Search me, God, and know my heart. Try me, and know my thoughts.
Parallel Translations
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Search me, God, and know my heart. Try me, and know my thoughts.
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Search me, O God, and know my heart: try me, and know my thoughts:
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Search me, O God, and know my heart, try me, and know my thoughts;
Cross-references (10)
Passages linked to Psalms 139:23 in the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge, ordered by reader-vote popularity; verse text shown in World English Bible.
- Psalms 26:2 Examine me, Yahweh, and prove me. Try my heart and my mind.
- Job 31:6 (let me be weighed in an even balance, that God may know my integrity);
- 1 Peter 1:7 that the proof of your faith, which is more precious than gold that perishes even though it is tested by fire, may be found to result in praise, glory, and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ—
- Proverbs 17:3 The refining pot is for silver, and the furnace for gold, but Yahweh tests the hearts.
- Deuteronomy 8:2 You shall remember all the way which Yahweh your God has led you these forty years in the wilderness, that he might humble you, to test you, to know what was in your heart, whether you would keep his commandments or not.
- Psalms 139:1 Yahweh, you have searched me, and you know me.
- Zechariah 13:9 I will bring the third part into the fire, and will refine them as silver is refined, and will test them like gold is tested. They will call on my name, and I will hear them. I will say, ‘It is my people;’ and they will say, ‘Yahweh is my God.’ ”
- Jeremiah 11:20 But, Yahweh of Armies, who judges righteously, who tests the heart and the mind, I will see your vengeance on them; for to you I have revealed my cause.
- Malachi 3:2-3 “But who can endure the day of his coming? And who will stand when he appears? For he is like a refiner’s fire, and like launderers’ soap; and he will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver, and he will purify the sons of Levi, and refine them as gold and silver; and they shall offer to Yahweh offerings in righteousness.
- Deuteronomy 8:16 who fed you in the wilderness with manna, which your fathers didn’t know, that he might humble you, and that he might prove you, to do you good at your latter end;
Cross-references from openbible.info (CC BY 4.0)
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John Calvin 1540 · Public Domain 23. Search me, O God! He insists upon this…
23. Search me, O God! He insists upon this as being the only cause why he opposed the despisers of God, that he himself was a genuine worshipper of God, and desired others to possess the same character. It indicates no common confidence that he should submit, himself so boldly to the judgment of God. But being fully conscious of sincerity in his religion, it was not without due consideration that he placed himself so confidently before God’s bar; neither must we think that he claims to be free from all sin, for he groaned under the felt burden of his transgressions. The saints in all that they say of their integrity still depend only upon free grace. Yet persuaded as they are that their godliness is approved before God, notwithstanding their falls and infirmities, we need not wonder that (hey feel themselves at freedom to draw a distinction between themselves and the wicked. While he denies that his heart was double or insincere, he does not profess exemption from all sin, but only that he was not devoted to wickedness; for עצב, otseb, does not mean any sin whatever, but grief, trouble, or pravity — and sometimes metaphorically an idol. “Car le mot Hebrieu duquel il use en ce passage ne signifie pas indif-feremment tout peche, mais douleur et fascherie,” etc. — Fr. “Any way of wickedness — the word rendered after the Septuagint by wickedness means both sorrow, mischief; and idol: the former is probably the sense in which the Psalmist here uses it, a way of sorrow is a way productive of sorrow, or tending to sorrow, as is the case (Psalm 1:7 [sic]) with every wicked way.” — Cresswell.
John Calvin's Commentaries (1540-1563) — public domain. Text from the Calvin Translation Society English edition (1840s-50s) via the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (ccel.org). Calvin's coverage is partial (roughly two-thirds of the Bible); uncommented books and verses are honest gaps, never fabricated. The 19th-century editor's footnotes and remarks are omitted so the notes are faithfully Calvin's own voice.
John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain Psa 139:23 Search me, O God, and know my…
Psa 139:23 Search me, O God, and know my heart: try me, and know my thoughts:
Ver. 23. Search me, O God, and know my heart] Look into every corner and cranny, and see whether it be not so as I say, viz. that I hate wicked men merely for their wickedness; and for no self-respect have I thus cast down the gauntlet of defiance unto them, and bidden them battle. We should not rest (saith a reverend man) in our heart’s voice; nor accept its deceitful applause. But as once Joshua seeing the angel examined him, Art thou on our side, or on the adversaries’? so should we deal in this case; yea, beg of God to do it for us, and do it thoroughly, as here: this is a sure sign of sincerity, void of all sinisterity.
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 And whether I do not speak this from my…
And whether I do not speak this from my very heart, do thou judge, who art the Searcher of hearts, and deal with me accordingly.
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 And see if there be any wicked way in…
And see if there be any wicked way in me,.... Not that David thought himself free from wickedness, or that there was none to be found in his heart and life; and therefore said this in a boasting way, he knew otherwise; see Psa 19:12; but he is desirous it might be thoroughly looked into and seen whether there was any such wicked way in him he was charged with; as that he had a design upon the life of Saul, and to seize his throne and kingdom, which never entered into his mind, Sa1 24:9. Or, "any way of grief" (d); what tended to wound and grieve his own soul, or to grieve the hearts of God's people; or to grieve the Holy Spirit of God; and which he ought to grieve for and repent of: suggesting, that upon the first conviction he was ready to relinquish any such wicked way, and express his abhorrence of it, and testify true repentance for it. Some render it, "the way of an idol" (e); because a word from the same root signifies an idol: every carnal lust in a man's heart is an idol; and whatsoever engrosses the affections, or has more of them than God himself has, or is preferred to him, Eze 14:4. The Targum is,
"and see if the way of those that err is me;''
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and lead me in the way everlasting; or, "in the way of old" (f): the good old way, the ancient path, in which the patriarchs before and after the flood walked, Or, "in the perpetual way" (g); the way that endures for ever; in opposition to the way of the wicked, that perishes, Psa 1:6; or in the way that leads to everlasting life, to eternal peace and rest, and endless pleasures; as opposed to the way of grief and sorrow. It designs Christ, the true and only way to eternal life, the path of faith, truth, and godliness, Mat 7:13; in which the Lord leads his people, as a father does his child, and as the shepherd his flock. The Jewish commentators, Aben Ezra and Kimchi, interpret it the way of the world; and take it to be the same with the way of all flesh, death, or the grave; which is called man's world, or home, Jos 23:14; and make the sense to be this: If thou seest any evil in me, take me out of the world; kill me at once, let me die But this seems to be foreign from the text; for the word "lead" designs a blessing or benefit, as Calvin well observes. The Targum is,
"lead me in the way of the upright of the world;''
the way in which upright men walk.
(d) "via doloris", Montanus, Cocceius, Gejerus, Michaelis; so Ainsworth. (e) "Via idoli"; so some in Vatablus. (f) "per viam sepiternam", Pagninus, Vatablus; "per viam antiquam", Gussetius; so Ainsworth. (g) "In via perpetua", Junius & Tremellius, Piscator.
Next: Psalms Chapter 140
John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
Adam Clarke 1810 · Public Domain Verse 23. Search me, O God] Investigate my conduct,…
Verse 23. Search me, O God] Investigate my conduct, examine my heart, put me to the test, and examine my thoughts.
Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Joseph Benson 1811 · Public Domain Psa 139:23-24. Search me, O God — Do thou,…
Psa 139:23-24. Search me, O God — Do thou, who art the searcher of hearts, judge whether I do not speak this from my very heart, and deal with me accordingly. See if there be any wicked way in me — Hebrew, דרךְ עצב, way of trouble or grief; any course of life, or temper of mind, which is a source of grief or trouble, either, 1st, To myself, as all sin is to the sinner, sooner or later; or, 2d, To others, as I am accused of causing much trouble, and designing evil to the king and kingdom; and lead me in the way everlasting — In the way of godliness, the way which is right and good, and leads to everlasting life; whereas the way of wickedness, to which this is opposed, will perish, as is said Psa 1:6, and bring men to utter destruction. Or, as the words may be rendered, In the old way, which is the good way, as it is called Jer 6:16, the way of righteousness and holiness, which may well be called the old way, because it was written on the hearts of men from the beginning of the world, whereas wickedness is of later date. Observe, reader, they that are upright can take comfort in God’s omniscience, as a witness of their uprightness, and can, with an humble confidence, beg of him to search and try them, and discover them to themselves, for a good man desires to know the worst of himself. Nay, they have no objection, but rather desire to be discovered to others. He that means honestly could wish he had a window in his breast, that any man might look into his heart; for his ruling desire is, in all things, to know and do the will of God.
Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Albert Barnes 1834 · Public Domain Search me, O God - The word “search” here…
Search me, O God - The word “search” here is the same as in Psa 139:1. See the notes at that verse. The psalmist had stated the fact that it is a characteristic of God that he “does” search the heart; and he here prays that God “would” exercise that power in relation to himself; that as God could know all that there is within the heart, he would examine him with the closest scrutiny, so that he might be under no delusion or self-deception; that he might not indulge in any false hopes; that he might not cherish any improper feelings or desires. The prayer denotes great “sincerity” on the part of the psalmist. It indicates also self-distrust. It is an expression of what all must feel who have any just views of themselves - that the heart is very corrupt; that we are liable to deceive ourselves; and that the most thorough search “should” be made that we be “not” deceived and lost.
And know my heart - Know or see all that is within it.
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Try me - As metal is tried or proved that is put to a “test” to learn what it is. The trial here is that which would result from the divine inspection of his heart.
And know my thoughts - See what they are. The word rendered “thoughts” occurs only in one other place, Psa 94:19. The idea is, Search me thoroughly; examine not merely my outward conduct, but what I think about; what are my purposes; what passes through my mind; what occupies my imagination and my memory; what secures my affections and controls my will. He must be a very sincere man who prays that God will search his thoughts, for there are few who would be willing that their fellow-men, even their best friends, should know all that they are thinking about.
Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Daniel D. Whedon 1874 · Public Domain 23, 24. Because of such sin and sinful men,…
23, 24. Because of such sin and sinful men, the psalmist prays for a search of his own heart, that no enmity to God may be left there.
Way everlasting—Literally, way of eternity; so termed because it is old as eternity, being founded in the attributes of God, and because it leads to a blissful eternity; in both respects opposite to the brief and perishable way of the ungodly. Psa_1:6.
Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges 1878 · Public Domain 23. Search me &c.] God has searched him and…
23. Search me &c.] God has searched him and knows him (Psa_139:1): but he will welcome the continuance of that piercing scrutiny, not seek to avoid it. Cp. Psa_26:2.
23, 24. In no spirit of presumptuous self-confidence, but with an honest desire to be saved from self-deception and guided in the way of true life, the Psalmist ends by inviting and welcoming that Divine scrutiny which he knows to be a fact and from which he cannot escape (Psa_139:1 ff.), and praying for that Divine guidance which is indispensable for him.
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 (23) Search.—The same word with which the psalm opens.…
(23) Search.—The same word with which the psalm opens. The inevitable scrutiny of the Divine Being is invited.
Thoughts.—As in Psa_94:19; a word meaning (Eze_31:5) branches, and so expressing the ramifications of thought.
A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Pulpit Commentary 1880 · Public Domain Search me, O God, and know my heart: try…
Search me, O God, and know my heart: try me, and know my thoughts. Examine me, and see if I have not represented my feelings as they really are. Keep on always searching me out (comp. ver. 1), and "trying my reins and my heart". (Psa_26:2) My desire is to be proved and tested.
Vers. 23, 24. God"s searching desired.
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In these verses we seem to be standing by a fair river, a very river of the water of life full, flowing, beautiful, fertilizing; a joy to all beholders and all who dwell by it. And as we look back at the former parts of this "crown of the psalms," as it has been called, we see the lofty spiritual heights from whence this river has flowed down; we realize the glorious truths about God his omnipresence and omniscience which are the source from whence this prayer we are to consider has sprung. But such thoughts about God have not always such results. They are terrors to the mind of the godless, and of all who are not walking in the light of the Lord. Hence the truths taught in this psalm serve as a test of our own spiritual condition. Are they welcome to us, or the reverse? They cannot be welcome to an ungodly soul, but they are to such as him who wrote this psalm. Now, in our text, note
I WHAT IS IMPLIED.
1. That there has been a previous searching of ourselves. Here is one great excellence of this prayer it compels sincerity. For how can the sin-loving man pray, "Search me, O God!" when he can see quite plainly himself what he is? And how, "See if there be," etc., when there is no "if" at all? It is only those who, like Peter, can lay bare their hearts, and say, "Lord, thou knowest all things; thou knowest that I love thee," that can thus pray. We do not say that a man must be sinless, but he must be sincere. Can we pray this prayer?
2. That our searching is not sufficient. It is implied, what all experience proves so surely, that none of us can understand his errors; and we ever need God to cleanse us from our secret, hidden, and so, to us, unknown faults. "The heart is deceitful above all things; ... who can know it?" None but God can.
II THE REGIONS WHERE GOD"S SEARCHING IS FELT TO BE NEEDED.
1. In the heart. Our life is visible to others and to ourselves, and our words audible, but our hearts are neither. The seeds of conduct and character are so minute, so seemingly insignificant, our motives are of such mingled, mixed nature, so chameleon-like, that we are baffled.
2. In the thoughts. "Try me... thoughts." They need to be tried; they often seem right when they are not so. Judas was, no doubt, self-deceived in this way, thinking his thought to be right when it was all evil. And God does try them; he is ever applying his tests and revealing us to ourselves, as the moonlight reveals the ship that crosses its path, as the lightning reveals the unseen precipice. And he does this for gracious purposes, that so we may be led to betake ourselves to this prayer.
3. The ways. "See if... way in me." The prayer confesses that a man"s ways are in him before he is in them. There were evil ways he knew behind him, and he had gone in them; around him, many were going in them; before him, seeking to attract him. But all this did not matter so long as they were not in him. That the ship should be in the water is all right; but for the water to he in the ship! It is what is in us which is all-important.
III THE ULTIMATE OBJECT OF THIS PRAYER. That he might be led "in the way everlasting.
1. There is such a way the way of the everlasting God.
2. And the ways of God are fitly so called. Other ways may go on for a long distance, but they are cut short at last.
3. All joy, goodness, and strength are in these ways; all that the heart can desire, all that can bless our fellow-men, and that can glorify Christ.
4. And in these ways we need to be "led," not merely have them shown to us. Many see them, but do not walk in them; and none ever will unless the Lord leads them. But this he is most willing to do. If sincerely we pray this prayer, his leading has begun. S.C.
Vers. 23, 24. Our thoughts.
"Know my thoughts." This psalm contains the finest utterance of human feeling about the Divine omniscience that has ever come from human lips. God sees everything and everywhere. He sees the hidden mystery, man"s secret thought and purpose. To the God-fearing man that is no trouble; it is rather a source of satisfaction and holy joy.
