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.
Why the psalm turns at this verse
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).
What "my inward parts" means
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.
A Maker's claim over the conscience
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.
God's searching rests on God's making
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.
Known before there was anything to see
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).
Creation first
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."
Summary
- 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.