Psalm 139
1 O LORD, you have searched me and you know me.2 You know when I sit and when I rise; you perceive my thoughts from afar. 3 You discern my going out and my lying down; you are familiar with all my ways. 4 Before a word is on my tongue you know it completely, O LORD. 5 You hem me in—behind and before; you have laid your hand upon me.
God has searched me. Searching means “to go through and find out stuff about something or someone”. Searching means you look at every aspect to find something. Browsing is just looking around “without looking for anything specific”, but searching means you are looking for something. God has already searched me. What is he looking for I wonder? I reckon he searches for a heart that is towards him. God wants me above everything else.
In order to say “I know you”, you must have studied that person and have spent time with that person. The clear message is that even if I do not know God all that well, he knows me. He spends time searching me and studying me and becoming familiar with me. That is why it says in verse 3 you are familiar with all my ways.
God knows when I sit down or stand up, or lie down or go out or stay in. He observes me in all my ways. God knows each word that I am going to say before it is even on my tongue. Is that just because he is omnipotent, or is it because he just knows me that well? The sense of what David is writing here is that God not only knows what the words will be before I even speak them, but the intent and the delivery and everything. That is why David says “you know it completely”.
Then verse 5 ends off by saying you hem me in behind and in front. Hemming something in means it is tightly packed in – there is no way to get out. Hemming is a border designed to prevent anything from spilling out. So God hems me in – he is like a border around me, keeping me from falling apart and coming loose at the seams.