I THE IMPORTANCE OF OUR THOUGHTS. The wise man says, "As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he." A man is as his thoughts. Man cannot rightly judge the thoughts of his fellow-man; but God is the "Discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart." Many religious people cherish the notion that they have no control over the suggestions that are made to their minds, no responsibility for the contents of their thoughts only for cherishing thought, only for letting thought inspire conduct. This, however, is only true within certain narrow limits, which need to be very carefully defined.
1. The importance that attaches to our thoughts we may realize from our observation of men. We have to do with them, but we cannot be said to know them until we come into such relations as reveal to us their thinking. We can only be said to know our friends, in whom is the "mirror of an answering mind.
2. The experience of Christian life impresses us with the importance of our thoughts. It is difficult to restrain and mould aright our conduct and conversation; but the supreme difficulty is to control and purify our thoughts. There are two hard things we have to do continue in well-doing;" and "keep the heart with all diligence." And the latter is the harder of the two. Its hardness has driven men and women into convent and hermit-cells, as providing the only hopeful conditions. The scheme of redemption is really a heart-regeneration, a purifying of the very springs of thought and feeling. It does deliver us from outward foes; but its supreme interest lies in its going right down to the very root of the mischief in man. It proposes to deliver man from his own evil self. It reaches to the very fountains of our thoughts, and cleanses them.
II THE CONTROL WHICH WE SHOULD HAVE OVER OUR THOUGHTS. We must have some measure of control over them, or we could have no responsibility in relation to them.
1. We have control over the material of our thoughts. It is commonly assumed that thoughts and suggestions are absolutely put into our minds either by God or by Satan. But thought is really the comparison, selection, and association of the actual contents of our mind in the power and activity of our will. All that has impressed us during our lives, by the eye, the ear, or the feeling, has passed into our mental treasury. It is all there, and all linked together by the most subtle connections. The contents of each of our minds today is the sum of past impressions and associations; and we are adding to that sum day by day. What we call "thinking" is taking up a portion of these contents, and recombining and rearranging them to form new ideas. Then we must be, in some measure, responsible for the contents of our minds. Not wholly, because we have been placed in circumstances and under influences over which we had no control. We can, however, put ourselves where we shall receive evil impressions, and we can put ourselves in the sphere of good impressions. No man needs to fill his mind with evil things, which sooner or later must become the material of evil thoughts. We need not choose evil companionships, or read demoralizing books. Oar lives are so far in our hands that we can to a large extent settle what shall be the materials of our thoughts. We might fill up our souls with good things.
2. We have control over the course and the processes of our thought. We can deliberately choose to think about evil things or about good things. If our will is a renewed and sanctified will, then we ought to expect it to gain presidency over our thoughts.
III THE HELP WHICH GOD IS EVER READY TO GIVE US IN THE EXERCISE OF SUCH CONTROL. This help the psalmist sought, "Try me, and know my thoughts." Our self-trusting attempts to regulate our thoughts are sure to bring us a feeling of depression, almost of hopelessness. The work proves to be beyond us. It is not beyond us when God is our Helper. And his gracious response ever freshly comes to the trustful, up-looking soul. He does "cleanse the thoughts of our hearts by the inspiration of his Holy Spirit. R.T.
Vers. 23, 24. Request for God"s searching.
"Search me, O God, and know my heart: try me, and know my thoughts: and see if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.
I SOME THINGS IMPLIED IN THE TEXT.
1. The imperfect knowledge of his own character. Though it lies so near to us not a far-off country. Though it is the most important of all knowledge. Knowledge of the body important; but that we can trust to another not this. Sin creates darkness.
2. That he was aiming at the perfection of his nature. It is only such as he who want to know themselves better. This is the idea of a Christian; and all other aims are poor and selfish.
II SOME THINGS STATED IS THE TEXT.
1. That he was willing to know the worst of himself. Men generally are afraid to know themselves. If we think our child is in danger from some disease, we ask to know the worst; and so of our own bodily disease. But not so with the soul. Men try to keep out of sight and forget their true selves.
2. That he was willing to be tried to submit to the means by which this knowledge could be gained. Put me to the proof. Few know what they are asking for in using this prayer. "Try me, so as to show me what I am." The axe willing to be proved is put on the grindstone, and then taken into the forest. The wheat me is bruised; the gold is cast into the furnace. Christ tried the rich young man in the Gospel.
III THE PRAYER OF THE TEXT. Founded on the conviction:
1. That God alone is able to show us what we are. We want a revelation from heaven for that. It is not self-developed knowledge, nor is it a sudden, but a gradual, revelation. No man knows himself till he has known Christ, his true and better Self.
2. That God, and not himself, is his Savior. "Lead me in the way everlasting." Ways that last God leads us into them, keeps us in them, and draws us onward along these ways. S.
The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Charles H. Spurgeon 1885 · Public Domain Ver. 23. Search me, O God, and know my…
Ver. 23. Search me, O God, and know my heart. David is no accomplice with traitors. He has disowned them in set form, and now he appeals to God that he does not harbour a trace of fellowship with them. He will have God himself search him, and search him thoroughly, till every point of his being is known, and read, and understood; for he is sure that even by such an investigation there will be found in him no complicity with wicked men. He challenges the fullest investigation, the innermost search: he had need be a true man who can put himself deliberately into such a crucible. Yet we may each one desire such searching; for it would be a terrible calamity to us for sin to remain in our hearts unknown and undiscovered.
Try me, and know my thoughts. Exercise any and every test upon me. By fire and by water let me be examined. Read not alone the desires of my heart, but the fugitive thoughts of my head. Know with all penetrating knowledge all that is or has been in the chambers of my mind. What a mercy that there is one being who can know us to perfection! He is intimately at home with us. He is graciously inclined towards us, and is willing to bend his omniscience to serve the end of our sanctification. Let us pray as David did, and let us be as honest as he. We cannot hide our sin: salvation lies the other way, in a plain discovery of evil, and an effectual severance from it.
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Ver. 23. Try me. True faith is precious; it is like gold, it will endure a trial. Presumption is but a counterfeit, and cannot abide to be tried: 1Pe 1:7. A true believer fears no trial. He is willing to be tried by God. He is willing to have his faith tried by others, he shuns not the touchstone. He is much in testing himself. He would not take anything upon trust, especially that which is of such moment. He is willing to hear the worst as well as the best. That preaching pleases him best which is most searching and distinguishing: Heb 4:12. He is loath to be deluded with vain hopes. He would not be flattered into a false conceit of his spiritual state. When trials are offered, he complies with the apostle's advice, 2Co 13:5. David Clarkson.
Ver. 23. What fearful dilemma have we here? The Holiest changeth not, when he comes a visitant to a human heart. He is the same there that he is in the highest heaven. He cannot look upon sin; and how can a human heart welcome him into its secret chambers? How can the blazing fire welcome the quenching water? It is easy to commit to memory the seemly prayer of an ancient penitent, Search me, O God, and know my heart; try me, and know my thoughts. The dead letters, worn smooth by frequent use, may drop freely from callous lips, leaving no sense of scalding on the conscience; and yet, truth of God though they are, they may be turned into a lie in the act of utterance. The prayer is not true, although it is borrowed from the Bible, if the suppliant invite the All seeing in, and yet would give a thousand worlds, if he had them, to keep him out for ever.
