If I would count them, they are more in number than the sand. When I wake up, I am still with you.
Parallel Translations
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If I would count them, they are more in number than the sand. When I wake up, I am still with you.
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If I should count them, they are more in number than the sand: when I awake, I am still with thee.
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If I would count them, they are more in number than the sand; were I to come to the end of them, I would still be with Thee.
Cross-references (10)
Passages linked to Psalms 139:18 in the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge, ordered by reader-vote popularity; verse text shown in World English Bible.
- Psalms 3:5 I laid myself down and slept. I awakened; for Yahweh sustains me.
- Psalms 139:3 You search out my path and my lying down, and are acquainted with all my ways.
- Psalms 40:5 Many, Yahweh, my God, are the wonderful works which you have done, and your thoughts which are toward us. They can’t be declared back to you. If I would declare and speak of them, they are more than can be counted.
- Psalms 16:8-11 I have set Yahweh always before me. Because he is at my right hand, I shall not be moved. Therefore my heart is glad, and my tongue rejoices. My body shall also dwell in safety. For you will not leave my soul in Sheol, neither will you allow your holy one to see corruption. You will show me the path of life. In your presence is fullness of joy. In your right hand there are pleasures forever more.
- Psalms 17:15 As for me, I shall see your face in righteousness. I shall be satisfied, when I awake, with seeing your form.
- Psalms 63:6-7 when I remember you on my bed, and think about you in the night watches. For you have been my help. I will rejoice in the shadow of your wings.
- 1 Thessalonians 5:10 who died for us, that, whether we wake or sleep, we should live together with him.
- Isaiah 26:19 Your dead shall live. My dead bodies shall arise. Awake and sing, you who dwell in the dust; for your dew is like the dew of herbs, and the earth will cast out the departed spirits.
- Daniel 12:2 Many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth will awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt.
- Psalms 40:12 For innumerable evils have surrounded me. My iniquities have overtaken me, so that I am not able to look up. They are more than the hairs of my head. My heart has failed me.
Cross-references from openbible.info (CC BY 4.0)
Explain this verse (11 sources)
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Geneva Bible translators 1599 · Public Domain I continually see new occasions to meditate in thy…
I continually see new occasions to meditate in thy wisdom, and to praise thee.
Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain.
John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain Psa 139:18 [If] I should count them, they are…
Psa 139:18 [If] I should count them, they are more in number than the sand: when I awake, I am still with thee.
Ver. 18. If I should count them, &c.] q.d. They are infinite and immmerable. Archimedes, that great mathematician, bragged, that he could number all the sands in the habitable and inhabitable world, but no man ever believed him. See 1Sa 13:5 2Sa 17:11 Psa 78:27.
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When I awake, I am still with thee] Still taken up with some holy contemplation of thy works and wisdom. These thoughts I fall asleep with, and these I awake with. As I rake up my fire overnight, so I find it in the morning.
John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Matthew Poole 1685 · Public Domain To wit, by my thoughts and meditations. Thy wonderful…
To wit, by my thoughts and meditations. Thy wonderful counsels and works on my behalf come constantly into my mind, not only in the day time, but even in the night season, which is commonly devoted to rest and sleep; whensoever I awake, either in the night or in the morning. These are my last thoughts when I lie down, and my first when I rise.
Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
John Gill 1763 · Public Domain Surely thou wilt slay the wicked, O God,.... Since…
Surely thou wilt slay the wicked, O God,.... Since he is God omniscient, and knows where they are, what they have done, are doing, and design to do; and God omnipresent, at hand to lay hold upon them; and God omnipotent, to hold them and inflict due punishment on them; this is a consequence rightly drawn from the above perfections of God. Or "if thou wilt slay the wicked" (z), then, when I awake, I shall be with thee, as Kimchi connects the words; that is, be at leisure to attend to thy works and wonders, and daily employ myself in the contemplation of them, having no wicked persons near me to molest and disturb me. The word is singular in the original text, "the wicked one"; meaning either Saul, who was David's enemy without a cause, and did very wickedly and injuriously by him, whom he might expect God in due time would take out of the world; though he did not choose to lay his hand on the Lord's anointed, when he was in his power. Jarchi interprets it of Esau, by whom he means Edom or Rome, in the Rabbinic language, that it, the Christians; if he meant no more than the Papal Christians, he may be much in the right; the man of sin, the son of perdition, the wicked one, whom the Lord will slay with the breath of his lips, may be intended, the common enemy of Christ and his cause, Isa 11:4. Though it may design a collective body of wicked men; all the followers of antichrist, all the antichristian states, on whom the vials of God's wrath will be poured; and even all the wicked of the earth, all Christ's enemies, that would not have him to reign over them, and none but they; the justice of God will not admit of it to slay the righteous with the wicked, and the omniscience of God will distinguish the one from the other, and separate the precious from the vile;
depart from me therefore, ye bloody men; men guilty of shedding innocent blood, and therefore by the law of God should have their blood shed; such particularly are antichrist and his followers, who deserve to have blood given them to drink, because they have shed the blood of the saints, Rev 16:6; these and such as these the psalmist would have no company or fellowship with, lest he should be corrupted by them, fall into sin, and partake of deserved plagues with them, Rev 18:4. Some consider these as the words of God, and in connection with the former, and by way of wish, thus, "O that thou wouldest slay the wicked, O God" (a); and wouldest say, "depart from me, ye bloody men"; which will be said to the wicked at the last day, and even to such who have made a profession of the name of Christ, Mat 7:23.
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(z) "si occideris", V. L. Pagninus, Montanus, Musculus, &c. (a) So some in Vatablus.
John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Wesley 1765 · Public Domain Them - Thy wonderful counsels and works on my…
Them - Thy wonderful counsels and works on my behalf come constantly into my mind.
John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.
Adam Clarke 1810 · Public Domain Verse 18. If I should count them] I should…
Verse 18. If I should count them] I should be glad to enumerate so many interesting particulars: but they are beyond calculation.
When I awake] Thou art my Governor and Protector night and day.
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I am still with thee.] All my steps in life are ordered by thee: I cannot go out of thy presence; I am ever under the influence of thy Spirit.
The subject, from the 14th verse to the 16th Ps 139:14-16 inclusive, might have been much more particularly illustrated, but we are taught, by the peculiar delicacy of expression in the Sacred Writings, to avoid, as in this case, the entering too minutely into anatomical details. I would, however, make an additional observation on the subject in the 15th and 16th verses. Ps 139:15-16 I have already remarked the elegant allusion to embroidery, in the word רקמתי rukkamti, in the astonishing texture of the human body; all of which is said to be done in secret, בסתר bassether, in the secret place, viz., the womb of the mother, which, in the conclusion of the verse, is by a delicate choice of expression termed the lower parts of the earth.
The embryo state, גלם golem, has a more forcible meaning than our word substance amounts to. גלם galam signifies to roll or wrap up together; and expresses the state of the fetus before the constituent members were developed. The best system of modern philosophy allows that ino semine masculino all the members of the future animal are contained; and that these become slowly developed or unfolded, in the case of fowls, by incubation; and in the case of the more perfect animals, by gestation in the maternal matrix. It is no wonder that, in considering these, the psalmist should cry out, How precious, or extraordinary, are thy thoughts! how great is the sum - heads or outlines, of them! The particulars are, indeed, beyond comprehension; even the heads - the general contents, of thy works; while I endeavour to form any tolerable notion of them, prevail over me - they confound my understanding, and are vastly too multitudinous for my comprehension.
Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Albert Barnes 1834 · Public Domain If I should count them - If I could…
If I should count them - If I could count them.
They are more in number than the sand - Numberless as the sand on the sea-shore.
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When I awake, I am still with thee - When I am lost in deep and profound meditation on this subject, and am aroused again to consciousness, I find the same thing still true. The fact of “my” being forgetful, or lost in profound meditation, has made no difference with thee. Thou art still the same; and the same unceasing care, the same thoughtfulness, still exists in regard to me. Or, the meaning may be, sleeping or waking with me, it is still the same in regard to thee. Thine eyes never close. When mine are closed in sleep, thou art round about me; when I awake from that unconscious state, I find the same thing existing still. I have been lost in forgetfulness of thee in my slumbers; but thou hast not forgotten me. There has been no change - no slumbering - with thee.
Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges 1878 · Public Domain 18. moe] For this archaism cp. Psa_69:4.
