Ver. 1. O Lord, thou hast searched me, and known me] Even mine heart and reins, Jeremiah 17:10, hast thou searched as with lights, Zephaniah 1:12, by an exact scrutiny, by a soul searching inquisition, whereby thou art come to know me through and through; not only me natural, as Psalms 139:15,16, but also me civil and moral, as Psalms 139:2,3, &c.; neither stayeth thy knowledge in the porch or lobbies (my words and ways), but passeth into the presence, yea, privy chamber; for
Ver. 2. Thou knowest my downsitting and mine uprising] All my postures, gestures, practices, sive sedeam, sive surgam, whether I sit, stand, walk, lie; thou searchest and knowest all. Some search, but know not; thou dost both; thine eyes behold, thine eyelids try, the children of men, Psalms 11:4. [See Trapp on “Ps 11:4”] Thou understandest my thought] Heb. my familiar thoughts, such as I am delighted in; voluntatem meam, some render it, my will; others, propinquitatem meam, my nearness, and that afar off, even from heaven, being intimo meo mihi intimior, not so far from me as the bark is from the tree, the skin from the flesh, or the flesh from the bones. Afar off] Eminus, a longe praenovisti, antequam moveantur, saith Chrysostom; thou knowest my thoughts before I have conceived them; my thoughts in posse, from all eternity; so great is thy sagacity and perspicacity. As a man that knoweth what roots he hath in his garden, though there be not a flower appearing, yet he can say, when the spring comes, this and this will come up; so here, God knows our whole frame, our principles, &c.
Ver. 3. Thou compassest my path] Or, Thou winnowest; if there be any chaff or trash, thou wilt make it fly; thou art at both ends of all my works and enterprises, both by day and by night, Perdius et pernox. Neither art thou only at my fingers’ ends, but at my tongue’s end too.
Ver. 4. For there is not a word in my tongue] Though not yet uttered, or but whispered only. Thou knowest it altogether] Every tittle of it; thou understandest the language of men’s hearts.
Ver. 5. Thou hast beset me behind and before] As a beast that is pursued, as an enemy that is begirt and environed; and lest I should think by some means to make escape (as David did from Saul and his host, by a providence, 1 Samuel 23:27; as Hannibal did from the Romans, by a stratagem). Thou hast laid thine hand upon me] As by an arrest; so that I am thy prisoner, and cannot stir a foot from thee.
Ver. 6. Such knowledge is too wonderful for me] I can hardly conceive of this thine omniscience and omnipresence, but am ready to measure thee by myself, and according to mine own model. And, indeed, for a creature to believe the infinite attributes of God, he is never able to do it thoroughly without supernatural grace. It is high, I cannot attain unto it] Since it far exceedeth the reach of reason, and is much above my capacity and understanding. I stand at gaze, and am aghast, and that is the nearest that I, a poor finite, foolish creature, can come to so infinite a wisdom. It was, therefore, a good speech of them who, being asked what God was? answered, Si scirem, Deus essem, If I knew that, I should be a God.
Ver. 7. Whither shall I go from thy spirit?] Here he argueth God’s omniscience from his omnipresence; and this the heathens also had heard of, as appeareth by their Iovis omnia plena; and— quascunque accesseris oras, Sub Iove semper eris, &c. Empedocles could say that God is a circle, whose centre is everywhere, whose circumference is nowhere. They could tell us that God is the soul of the world; and that as the soul is tota in tota, et tota in qualibet parte, so is he; that his eye is in every corner, &c.; to which purpose they so portrayed their goddess Minerva, that which way soever one cast his eye she always beheld him. But these divine notions they might have by tradition from the patriarchs; and whether they believed themselves in these and the like sayings is much to be doubted. Or whither shall I flee from thy presence?] Surely no whither; they that attempt it do but as the fish which swimmeth to the length of the line with a hook in the mouth.
Ver. 8. If I ascend up into heaven, thou art there] That is thy proper place; and there Aristotle, in his Book of the World, ad Alexandrum affirmeth that God is only essentialiter et actu. This was to proclaim himself an arrant atheist; for God filleth all places, and is comprehended of no place, being totally present wheresoever present; for we must not conceive that God is commensurable by the place, as if he were partly here and partly elsewhere; but everywhere, all present.
Ver. 9. If I take the wings of the morning] The morning light is diffused in an instant all the whole welkin over. If I could fly never so swiftly from one end of the heaven to the other, saith David, I should be never the nearer. This is a poetic expression. And dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea] Or of the west, whither the sun, setting, is said to hasten and hide himself. The Syriac and Arabic have it, If I take the wings of the eagle and dwell, &c. And of the eagle they write, that when she would change her feathers she falleth down into the sea.