Christ has declared the difficulty, and solved it: "I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me." When the Son has made the sinner free, he is free indeed. The dear child, pardoned and reconciled, loves and longs for the Father's presence. What! is there neither spot nor wrinkle now upon the man, that he dares to challenge inspection by the Omniscient, and to offer his heart as Jehovah's dwelling place? He is not yet so pure; and well he knows it. The groan is bursting yet from his broken heart: "O wretched man that I am! Who shall deliver me from the body of this death?" Many stains defile him yet; but he loathes them now, and longs to be free. The difference between an unconverted and a converted man is not that the one has sins, and the other has none; but that the one takes part with his cherished sins against a dreaded God, and the other takes part with a reconciled God against his hated sins. He is out with his former friends, and in with his former adversary. Conversion is a turning, and it is one turning only; but it produces simultaneously and necessarily two distinct effects. Whereas his face was formerly turned away from God, and toward his own sins; it is now turned away from his own sins, and toward God. This one turning, with its twofold result, is in Christ the Mediator, and through the work of the Spirit.
As long as God is my enemy, I am his. I have no more power to change that condition than the polished surface has to refrain from reflecting the sunshine that falls upon it. It is God's love, from the face of Jesus shining into my dark heart, that makes my heart open to him, and delight to be his dwelling place. The eyes of the just Avenger I cannot endure to be in this place of sin; but the eye of the compassionate Physician I shall gladly admit into this place of disease; for he comes from heaven to earth that he may heal such sin sick souls as mine. When a disciple desires to be searched by the living God, he does not thereby intimate that there are no sins in him to be discovered: he intimates rather that his foes are so many and so lively, that nothing can subdue them except the presence and power of God. William Arnot (1875), in "Laws from Heaven for Life on Earth."
Ver. 23-24. There are several things worthy of notice in the Psalmist's appeal, in the words before us. First, notice the Psalmist's intrepidity. Here is a man determined to explore the recesses of his own heart. Did Bonaparte, did Nelson, did Wellington, ever propose to do this? Were all the renowned heroes of antiquity present, I would ask them all if they ever had courage to enter into their own hearts. David was a man of courage. When he slew a lion in the way, when he successfully encountered a bear, when he went out to meet the giant Goliath, he gave undoubted proofs of courage; but never did he display such signal intrepidity as when he determined to look into his own heart. If you stood upon some eminence, and saw all the ravenous and venomous creatures that ever lived collected before you, it would not require such courage to combat them as to combat with your own heart. Every sin is a devil, and each may say, "My name is Legion, for we are many." Who knows what it is to face himself? And yet, if we would be saved, this must be done.
Secondly, notice the Psalmist's integrity. He wished to know all his sins, that he might be delivered from them. As every individual must know his sins at some period, a wise man will seek to know them here, because the present is the only time in which to glorify God, by confessing, by renouncing, by overcoming them. One of the attributes of sin is to hide man from himself, to conceal his deformity, to prevent him from forming a just conception of his true condition. It is a solemn fact, that there is not an evil principle in the bosom of the devil himself which does not exist in ours, at the present moment, unless we are fully renewed by the power of the Holy Spirit. That these evil principles do not continually develop themselves, in all their hideous deformity, is entirely owing to the restraining and forbearing mercy of God.
Thirdly, notice the Psalmist's wisdom. He presents his prayer to God himself. God is the only Being in the universe that knows himselfthat peruses himself in his own light. In the same light he sees all other beings; and hence it follows that, if other beings see themselves truly, it must be in the light of God. If the sun were an intelligent being, I would ask him, "How do you see yourself? In your own light?" And he would reply, "Yes." "And how do you see the planets that are continually revolving around you?" "In my own light also, for all the light that is in them is borrowed from me".
You will observe that the Psalmist begins with his principles: his desire is to have these tried by a competent judge, and to have every thing that is evil removed from them. This is an evidence of his wisdom. The heart and its thoughts must be made right, before the actions of the life can be set right. Those who are most eminent for piety are most conversant with God; and, for this reason, they become most conversant with themselves. David says, elsewhere, "Who can understand his errors? Cleanse THOU me from secret faults." And Job says, "If I wash myself with snow water, and make me never so clean, yet shalt THOU plunge me in the ditch, and mine own clothes shall abhor me." When these holy men perused themselves in God's light, they saw their sins of omission and commission, and prayed earnestly to be delivered from all. William Howels, 1832.
Ver. 23-24. The text is a prayer, and it indicates, as we think, three great facts in regard to the suppliant: the first, that David thoroughly wished to become acquainted with himself; the second, that he felt conscious that God could see through all disguises; and the third, that he desired to discover, in order that by Divine help he might correct, whatsoever was wrong in his conduct.
Now, the first inference which we draw from the text, when considered as indicating the feelings of the petitioner is, that he was thoroughly honest, that it was really his wish to become acquainted with his own heart. And is there, you may say, anything rare or remarkable in this? Indeed we think there is. It would need, we believe, a very high degree of piety to be able to put up with sincerity the prayers of our text. For, will you tell me that it does not often happen, that even whilst men are carrying on a process of self examination, there is a secret wish to remain ignorant of certain points, a desire not to be proved wrong when interest and inclination combine in demanding an opposite verdict? ...In searching into yourselves, you know where the tender points are, and those points you will be apt to avoid, so as not to put yourselves to pain, nor make it evident how much you need the caustic and the knife. Indeed, we may be sure that we state nothing but what experience will prove, when we declare it a high attainment in religion to be ready to know how bad we are...And this had evidently been reached by the Psalmist, for he pleads very earnestly with God that he would leave no recess of his spirit unexplored, that he would bring the heart and all its thoughts, the life and all its ways, under a most searching examination, so that no form and no degree of evil might fail to be detected. Henry Melvill.
Ver. 23-24. Self examination is not the simple thing which, at first sight, it might appear. No Christian who has ever really practised it has found it easy. Is there any exercise of the soul which any one of us has found so unsatisfactory, so almost impossible, as self examination? The fact is this, that the heart is so exceedingly complicated and intricate, and it is so very near the eye which has to investigate it, and both it and the eye are so restless and so shifting, that its deep anatomy baffles our research. Just a few things, here and there, broad and open, and floating upon the surface, a man discovers; but there are chambers receding within chambers, in that deepest of all deep things, a sinner's heart, which no mere human investigation ever will reach, ...it is the prerogative of God alone to "search" the human heart.
To the child of Godthe most intimate with himself in all the earthI do not hesitate to say"There are sins latent at this moment in you, of which you have no idea; but it only requires a larger measure of spiritual illumination to impress and unfold them. You have no idea of the wickedness that is now in you." But while I say this, let every Christian count well the cost before he ventures on the bold act of asking God to "search" him. For be sure of this, if you do really and earnestly ask God to "search" you, he will do it. And he will search you most searchingly; and if you ask him to "try" you, he will try you, and the trial will be no light matter!
I am persuaded that we often little calculate what we are doing what we are asking God to dowhen we implore him to give us some spiritual attainment, some growth in grace, some increase in holiness, or peace. To all these things there is a condition, and that condition lies in a discipline, and that discipline is generally proportionate to the strength and the measure of the gift that we ask.
I do not know what may have been the state of the Psalmist at the period when he wrote this Psalm; but I should think either one of Saul's most cruel persecutions, or the rebellion of his son Absalom, followed quick upon the traces of that prayer, Search me, O God, and know my heart: try me, and know my thoughts, etc.
Still, whatever his attainment, every child of God will desire, at any sacrifice, to know his own exact state before God; for, as he desires in all things to have a mind conformed to the mind of God, so he is especially jealous lest he should, by any means, be taking a different view, or estimate, of his own soul from that which God sees it. Condensed from James Vaughan.
