Ps. 139 (Pt. 1; what you intended for evil)

Yhwh / you examine me

                And you yourself / know me

You know when I sit down /and get up

                You sense my thought / from far away

You analyze when I travel / and when I rest

                In fact / with all my behavior / you are familiar

For example / a word does not need to be / on my tongue

                For you to know / all about it / Yhwh

Back and front / you enclose me

                You put your hand upon me

Such knowledge / is wonderful / and beyond me

                It is so transcendent / I cannot attain it

The first stanza focuses on Yhwh’s always-already prior knowledge of the psalmist. From his movements to his thoughts to his words, Yhwh encloses him. Yhwh is both before and after every movement, thought and word. And Yhwh is not simply “there”. He “examines” him; he “analyzes” him. He “knows all about” the psalmist. It is a penetrating, weighing knowledge. We will see later that this ‘examine’ forms the basis for the psalmist’s later petition for justice. Yhwh is not simply aware—he judges, he examines, and, as such, he does not stand aloof like some observer or tourist watching his people.

This always-already before and after nature of Yhwh’s knowledge is, for that reason, “wonderful and beyond” him. It is so transcendent and “cannot attain it”.

Where could I go / to avoid your spirit

                Where could I get away / from your presence?

If I went up to heaven / you would be there

                If I lay down in Sheol / there you would be

Were I to use / the wings of the dawn

                And go and live / at the furthest part of the sea

Your hand / would be even there / to guide me

                Your right hand would take hold of me

Or were I to ask / the darkness / to cover me

                The light around me / to turn into night

Even darkness / is not dark / for you

                Night is as light / as the day

                Light and dark / are just the same

Indeed / you yourself created / my kidneys

                You wove me together / in my mother’s womb

I give you thanks because

                You are awesomely / wonderful

                So wonderful / are the things / you have made

In the second stanza the psalmist places himself in a type of hypothetical opposition to Yhwh. What if he were avoid Yhwh? If he went to heaven or if he died to Sheol, Yhwh would be there. If he flew from the dawn to the other side of the sea, he would be there. The first is “high to low”. The second is “east to west”. Even at all of these, he would be running to Yhwh, not away from him.

That is not actually all that is important here. The first portion goes from the place of holiness and Presence to that of profane and absence (heaven to earth). The second section pertains to the “day”, which flows into the next part of the psalm, dealing with “night”. The contrast there between ‘day’ and night’ is like heaven and Sheol—it moves from the ‘sacred’ realm of light to the profane realm of ‘night’. The psalmist expertly weaves these together.

But what if he shrouded himself in darkness? Importantly, in Genesis, the darkness or night is not understood as “good”. And, in Revelation, with the consummation of everything, the night will be done away with. As such, the night and darkness are often the place of demonic forces. Or what if he simply lived in the night. In both instances, these oppositions to Yhwh are not that at all. Yhwh’s “light” is more deeply rooted than the darkness. Darkness is not dark to him, but light.

What we see here is key—that Yhwh is present both in the realms of the “sacred” (heaven and the daytime) and the “profane” (Sheol and darkness). So, even if the psalmist were to, Jonah-like, run from Yhwh, Yhwh would still be there to guide him. More to the point, it would “take hold of him”. If he were to cloak himself in what is opposed to Yhwh, that is still pregnant with Yhwh’s light. This should set the stage for how it is that Yhwh can use evil means or parties in order to accomplish his goals. He can use Joseph’s brothers’ intentions of “evil” and use them for “good”, even to the point of their own conversion and salvation. He can take evil Babylon and whistle to them to come and destroy Jerusalem, but in the end they can be subjected themselves to a more devastating judgment. The reason is what we say here—that Yhwh stands behind (he does not cause) every profane reality. To him, all that darkness of evil intent and profane empire, is still “light”. It does not blind Yhwh.

The concluding lines move this insight into the psalmist himself, into his “kidneys”. The psalmist “interior” life, his conscience, his thoughts, all of these are created by Yhwh, and “woven together” by him in his mother’s womb. This “in-sight” by Yhwh is literally described as being stitched into the psalmist. Just as Yhwh created the boundaries that he now stands before and beyond (heaven and Sheol; night and day; sacred and profane), so too does that same Yhwh now stand before, after and more interior to the psalmist in Yhwh’s creation of him.