those pictures mean, and how God's hand turns being alone into dependence on Him:
In the next section it is relationship with the God who is everywhere, and that in dependence. The wings of the dawn and the farthest parts of the sea seem to carry the thought of complete solitude. But "even there Your hand shall lead me, and Your right hand shall hold me."
The verse names two things His hand does, not one. It leads, and it holds — and the holding is a matter of sheer strength:
Someone may go as far as possible over the sea, where no one lives. Even there God's hand will lead him, and His right hand of power will hold him.
Jonah was a prophet sent to the city of Nineveh. He took a ship the other way, "from the presence of the LORD." One writer explains what he could not have meant by that:
This cannot mean that he fled from the presence of the One he knew to be everywhere. David's psalm, which says this plainly, was already in Israel's hands, and Jonah must have known it… He did not flee from the presence of the Lord in the sense of escaping His knowledge and authority. It means that he left the land of Israel where the LORD dwelt; he fled from the service He had given him.
The hand that reaches the runaway is also the hand that lifts him out. One writer turns Jonah's story onto the reader:
Have we not, like him, tried to go west when God told us to go east?… Have we not had to learn, to our sorrow and shame, how useless such tries are? And have we not also learned how near God's hand is to deliver those who call on Him out of the prison of distress they brought on themselves? That deliverance comes as soon as we, in the fish's belly, have learned the lesson God was teaching us there.
The same hand feels different to different people. To a man who wants distance from God, being unable to get away is torment:
The state of man by nature is "without God," even though God may bless him with all natural things. He would be glad to be out of God's presence if he could, but in one sense he cannot. "If I take the wings of the morning…" You cannot fly from His presence; yet you are miserable in it.
For the one who belongs to Him, the identical facts read as care:
Here we see the people of God in the light of God, standing in His presence. He knows everything, and He is everywhere… And what a comfort to know that He knows and that He sees! He is about us, around us, with us everywhere. His hand leads, His hand holds up the saint, and darkness and light are both alike to Him.
- Flight — The psalm tries every exit and finds them shut. No height, no depth, no distance, no darkness lies outside God's reach.
- Reach — The wings of the morning and the far edge of the sea picture total solitude. That is the very place where His hand takes hold.
- Grip — His hand does two things there: it leads the way and it holds fast, and the holding is His right hand of power.
- Rescue — Jonah proves the point. A runaway escapes his assignment, never his God, and the hand that finds him lifts him out of the trouble he made.
- Response — For a man set on getting away, that nearness is misery. For one who belongs to God, the same nearness is comfort everywhere he goes.