Ver. 23-24. Hypocrisy at the fashionable end of the town is very different from hypocrisy in the city. The modish hypocrite endeavours to appear more vicious than he really is, the other kind of hypocrite more virtuous. The former is afraid of everything that has the show of religion in it, and would be thought engaged in many criminal gallantries and amours which he is not guilty of. The latter assumes a face of sanctity, and covers a multitude of vices under a seeming religious deportment.
But there is another kind of hypocrisy, which differs from both of these: I mean that hypocrisy by which a man does not only deceive the world, but very often imposes on himself; that hypocrisy which conceals his own heart from him, and makes him believe he is more virtuous than he really is, and either not attend to his vices, or mistake even his vices for virtues. It is this fatal hypocrisy and self deceit which is taken notice of in those words, "Who can understand his errors? cleanse thou me from secret faults."
These two kinds of hypocrisy, namely, that of deceiving the world, and that of imposing on ourselves, are touched with wonderful beauty in the hundred and thirty-ninth Psalm. The folly of the first kind of hypocrisy is there set forth by reflections on God's omniscience and omnipresence, which are celebrated in as noble strains of poetry as any other I ever met with, either sacred or profane. The other kind of hypocrisy, whereby a man deceives himself, is intimated in the two last verses, where the Psalmist addresses himself to the great Searcher of hearts in that emphatic petition; "Try me, O God, and seek the ground of my heart: prove me, and examine my thoughts. Look well if there be any way of wickedness in me, and lead me in the way everlasting." Joseph Addison (1672-1719), in "The Spectator."
Ver. 23-24. How beautiful is the humility of David! He cannot speak of the wicked but in terms of righteous indignation; he cannot but hate the haters of his God; yet, he seems immediately to recollect, and to check himself"Try me, O Lord, and seek the ground of my heart." Precisely in the same spirit of inward humility and self recollection, Abraham, when pleading before God in prayer for guilty depraved Sodom, fails not to speak of himself, as being dust and ashes: Ge 18:27. James Ford, 1871.
Ver. 23-24. Why did David pray thus to God, Search me, O God, and know my heart, having said before, in the first verse, "Thou hast searched me, and known me"? Seeing David knew that God had searched him, what needed he to pray that God would search him? why did he beg God to do that which he had done already? The answer is at hand. David was a diligent self searcher, and therefore he was so willing to be searched, yea, he delighted to be searched by God; and that not (as was said) because himself had done it already, but also because he knew God could do it better. He knew by his own search that he did not live in any way of wickedness against his knowledge, and yet he knew there might be some way of wickedness in him that he knew not of. And therefore he doth not only say, "Search me, O God, and know my thoughts"; but he adds, "See if there be any wicked way (or any way of pain and grief) in me"; (the same word signifies both, because wicked ways lead in the end to pain and grief); "and lead me in the way everlasting." As if he had said, Lord, I have searched myself, and can see no wicked way in me; but, Lord, thy sight is infinitely clearer than mine, and if thou wilt but search me thou mayest see some wicked way in me which I could not see, and I would fain see and know the worst of myself, that I might amend and grow better; therefore, Lord, if there be any such way in me, cause me to know it also. O take that way out of me, and take me out of that way; "lead me in the way everlasting." David had tried himself, and he would again be tried by God, that he, being better tried, might become yet better. He found himself gold upon his own trial and yet he feared there might be some dross in him that he had not found; and now he would be retried that he might come forth purest gold. Pure gold fears neither the furnace nor the fire, neither the test nor the touchstone; nor is weighty gold afraid of the balance. He that is weight will be weight, how often soever he is weighed; he that is gold will be gold, how often soever he is tried, and the oftener he is tried the purer gold he will be; what he is he will be, and he would be better than he is. Joseph Caryl.
Ver. 23-24. The language,
1. Of self examination.
a) As in the sight of God.
b) With a desire for the help of God: Ps 139:23. Look me through, and through, and tell me what thou thinkest of me.
2. Of self renunciation: "See if", etc. (Ps 139:24); any sin unpardoned, any evil disposition unsubdued, any evil habit unrestrained, that I may renounce it.
3. Of self dedication: "Lead me", etc.: a submission entirely to divine guidance in the future.
G.R.
Psalms 139:24*
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 Search me, O God, and know my heart: try…
Psa_139:23-24
Search me, O God, and know my heart: try me, and know my thoughts.
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Man addressing God
I. Man requesting Divine scrutiny.
1. Reverence manifested. O God. He realized Gods presence, and his soul was filled with awe.
2. Thorough investigation invoked. Search me, etc. Not that God was to thus obtain information unknown to Him before; but the asker, penetrated with a sense of sinfulness, desires God to search his heart, that the heart--with all its tendencies, passions, evils--may become known to himself through Gods inquest.
II. Man desiring Divine discipline.
1. Severe testing. Try me.
2. Moral discrimination. Know my thoughts, etc.
III. Man imploring Divine leadership.
1. Spiritual ignorance confessed.
2. Divine condescension besought.
3. Perpetual guidance implored. (M. Braithwaite.)
God the heart-searcher
This is the language of prayer; but it is prayer almost in the tone of a challenge. Taken in connection with its context, it is a claim on the part of the speaker to a spotless innocence. The words of the psalmist are, in the full sense, proper only in the mouth of His Divine Son and Lord. Has, then, the text no meaning for the sinful, struggling followers of Christ? Yea! the followers of the Messiah are His members as well as followers. The prayer of our text, then, is not out of place in the mouth of a true-hearted Christian. He may offer it. In the name and strength of his Divine Surety and Head he is bound continually to cherish the spirit of one whose soul will break forth into the prayer, Search me, O God, etc.
I. To know hearts belongeth only to the Lord. This is an attribute distinctively His own, not shared in any measure with any created being.
1. Gods knowledge of the heart differs from that which man or angel has in this, that it is immediate. God knows,--as it were, sees, the very spirit, and its every act and state. Man knows only certain outer signs which the spirit makes, from which he infers its thoughts and feelings.
2. The knowledge of God, and of God alone, is unintermittent and all-piercing. It alone is eternal in duration of exercise, and it alone is able to compass the infinite relations even of one spirit. And to be the Searcher of hearts is to have an incessant and all-piercing glance into the inner being and most extended relations, not only of one spirit, but of all spirits, human and angelic. To form, therefore, a truthful estimate of the moral character of any one soul, the Searcher of hearts must know the attitude it would assume if brought into the presence of each creature, and also the attitude it would assume to every manifestation of His own infinite nature.
II. He knows the heart necessarily: He cannot but know it.
1. Then to Him are known all the dark mysteries of iniquity which men carry about locked up in their breasts. You yourself may sometimes forget it; He never does; and He intends with a changeless purpose to discover you to the whole world in due time, to put you to open shame, and bring you to condign punishment. Struggle no more in the fruitless labour to conceal your sin. In shame and sorrow of deep repentance hasten to make confession to the Searcher of hearts; to make confession not only of your black secret, but of all the ills with which your life is filled. Cast yourself upon His mercy. The blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanseth from all sin.
2. Then all hypocritical profession of the faith is vain. You may be wickedly deceiving yourselves as well as your fellow-men, like the young man in the Gospel ready to say of the commandments, All these have I kept from my youth up, and in truth very near the kingdom of heaven; but the Lord marks with unerring certainty that beloved lust, that precious thing of earth, reserved, which you will not give up for Christ. And it, no matter how trivial, no matter how godlike, digs a gulf fathomless and bridgeless between you and life.