18. moe] For this archaism cp. Psa_69:4.
when I awake &c.] His last thoughts as he falls asleep are of God; and when he awakes, he finds himself still in His Presence, still occupied in contemplating the mystery of His Being. Cp. Psa_63:6. The Targum, “I awake in the world to come, and I am still with Thee”; and Symm. “I shall awake, and I shall be for ever with Thee,” interpret the words of the resurrection, but this cannot be their original meaning.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers 1878 · Public Domain (18) If I should . . .—The original is…
(18) If I should . . .—The original is more expressive:—
“Let me count them—more than the sand they are many:
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I have awaked—and still with thee.”
With the countless mysteries of creation and providence the poet is so occupied, that they are his first waking thought; or, perhaps, as the Hebrew suggests, his dreams are continued into his early thoughts.
“Is not the vision He? tho’ He be not that which He seems?
Dreams are true while they last; and do we not live in dreams?”
TENNYSON: Higher Pantheism.
A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Charles H. Spurgeon 1885 · Public Domain Ver. 18. If I should count them, they are…
Ver. 18. If I should count them, they are more in number than the sand. This figure shows the thoughts of God to be altogether innumerable; for nothing can surpass in number the grains of sand which belt the main ocean and all the minor seas. The task of counting God's thoughts of love would be a never ending one. If we should attempt the reckoning we must necessarily fail, for the infinite falls not within the line of our feeble intellect. Even could we count the sands on the seashore, we should not then be able to number God's thoughts, for they are "more in number than the sand." This is not the hyperbole of poetry, but the solid fact of inspired statement: God thinks upon us infinitely: there is a limit to the act of creation, but not to the might of divine love.
When I awake, I am still with thee. Thy thoughts of love are so many that my mind never gets away from them, they surround me at all hours. I go to my bed, and God is my last thought; and when I wake I find my mind still hovering about his palace gates; God is ever with me, and I am ever with him. This is life indeed. If during sleep my mind wanders away into dreams, yet it only wanders upon holy ground, and the moment I wake my heart is back with its Lord. The Psalmist does not say, "When I awake, I return to thee", but, "I am still with thee"; as if his meditations were continuous, and his communion unbroken. Soon we shall lie down to sleep for the last time: God grant that when the trumpet of the archangel shall waken us we may find ourselves still with him.
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Ver. 18. They are more in number than the sand. Pindar says, that sand flies number (Olymp. Ode 2). The Pythian oracle indeed boastingly said, I know the number of the sand, and the measure of the sea (Herodot. Clio. l. i. c. 47). It is to this that Lucan may refer when he says, measure is not wanting to the ocean, or number to the sand (Pharsal. l. 5, v. 182). Samuel Burder.
Ver. 18. If I should count them, they are more in number than the sand.
If all his glorious deeds my song would tell,
The shore's unnumbered stones I might recount as well.
Pindar, B.C. 518-442.
Ver. 18. When I awake, I am still with thee. It is the great advantage of a Christian, which he has above other men, that he has his friends always about him, and (if the fault be not his own) need never to be absent from them. In the friendship and converse of the world, we use to say, "Friends must part", and those who have delight and satisfaction in one another's society must be content to leave it, and to be taken off from it. But this is the privilege of a believer that undertakes communion with God, that it is possible for him always to be with him. Again, in human converse and society we know it is ordinary for friends to dream that they are in company with one another; but when they awake they are a great way off. But a Christian that converses with God, and has his thoughts fastened upon him, when he awakes he is still with him, which is that which is here exhibited to us in the example of the prophet David.
A godly soul should fall asleep in God's arms, like a child in the mother's lap; it should be sung and lulled to sleep with "songs of the night." And this will make him the fitter for converse with God the next day after. This is the happiness of a Christian that is careful to lie down with God, that he finds his work still as he left it, and is in the same disposition when he rises as he was at night when he lay down to rest. As a man that winds up his watch over night, he finds it going the next morning; so is it also, as I may say, with a Christian that winds up his heart. This is a good observation to be remembered, especially in the evening afore the Sabbath. Thomas Horton, 1673.
