In the first six verses of Psalm 139, David talks about God’s omniscience, which basically means God sees and knows everything. David does not use the technical term omniscience, but he praises God for his thorough knowledge of him.
In verse 1 David says, “O Lord, you have searched me and known me!” David confesses that God knows everything about him.
Then he goes on to use what we call as merism in poetry in verses 2-3. What is merism? Merism is a technique that expresses a totality by mentioning two parts or things typically that are polar opposites. For example, when Psalm 103:12 says that “As far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our transgressions from us,” it means God has totally and completely removed all our transgression.
In fact, merism is in our marriage vows: “… for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health.” When we take our marriage vows, we say before God and his people that we will be committed with our spouse, not just some parts of our life but all of life.
With this in mind, look at what David says in verses 2a and 3a, “You know when I sit down and when I rise up. You search out my path and my lying down.” What we learn from David’s use of merism in this psalm is that God knows all of David’s thoughts in verse 2. Likewise in verse 3: God knows all of David’s way and in verse 4 God knows each and every word of David, “Even before a word is on my tongue, behold, O Lord, you know it altogether.”
The omniscience of God amazes David so much that he praises God saying, “Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; it is high; I cannot attain it. (v.6)”
Let this truth comfort us that God knows all our thoughts, all our ways and all our deeds. Our sins are completely forgiven. There is nothing that we need to hide from God but rather we can cast all our cares and burdens on him (1 Peter 5:7).
Our heavenly Father knows our needs. God knows we need food. He knows we need clothing. He knows we need shelter. He knows our daily struggles with sin. He knows how weak and fickle we are.
And God knows the difficulty we face in our family, be it dealing with difficult in-laws or frictions with your grown-up children. God knows the problems we encounter at our work from oppressive supervisors to envious colleagues.
God knows our secret tears and anguish. God knows it all! He knows us so thoroughly that Jesus tells us that the very hairs in our head are numbered and that not a hair can fall from our head without the will of our Father in heaven (Matthew 10:27-30).
God knows your name and he knows where you live. Christian, let God’s omniscience comfort you!