3. The Lord searcheth the heart; and, if so, the Lord knoweth them that are His. With this truth Paul comforted himself and Timothy amid the desponding thoughts with which the apostasy of certain flaming professors in the Church of Ephesus was crushing them. With this truth, too, comfort yourself, O child of God, amid the painful doubts which the humble heart is so ready to entertain of its own sincerity and steadfastness. (James Hamilton, M. A.)
Prayer to God to search the heart
Note the psalmists--
I. Intrepidity. Here is a man determined to explore all the recesses of his own heart. Did Bonaparte, did Nelson, did Wellington ever propose to do this? Were all the renowned heroes of antiquity present I would ask them all if they ever had courage to enter into their own hearts. If you stood upon some eminence and saw all the ravenous and venomous creatures that ever lived collected before you, it would not require such courage to combat them as to combat with your own heart. Every sin is a devil.
II. Integrity. He wished to know all his sins, that he might be delivered from them.
III. Wisdom.
1. He prefers his prayer to God Himself. God is the only Being in the universe that knows Himself--that peruses Himself in His own light. In the same light He sees all other beings; and hence it follows that, if other beings see themselves truly, it must be in the light of God.
2. He begins with his principles: his desire is to have these tried by a competent Judge, and to have everything that is evil removed from them. This is an evidence of his wisdom. The heart and its thoughts must be made right before the actions of the life can be right.
IV. Earnest desire. Lead me in the way everlasting.
1. The way Thou hast marked out for salvation.
2. The way of Thy law, in all the purity and spirituality of its requirements. (W. Howels.)
Gods search
This heart is a labyrinth more intricate than the mausoleum of the ancient kings. There are in our souls doors that have never been opened, languages which have never been translated, enigmas that have never been solved, monsters that have never been hunted down, and it was in the appreciation of that fact that the author of my text cried out, Search me, O God, and try me. I propose to show some of the ways in which God explores a man, and the use that comes of it.
1. God searches a man by His Holy Spirit. Here is a man who feels he is all right. A few inconsistencies, perhaps, and a few inaccuracies; but upon the whole he is in tolerably good condition. The Holy Spirit seizes him. Why now does he tremble? Why now that grief-struck look? Why now can he not sleep at nights? The Holy Spirit has come upon him. He finds there are inhabitants in his soul that he never dreamed of. The reptiles begin to uncoil and to hiss at him. The man says, Can it be that I have been carrying such a nature as this forty, fifty, sixty, seventy years? And he immediately begins to apologize, and he reviews the better points of his character. He says, I dont owe a man a dollar. God says by His Holy Spirit, You have robbed me of your whole lifetime. The man says, I am not arrogant, I dont take on airs. The Holy Spirit says, You are too proud to kneel. The man says, I am moral. The Holy Spirit says, You have had many an unclean thought. The man rouses up. He says, I must get away from this; I must get into the fresh air. I must go to business. The Holy Spirit says, You cannot go to business; this is the mightiest of all businesses--the business of the soul. Then all the past sins of the mans life come before him troop by troop. From that point many repent and live. From that point many turn back and die.
2. God searches a man by prosperity. He was amiable, he was kind, he was generous, he was useful, while he was in ordinary circumstances; but by sudden inheritance, or by the opening of railroad communication with his land, or by some stroke of commercial genius, he gets a fortune. God is going to search that man by his prosperities; He is going to see whether he will be as humble in the big house as he was in the small one; He is going to give him enlarged resources, and see whether his charities will keep pace with those resources. When he was worth so much he gave so much. He is worth twice as much now. Does he double his charities? God says, I will explore that man, I will try that man, I will search that man. Fifteen years ago the man said, What good I would do if I only had the means! He has the means now. What does he do? Of every dollar we make God demands a certain percentage. If we keep it back, it is at our peril. The old story of the miser who died in his money-chest, because the lid accidentally fell down and fastened him in, was a type of ten thousand men in our day who are in their own money-vault finding their sepulchre. Whatever be the style of your prosperity, by every dollar Shall you make, by every house that you own, by every commercial success that you achieve, God is searching you through and through.
3. God explores a man by adversity. Some of you are going through that process now. You say, How beautiful it is when a mans fortunes fail to see him throw himself back on spiritual resources. Yes, it is very beautiful, but it is hard to do. There are many people who suppose they have Christian faith, when it is only confidence in government securities. They think they have Christian joy, when it is only She exhilaration that comes from worldly successes. God, after a while, sweeps His hand across the estate, and it is all gone. The man first scolds the banks. He says they are not clever; they ought to have allowed him a discount. Then he scolds the Congress, because it imposed a tariff. Then he scolds the gold-gamblers, because they excited the markets. He does not understand that all the time God has him personally in the crucible.
4. God explores us often through the persecutions of the world. How we admire all those pictures which represent the sufferings of Christi Why? Because we admire patience, and we admire it although we may have but very little of it ourselves. And we sit down on the Sabbath, and we study patience, and we say, Give us patience. What a beautiful grace it is--patience! and on Monday morning a man calls you a liar, and you knock him down! That is all the patience you have. How little we understand how to bless those who curse us. It is the general rule--an eye for an eye,. grudge for grudge.
5. God sometimes explores us by sickness. From other misfortunes we can run away, but flat on our backs, pain in the head, in the heart, in the limbs, we cannot run away. No school, however well endowed, however supplied with faithful instructors and professors, can so well teach you as the school of a sick-bed. People wonder at the piety of Edward Payson, and Richard Baxter, and Robert Hall. How did they get to be so good? It was sanctified sickness.
6. God tries us with bereavement. He searches a man by taking away his loved ones. An author describes a mother who had lost her children, saying to Death, Why did you steal my flowers? Death said, I didnt steal them; I am no thief; I transplanted them. Well, said the mother, why did you wrench them away so violently? And Death said, They would never be wrenched away but that you held on to them so violently. Oh! how hard it is when our friends go away from us to realize that they are not stolen, not wrenched, but transplanted, promoted, irradiated, emparadised. But unless you have had bereavement you do not know what a bad heart you have. We do not know how much rebellion of soul we possess until God comes and takes some of our loved ones away. (T. De Witt Talmage.)
Our Searcher
You may say to your clerks, Now let us search into our accounts and balance our books, but while you are doing it do not forget to pray, Lord, search me.
I. Let us ask the Lord to search our principles. Our government have now appointed officers to see that ships which are outward-bound are not deeper in the water than the load-line of safety. Now, like a ship, every man has a load-line; and he says within himself, Beyond that line I will not go. Nevertheless, many men do go beyond their lead-line, and founder in the sea of vice. Every man draws the line somewhere; and, alas! it is generally as far off the standard directed by Christ as it can possibly be. Men make load-lines for themselves, and say, I am all right on this side the line. But what does the Bible say about it? Is your line in the correct place for the salvation of your soul? A thief will steal, and draw his line, saying, I will not hurt or murder anybody. Most men draw a line of conduct somewhere, and say, I am all right so long as I do not pass beyond that line. How important to pray this prayer, Search me, O God!
II. Let us ask of God to search our profession. You may say, Ah, I have got you there; I make no profession. Dont you? Why, you must be a rogue indeed if you make no profession of honesty or gratitude. What, have you never told anybody you were thankful to God for having created you? Are you not thankful to Jesus for having died for you? Christianity means honesty, virtue, truth, gratitude to God, and helpfulness to our neighbour; and do you make no profession of these? Well, if you dont I should not like to meet you in a lonely road at night. Of course you make professions. You profess to be honest, upright, and lovable. Now, let us ask God to search our professions. Do we act accordingly?
