139:1 known me. Psalm 139 is a remarkable testimony to the attributes of God. It is divided into four stanzas of six verses each. Psalm 139:1-6 describes His omniscience; Psalm 139:7-12 deals with His omnipresence; Psalm 139:13-18 emphasizes His omnipotence; and Psalm 139:19-24 stresses what might be called His omnirighteousness. The first stanza says that God knows everything about each of us; the second says He sees everything around us; the third shows that He does everything for us; and the last notes that He judges everything in us.
139:2 my. This psalm is intensely personal. The first person pronouns (“I,” “me,” etc.) occur forty-eight times in these twenty-four verses, and the second person pronouns (“thou,” “thine,” etc.) occur twenty-eight times.
139:2 my thought. It is striking to realize that God, because of His omnipresence and omniscience, continually knows the thoughts of all His creatures.
139:5 behind and before. Psalm 139:5 notes God’s knowledge of the past, the future and the present.
139:6 cannot attain unto it. Psalm 139:6 stresses the foolishness of men who would try to comprehend the mysteries of God’s omniscience. This surely includes the attempt to understand the mystery of the paradoxical relation between divine sovereignty and human liberty.