Ver. 18. When I awake, I am still with thee. It is no small advantage to the holy life to "begin the day with God." The saints are wont to leave their hearts with him over night, that they may find them with him in the morning. Before earthly things break in upon us, and we receive impressions from abroad, it is good to season the heart with thoughts of God, and to consecrate the early and virgin operations of the mind before they are prostituted to baser objects. When the world gets the start of religion in the morning, it can hardly overtake it all the day; and so the heart is habituated to vanity all the day long. But when we begin with God, we take him along with us to all the business and comforts of the day; which, being seasoned with his love and fear, are the more sweet and savoury to us. Thomas Case (1598-1682), in the Epistle Dedicatory to "The Morning Exercise."
Ver. 18. When I awake. Accustom yourself to a serious meditation every morning. Fresh airing our souls in heaven will engender in us a purer spirit and nobler thoughts. A morning seasoning will secure us for all the day. Though other necessary thoughts about our calling will and must come in, yet when we have dispatched them, let us attend to our morning theme as our chief companion. As a man that is going with another about some considerable business, suppose to Westminster, though he meets with several friends on the way, and salutes some, and with others with whom he has some affairs he spends some little time, yet he quickly returns to his companion, and both together go to their intended stage. Do thus in the present case. Our minds are active and will be doing something, though to little purpose; and if they be not fixed upon some noble object, they will, like madmen and fools, be mightily pleased in playing with straws. The thoughts of God were the first visitors David had in the morning. God and his heart met together as soon as he was awake, and kept company all the day after. Stephen Charnock.
Ver. 18. When I awake I am still with thee.
1. Awaking is sometimes, yea, most commonly, taken in the natural signification, for the recovery from bodily sleep.
2. Morally, for recovery from sin.
3. Mystically; "when I shall awake", that is, from the sleep of death.
T. Horton.
Ver. 18. A Christian on Earth still in Heaven (an Appendix to "A Christian on the Mount; or, A Treatise concerning Meditation"), by Thomas Watson, 1660.
Ver. 18. I am still with thee.
1. By way of meditation.
2. In respect to communion.
3. In regard of action, and the businesses which are done by us.
T. Horton.
Psalms 139:19*
Charles H. Spurgeon's The Treasury of David (1869–1885) — public domain. Psalms only. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
The Biblical Illustrator 1887 · Public Domain When I awake, I am still with Thee.
Psa_139:18
When I awake, I am still with Thee.
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A Christian awakening with God
I. His disposition.
1. It is the care and endeavour of a good man when he awakes to be still with God.
(1) The time.
(a) When not asleep, and so hindered by the necessities of nature. A godly man is careful to be with God in every performance and in every condition, both in regard to--
(i.) Habitual inclination. He is always with God in disposition and affection; and--
(ii.) Actual application. He is careful still to repair to God, and to draw near to Him, whensoever he can.
(b) As soon as I awake.
2. In what respects a Christian, when he is awake, may be said to be with God.
(1) By meditation.
(a) Our thoughts are precious things, being the immediate issue of our souls, and are not to be lightly bestowed by us, especially our first, thoughts. And on whom can we better bestow them than on Him that helps us to them, and without whom we are not sufficient of ourselves so much as to think (2Co_3:5)?
(b) This is to be understood especially of such thoughts as are settled and deliberate and composed such thoughts as a man sets himself to with intention, and suffers to abide in him; these are for the most part suitable and agreeable to the frame of his heart. Now, because a godly man has his heart full of heaven, and God, and goodness, and the graces of the Spirit, therefore are such things as these very often and early in his thoughts.
(2) By communion. Look at friends when they meet in a morning, they have their mutual greeting between them--a loving and friendly salute one of another: even so is it with its due proportions betwixt God and the soul, the soul speaking to Him, and He returning upon it by way of reciprocation.
(a) Confession of sin.
(b) Petition and supplication.
(c) Praise and acknowledgment.
(3) By action and the businesses which are done by us; when we awake to righteousness and sin net.
3. The ground and equity of it.
(1) Our waking thoughts are our first thoughts, and the first of everything is of right Gods.
(2) Our waking thoughts are freshest thoughts; that is, the nimblest and quickest, and most active, and fullest of life. As God deserves the first, so He deserves the best.
(3) Our waking thoughts are our quietest, and freest from commotion: that is the fittest time and season for converse with God, wherein we have least distraction and perplexities and troubles from the world.
