King James Version, with Nii Okai's journal notes · 6 notes
1O LORD, thou hast searched me, and known me.
2Thou knowest my downsitting and mine uprising, thou understandest my thought afar off.
3Thou compassest my path and my lying down, and art acquainted with all my ways.
4For there is not a word in my tongue, but, lo, O LORD, thou knowest it altogether.
5Thou hast beset me behind and before, and laid thine hand upon me.
6Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; it is high, I cannot attain unto it.
7Whither shall I go from thy spirit? or whither shall I flee from thy presence?
8If I ascend up into heaven, thou art there: if I make my bed in hell, behold, thou art there.
9If I take the wings of the morning, and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea;
10Even there shall thy hand lead me, and thy right hand shall hold me.
David asks a question of fleeing from the presence of the Lord.
Maybe fleeing in disobedience like Jonah.
Yet when the hand of the Lord found him, he was not chastised nor rejected, but the loving arm 🙋 of the Lord guided and comforted him.
That is the nature of God: full of love and mercy.
11If I say, Surely the darkness shall cover me; even the night shall be light about me.
12Yea, the darkness hideth not from thee; but the night shineth as the day: the darkness and the light are both alike to thee.
The Lord has long had night vision eyes 👀 😇
13For thou hast possessed my reins: thou hast covered me in my mother’s womb.
14I will praise thee; for I am fearfully and wonderfully made: marvellous are thy works; and that my soul knoweth right well.
15My substance was not hid from thee, when I was made in secret, and curiously wrought in the lowest parts of the earth.
Most translations retain the lowest part of the earth 🌎, but a few say the dark of the womb.
Is this an example of where all the original text says earth 🌎, but because the translators don't agree 👍 with a person being formed in the earth 🌎, they chose to use their knowledge of biology to render it womb?
Could this in a sense allude to Adam?
He was not born but formed from the earth 🌎.
Men are now all born, yet in referencing the baby in the womb, the writer chose to describe the creative process.
I checked the original Hebrew, and the word used here is 'eret, which means land, earth.
It is not used differently anywhere else... In all cases it means earth.
As for the versions that translated it as the dark of the womb, it is an attempt, I believe, to help the reader understand.
16Thine eyes did see my substance, yet being unperfect; and in thy book all my members were written, which in continuance were fashioned, when as yet there was none of them.
Is David's thinking that we are formed by God before we are formed in the womb, in the sense that did we pre-exist before our birth?
Or, to be more true to the text, were our physical and bodily features known, decided upon and recorded in heaven before our physical birth?
Or does the same apply to our entire person, as in spirit, soul and body?
David talks about being formed, and since man is spirit, soul and body, this statement is in reference to the complete man, not just the physical body.
So even before man was formed in the land of the living, he was known by God.
Known by the almighty, eternally living God.
Who, being eternal, not only lives forever into the future but also predates time in the past.
He is the Alpha and Omega. Time to him is not just a continuum but a spectrum.
Has a beginning and end, unlike man 👨.
That is why he is God.
17How precious also are thy thoughts unto me, O God! how great is the sum of them!
18If I should count them, they are more in number than the sand: when I awake, I am still with thee.
19Surely thou wilt slay the wicked, O God: depart from me therefore, ye bloody men.
20For they speak against thee wickedly, and thine enemies take thy name in vain.
21Do not I hate them, O LORD, that hate thee? and am not I grieved with those that rise up against thee?
22I hate them with perfect hatred: I count them mine enemies.
No wonder the Lord loved David so much... His enemies were David's enemies as well.
Indeed, David fought the Lord's battles at the peril of his life.
23Search me, O God, and know my heart: try me, and know my thoughts:
24And see if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.