III. We also should ask God to search our lives. We often fall and wander from the way. The text goes on to say, and see if there be any wicked way in me. But we need not say if; we know full well that there is much wickedness in us. It may be the Lord will show us that we need to be more resolute. O brothers, be decided to give up sin. Rouse yourselves! It is all nonsense for you to complain clay after day, saying, I cannot help myself! Have you not the power of God to help you?
IV. We ought to ask God to search our character. Do you remember reading of the Californian mine swindle? Some men went into the interior and plastered pieces of silver upon the rocks. Then they got up a grand Mining Co. Limited, and people believed them. Engineers saw the silver on the rocks and then reported favourably of it: it was all a sham. But it is not so in your case. You are not barren rock. There is a streak of gold in every man. If it were not so Christ would not have told us to preach the Gospel to every creature. God has given you the power of noble manhood, and you shall not be disappointed if you press towards it. If you strive for the manhood that thinks nobly, speaks truthfully, and lives virtuously, you shall attain it.
V. Ask God to search your soul. Is it pardoned? (W. Birch.)
Prayer for self-knowledge
I. True religion has its seat is the heart. The man of real godliness has not only a name to live, but he lives. There is a consistency in his character. The Gospel not only enlightens his understanding, but shines into his heart; not only delights his imagination, but captivates his affections. It makes his conscience tender, his thoughts humble, peaceful, holy.
II. Hence the truly religious man is anxious to know the real state of his heart. True, he may find this self-examination painful and humiliating, but this makes no matter to him. He feels that he has the salvation of an immortal soul at stake, and he is not to lose that soul for the sake of being kept easy in his follies and proud in his sins.
III. The sincere Christian is not conscious of having within his heart any one cherished sin, It is one thing to have iniquity entering the breast, and another thing to harbour it and have it reigning there. St. Paul felt a sinful law in his members, but he felt it as warring against the law of his mind, as opposed to the habitual frame of his soul, to that holy and heavenly principle which made him delight in the law of God after the inward man, and enabled him to walk, not after the flesh, but after the Spirit. Every Christian also feels the same warfare within. Sin tempts and harasses him, and sometimes brings him into captivity, but it cannot hold him in bondage; it cannot make him quietly submit to its hated laws. We soon see the prisoner struggling with his vile oppressor, and bursting its bonds. Trampling his lusts underneath his feet, we hear him exclaim, I thank God through Jesus Christ my Lord.
IV. Yet he often suspects himself of some undetected iniquity. The best of our actions, the brightest of our graces, the most holy of our dispositions, the most fervent of our prayers, and the most ardent of our praises, are blended with so much that is evil that we despair of separating the one from the other, and are often ready to faint with disquietude and fear.
V. Is the midst of his perplexities the sincere Christian has a firm and lively belief that God knows his heart. Like David, he knows that the Lord searcheth the hearts, and understandeth the thoughts, and compasseth the path, and is acquainted with the ways of the children of men; and, like David, he is willing to be searched, and prays to be tried by this omniscient God.
VI. He applies to God for self-knowledge and instruction, He can show us wherein we are right in our judgment of ourselves, and wherein we are wrong; what there is to be brought low in us, and what to be raised up; what we must endeavour to get rid of, and what to obtain. Laying open our hearts, He can discover to us the sin which is lurking there, and, like a worm at the root, secretly marring our comforts and withering our graces; and, shining on the work of His own hands, He can make visible to us the wails of that spiritual temple which He has begun to raise up for Himself within our souls.
VII. He who seeks instruction of God must be willing to submit himself to Gods guidance. We often pray for instruction without being mindful of the necessity of this submission. Our supplications are sincere, but we know not what we ask. We forget that the Saviour employs various methods of showing His children their hearts. Affliction, frequent and severe affliction, is the school into which prayer often brings a man, and in which he first learns to know himself and his God. It is in the furnace that the gold is proved and distinguished from the secret dross. But the path of tribulation is not the only path which we must be content to enter. If we wish our prayers to be answered, we must be prepared to walk in the way everlasting. And what is this way? It is that way of access to the Father in which the patriarchs and prophets, the glorious company of the apostles and the noble army of martyrs drew near to Him--the way of reconciliation through the blood of His Son. It is that highway which is called in the Scriptures the way of holiness. (C. Bradley, M. A.)
On being known of God
This psalm is a psalm of gladness, or deep and tranquil satisfaction in the all-searching God. It is full of humility, the profound humility of one who feels that he cannot hide himself from God. But profound as is the lowliness, equally marked is the joy of David that God knoweth him altogether. The end of the psalm is a prayer; David does not deprecate the searching of his heart by the all-seeing One, he invokes it.
I. The blessedness of Gods knowledge of our loyalty. This is the subject suggested by the context. David is declaring that he has neither sympathy nor part with the wicked. Do not I hate them, etc. He appeals to God whether this is not so. Search too, etc. Am I not right in affirming my love for Thee? Is not my heart set upon my God? Are not all my thoughts for Thine honour? The consciousness of sin, rather than that of righteousness, is the distinguishing mark of Christian experience; nor will this contrast between Jewish and Christian piety seem strange to those who compare the Gospel with the law. The sanctity of Jesus makes all our righteousness appear as filthy rags. The love of God is far more searching than the precepts of the stony table; the heart that might have been unmelted at the demands of law is broken by the claims of affection. The loyalty that might pass unreproved, did we but think of what we are bidden, proves but poor as an expression of our gratitude, our response to Gods affection. The Hebrew saint contrasted himself with the sinner; Christians, searched by the Spirit of holiness and love, rank themselves among transgressors. We have to bewail many a failure, many an imperfection, but a loyal-hearted Christian should be true to himself and declare his devotion too. At least the heart is firm in its allegiance; whatever your folly and your weakness, you mean, with all sincerity, to serve God. Now, it is an immense comfort to us to be able to rest on Gods perfect knowledge of our loyalty to Him. He knows the heart that is set on serving Him; He can distinguish between ignorance and ill-intent; He is not misled by the result; He sees integrity of purpose, and marks the desire to hold true to Him; and He will bring out the righteousness of His servants, making it clear as the light. He will also correct the hidden faultiness (verse 24).
II. The blessedness of Gods knowledge of our struggles. One of the reasons why we should not judge our fellows is that we do not know the men. We see the temptation yielded to; we know not the many temptations that have been resisted, how hard was the struggle to resist. The compassionate God takes account of all this; and hence, for the returning sinner, it is better to fall into the hands of God than into the hands of men. Signs of feeble piety, too, we can mark. God knows all that makes even that feeble piety a very victory of faith. We note the uncertainty of temper, we hear the captious phrase; only one eye takes note of the depression and bitterness of soul out of which this is wrung. How hard is the ignorance of the world; how hard, too, the inconsideration of the Church! God does not break the bruised reed nor quench the smoking flax. Here, too, mark--the refuge of the struggling spirit is not in self-sufficiency, not in self-justification. It is a perilous thing to balance our failures with our temptations. We are not the proper judges of ourselves; our leniency would be our undoing. We need not only to be searched but also to be purged, and He is at once compassionate and firm. Search me, O God, and know my heart--see it all; what is pitiful as well as what is evil try me, and know my thoughts: and see, etc.