(4) Our waking thoughts are our purest and freest from pollution: these things are the fittest for God, which are most like to Himself.
II. His privilege.
1. It secures from dangers (Psa_26:1; Psa_3:5; Psa_4:8; Psa_91:5; Psa_23:4).
2. It quickens to duty; keeps the heart in a holy frame and temper all the day after.
3. It prevents from sin and temptation--at least the prevalencies of it.
III. How we may attain to this blessed condition.
1. Walk with God in the day. The duties of religion are linked together, and come off more easily in the conjunctive performance of each other. Thus reading and hearing, and meditation and communion of saints, conscionably and religiously performed, do so much the better dispose to more immediate communion with God; and the actions of the day have their impressions and reflections upon the night.
2. Lie down with God in the evening. That which we think of last we shall be ready to think of first; and as we conclude the foregoing day, so we are likely to begin the following. Therefore it should be our care, as much as may be, to have God and the things of God in our thoughts when we set ourselves to rest. This is the happiness of a Christian that is careful to lie down with God, that he finds his work still as he left it, and is in the same disposition when he rises as he was at night when he laid to rest. As a man that winds up his watch over night, he finds it going the next morning; so is it also as I may say with a Christian that winds up his heart. This is a good observation to be remembered, especially in the evening before the Sabbath.
3. Observe God in the morning. A man that would be with God when he wakes must observe how God is with him. We shall find sometimes that God Himself doth awaken us, and does desire communion with us (Isa_50:4). (T. Horton, D. D.)
Morning thoughts
To an earnestly devout mind there is no hour in She day to compare with the morning hour. Evening calms the mind when the heat and the tumult of the day are past. Not without good reason did that ancient figure meditate in the fields at eventide. But the morning hour largely determines what he shall meditate upon as he walks those grassy slopes. Let me show you how, by a godly man, that morning hour may be used to do at least something towards flinging into the day a light sweeter and pleasanter than its own.
I. It may be so used as to impart, in some sort at least, a spiritual tone to the entire day. Busy men are wont to complain, In crowded street and busy mart the mind cannot get itself fixed on higher things. Much, however, can be done, and in this way. When that light--so sweet, so pleasant for the eyes to behold--looks in upon us, and the tasks and duties of the day begin to marshal themselves before us, let the mind be imbued with the Christian temper--let it be pitched, so to speak, in a Christian key; and though God through the day may not be in all our thoughts, He will not be far from every one of them.
II. A day begun in this fashion acquires a certain practical steadiness. You have noticed, I am sure, how a day entered upon without thought, without prayer, has invariably turned out a very confused and unsatisfactory thing. There are more battles to fight than those which are won and lost on fields of blood; and the bravest, steadiest soldiers are not the men who have leaped from their beds and rushed into action. They are the men whose heads have been cleared and cooled, and whose mental and spiritual nerves have been braced by meditation and prayer.
III. This kind of prayerful forethought gives a certain desirable speciality to the day. We cannot, it is true, make every day a feast-day, but we can redeem our days from a spiritless sameness. Is my work monotonous? (and whose work is always teeming with freshness of interest?) let me redeem it from being anything like drudgery by baking it up every day as a new trust. Is it uncongenial? (and whose work is always to his taste?) let me place it day by day on the highest grounds. Oh, how often would many of us turn from the incumbent disagreeable, if we did not carry it to a loftier tribunal than any our personal feelings can furnish. (J. Thew.)
Morning meditation
Accustom yourself to a serious meditation every morning. Fresh airing our souls in heaven will engender in us a purer spirit and nobler thoughts. A morning seasoning will secure us for all the day. Though other necessary thoughts about our calling will and must come in, yet, when we have despatched them, let us attend to our morning theme as our chief companion. As a man that is going with another about some considerable business,--suppose go Westminster,--though he meets with several friends on the way, and salutes some, and with others with whom he has some affairs he spends some little time, yet he quickly returns to his companion, and both together go to their intended stage. Do thus in the present case. Our minds are active and will be doing something, though to little purpose; and if they be not fixed upon some noble object, they will, like madmen and fools, be mightily pleased in playing with straws. The thoughts of God were the first visitors David had in the morning. God and his heart met together as soon as he was awake, and kept company all the day after. (S. Charnock.)
The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.