Passage
Psalms 139.1
1. For the Chief Musician. A Psalm of David. O Jehovah, thou hast searched me, and known me. (ASV)Book: Psalms · ASV / WEB / KJV / YLT
Immediate context (±2 verses)
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ASV
1. For the Chief Musician. A Psalm of David. O Jehovah, thou hast searched me, and known me.
- Thou knowest my downsitting and mine uprising; Thou understandest my thought afar off. 3. Thou searchest out my path and my lying down, And art acquainted with all my ways. (Psalms 139:1-3, ASV)
WEB
1. For the Chief Musician. A Psalm by David. Yahweh, you have searched me, and you know me.
- You know my sitting down and my rising up. You perceive my thoughts from afar. 3. You search out my path and my lying down, and are acquainted with all my ways. (Psalms 139:1-3, WEB)
KJV
1. To the chief Musician, A Psalm of David. O LORD, thou hast searched me, and known me.
- Thou knowest my downsitting and mine uprising, thou understandest my thought afar off. 3. Thou compassest my path and my lying down, and art acquainted with all my ways. compassest: or, winnowest (Psalms 139:1-3, KJV)
YLT
1. To the Overseer., A Psalm by David. Jehovah, Thou hast searched me, and knowest.
- Thou, Thou hast known my sitting down, And my rising up, Thou hast attended to my thoughts from afar. 3. My path and my couch Thou hast fanned, And [with] all my ways hast been acquainted. (Psalms 139:1-3, YLT)
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Setting
- Speaker: David, according to the title, "For the Chief Musician. A Psalm of David." Many modern scholars date the psalm later on linguistic grounds
- Audience: Addressed to God directly, in the second person throughout
- Location: Not stated
- Time period: Not stated in the psalm; on the title, the reign of David, about the tenth century BC
Theological reading
"O Jehovah, thou hast searched me, and known me." The opening line states the theme of the whole psalm: God's complete and personal knowledge of one human being.
Searched and known. "Searched" (Strong's H2713) is the verb used of scouts exploring a land: the Danites sent men "to spy out the land, and to search it" (Judges 18:2, ASV). "Known" (H3045) is the ordinary verb for knowing, used of personal acquaintance as well as facts. The psalm then fills it out: God knows when the psalmist sits and rises, his thoughts "afar off," his paths, and every word before it is spoken (139:2-4). The psalm ends by turning the statement into a prayer: "Search me, O God, and know my heart" (139:23, ASV).
Too wonderful. The psalmist does not find this knowledge oppressive but overwhelming: "Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; It is high, I cannot attain unto it" (139:6). The psalm goes on to God's presence everywhere (139:7-12) and his forming of the psalmist in the womb (139:13-16). The person known is the same person God made.
A self that is known. The Buddhism vs the Christian God comparison cites this verse on the question of the self. Buddhism teaches anatta, not-self: what we call a person is a changing stream of physical and mental events with no permanent core, and clinging to a self is part of what binds us to suffering. Buddhists hold that this is not nihilism, because the stream still continues and bears the results of its actions. The Christian reply is that a person can change and grow while remaining the same person, because that person is held in being and known by God. Here the psalmist is known through every change of posture, thought and path.
A God who knows persons. The Pantheism vs the Christian God comparison makes a related point. If God is identical with the whole, the individual is a passing form of the one reality. The psalm describes a God who stands over against the psalmist as "thou" and "me," and knows him one by one.
Key words
Theologically-loaded Greek or Hebrew words in this verse may have entries in the lexicon. Curated to roughly 100 contested terms across the corpus, not every word; see Lexicon Roadmap.
- H3045 - yada, yada, Strong's H3045
- H3068 - YHWH, YHWH, Strong's H3068
Quoted in
Arguments and defeaters:
- Argument from Irrevocability, via Psalms 139.1-6
- Argument from the Demand to Be Witnessed, via Psalms 139.1-2, Psalms 139.1-6
- Argument from the Information-Conservation Convergence, via Psalms 139.1-2, Psalms 139.1-6
- Argument from the Memory-Continuity Convergence, via Psalms 139.1-2
- Argument from the Observer-Demand Convergence
- Buddhism vs the Christian God
- Pantheism vs the Christian God
- The Error Argument, via Psalms 139.1-6
Concepts:
Lexicon:
Passages:
Why these four translations
ris3n chose ASV, WEB, KJV, and YLT for two reasons together. They are the most literal English translations available (formal-equivalence: word-for-word renderings that preserve the Hebrew and Greek grammar rather than smoothing it into modern dynamic-equivalence idiom). And they are in the public domain in the United States, which means fair-use quotation at any length requires no publisher license. Modern licensed translations (NASB95, ESV, NIV) restrict volume of quotation under their copyright terms, so they are not used at stub-level coverage here. NASB95 appears only on hand-curated rich passage hubs under Lockman Foundation's fair-use allowance.
The four:
- ASV (American Standard Version, 1901). The basis of the modern critical-text English tradition.
- WEB (World English Bible, contemporary). Public-domain revision in the ASV line, in current English.
- KJV (King James Version, 1611). Reformation-era, Textus Receptus base.
- YLT (Young's Literal Translation, Robert Young, 1862). Hyper-literal preservation of Hebrew and Greek grammar; useful for word-study work even where English reads stiff.
See Bibles for the full per-translation history, translators, textual basis, strengths, and weaknesses.