Chapter 31
Good Monday Morning to this week 31 of 2022
Brainstorming a verse in the Bible by Christopher Fisher
Psalm 139:4 For there is not a word on my tongue, But behold, O LORD, You know it altogether.
Possible meanings include:
Fatalism – God knows people like we know computers and can look at our input-output to determine what will happen given certain inputs. God knows the future because God knows all input-output code.
Mechanical Knowledge – God can read minds. The mind thinks the thoughts before they are said and thus God can intercept thoughts to know them before they are spoken.
Future Omniscience – God knows all events, past and future, and thus has all the author‘s words in mind.
General Relationship – Because God knows all people intimately, God generally knows how people think and can determine what they will say through a personal relationship.
Metaphor/Generality – This sentence is fully or partly figurative and idiomatic, meaning a concept similar to knowing words of people before they are spoken.
Enigma – This sentence is figurative and idiomatic representing something not familiar to modern readers and unable to be determined.
Personal Relationship – God is so familiar and personal with the author (not necessarily everyone else on Earth) and thus knows what David will say.
The sense in Psalm 139 seems to be that God knows David intimately, in a personal sense, not that David is explaining some technical description of God’s knowledge. Verse 3 says that God is “acquainted with all [of David’s] ways”, which suggests that God has learned about David rather than simply knowing automatically.
Far from being timeless and immutable, God in the Hebrew Bible is active, engaged, in
constant dialogue with his people, calling, urging, warning, challenging and forgiving.
Let’s conclude with the context of six verses out of The Message translation:
God, investigate my life;
get all the facts firsthand.
I’m an open book to you;
even from a distance, you know what I’m thinking.
You know when I leave and when I get back;
I’m never out of your sight.
You know everything I’m going to say
before I start the first sentence.
I look behind me and you’re there,
then up ahead and you’re there, too—
your reassuring presence, coming and going.
This is too much, too wonderful—
I can’t take it all in!
Wishing you an awesome start to this week.
Philemon