III. The blessedness of Gods thorough knowledge of our sins. You know how frank confession becomes when all motive to concealment is gone. A wise parent who has detected his child in a fault which must be taken notice of will at once tell the little one he knows all. With fatherly sensitiveness for a childs conscience, he will remove the motive for concealment, that the confession may be full. Gods perfect knowledge of our sins takes away the motive, because it removes the possibility, of concealment. He who has feeble conceptions of Gods searching vision will be full of evasions; he will be full of self-deceit. The complete conviction of transgression follows, and does not precede, the feeling that God knows it all; for honesty in our dealings with ourselves we need to be searched of God. The Gospel offers immediate cleansing to the conscience; and its cleansing virtue lies very much in the fact that it brings so near to the sinner the God who has searched him, and who knows him altogether. It begins by speaking to us of our sins, with most considerate sympathy our Father shows Himself aware of all the pollution we would confess. The Cross of Christ supplies us with the self-condemnation we require, and with the condemnation speaks of tenderness and pardon.
IV. The power which our every good resolve derives from the fact that we can make it known to God. Such things crave an utterance; we are more faithful because we are pledged. But we may not speak of them to men: lest we become vain; lest after failure put us to shame; lest our good resolutions evaporate in mere talk. There is sweetness, too, and force in our uttering our love to God, our devotedness to Him. Of these things, also, we may not speak to our fellows, yet they must be breathed into some ear. We can ask our God to mark them, and we are confirmed in them by the fact that they have been noted of Him.
V. The blessedness of the fact that He who knows us thoroughly is our helper and our leader. A map is something for the traveller, but children-travellers as we are, we want the guide and controller of our way with us. See if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting. There is one way, and only one, to blessedness and goodness. Gods way is the same and everlasting. Why, then, are we wanderers? Why are we not always making progress therein? Alas! there are ill ways within us; it is our way to be indolent, wilful, to run after deceitful pleasures, to stray in folly, to sit down in sloth: and our leader knows it; and He will search these out and bring us past our perils. God will help us; that is our confidence and joy. We shall go on, well and truly on, for we have One above to lead us. (A. Mackennal, D. D.)
Search me, O God
Why should the psalmist ask for what he has just declared to be necessary from the very relation of men to God? Is he asking anything more than he declared to exist apart from his asking? Or, what is the meaning of his prayer? Now, the answer to these questions must be guided by two considerations. One is that the prayer for searching is only a part of the psalmists desire, and the answer to it will be but the first step in the process of which he longs to be the subject. Search, in order to cleansing, is what he asks; and that is more than necessary to Divine omniscience. Again, the prayer is not merely a petition. It is the expression of a willingness to submit to the search. He began by recognizing the fact; he ends by welcoming it; rejoicing in it and desiring to experience it in his own case.
I. The longing for the Divine search. There used to be a contrivance in some prisons, where solitary confinement was the rule, by which somewhere or other in the wall there was a little hole at which, at any moment, the eye of the jailor might be glued. And men have gone mad because they sat there and felt that they were never free from possible inspection. To a great many of us, Thou God seest me is as unwelcome as the consciousness of the little hole in the wall and the jailors eye was to the criminal. We think of God as an inspector, a spy, a jailor; and we shrink and shut up all the petals of our hearts that He may not see what is there. Adam and Eve concealed themselves in the garden; and their sons and daughters are made cowards by their consciences, so that Thou God seest me is an unwelcome thought to very many of us. But it may be made a welcome one. If we are quite sure that the Eye that looks upon us is the Eye of a loving Father we shall not shrink from it, but turn to Him, and say, There must be wisdom with Thee; Thou lookest with other and clearer eyes than ours, and Thou shalt look me through and through. But we have here not only the thought of welcome, but I think there is suggested, too, that of helping God in His search by frank confession. A man that says truly, Search me, and know my heart, will not be unwilling to go to God and make a clean breast of it, and tell all that he knows of his weakness and his sin.
II. The longing for the discovery of hidden sin, I know nothing against myself, yet am I not hereby justified, said the apostle; but He that judgeth me is the Lord. Similarly the psalmist does not know what there may be lying, lurking and skulking in the depths of his heart; wherefore he refers himself to God, and asks that He will come and dig into its depths. That suspicion of unrecognized evil in myself is one that we should always carry with us. By arrangement of mirrors a man can see his outward form all round. But you cannot do like that with your souls. The difficulty is that the inspector and the inspected and the instrument of inspection are all one and the same, as if star and astronomer and telescope were one. So no wonder that we make--as every autobiography that ever was written shows that men make--huge mistakes in estimating what we are. There are secret faults in us all. And so the psalmist said, Lord, I see a bit of myself, but it is only a little bit; and there must be, deep down, many things that I have not detected yet. See, then, if there be any wicked way in me. This prayer for the discovery of the hidden evil is based also on the confidence that God can and will cast out from us all the evil that He discovers in us, and the search for which the devout heart is eager is a search with a view to a purpose--viz. the ejection of the detected evil. There is another thing to be remarked about this prayer for the detection of undiscovered evil, and that is that one way of answering the prayer is by making us more quick to see the hidden sin. The thought that He is searching my heart will make my conscience more sensitive. And one of His ways of answering the petition is to open my eyes that I may behold the unsuspected evil in myself.
III. The longing for a Divine leading unto the everlasting way. Into that way we shall be led if we have spread our hearts out before God, and loyally helped Him in His search, and welcomed the blessed light of His face. He will lead us, partly by Providences pointing our course, partly by ejecting the evil, partly by giving to us new aims, aspirations, and desires; partly by strengthening our feet to run in the paths of holiness which He has before prepared that we should walk in them. The end of the Divine search is the Divine cleansing. God looks upon us in order that He may lead us into the way of peace. (A. Maclaren, D. D.)
Self-examination
I. What is implied.
1. That he had searched and tried himself.
2. That his own searching was ineffectual, or at least not perfectly satisfactory.
3. A firm belief of Gods omniscience.
II. The springs of this desire.
1. We are liable to be mistaken in the ideas we entertain as to our state.
2. Such mistakes are very dangerous. The house built upon the sand not only falls, but falls when it is too late to build another.
3. If God do not search us in a way of mercy, He will do it in a way of wrath, either in this world or the next. (B. Beddome, M. A.)
Self-examination: -
I. see if there be any wicked way in me;--any corruption concealed, any lust harboured, any vicious appetite indulged, any sinful course persisted in. It may refer either to mental errors, or evil practices.
1. It does not imply that the psalmist thought himself entirely free from sin. He knew there was much sin in him, and committed by him: and hence his pathetic lamentations (Psa_38:1-22; Psa_51:1-19.).
2. He hoped that sin was not predominant.
3. Though sin did not reign, yet he was afraid that more sin remained in him than he was aware of.
4. What of this nature he was ignorant of, he desires to be taught (Job_13:23).
II. and lead me in the way everlasting.
1. The object he had in view.
(1) The way of acceptance with God, Christ (Joh_14:6).
(2) The way of sound doctrine.
(3) The way of instituted worship.
(4) The way of holiness and obedience.
2. The desire.
(1) Need of guidance.
(2) A- sense of his need.
(3) He entertained high and exalted thoughts of God, as every way capable of the work he here assigns to Him (B. Beddome, M. A.)
Self-examination
It is a good sign when we are afraid of self-deception and court the scrutiny of God; when we are willing to know the worst of our own case, and desirous to judge impartially. For by thus examining ourselves, and submitting to Divine examination, believers are distinguished--
I. From the formalist, who will take no notice of the state of his heart in religion. Many, like the Jews of old, go to the sanctuary of God, and sit as His people sit, and hear as they hear, but their hearts are far from Him. This is no sweeping charge, for if their hearts were right with God they would worship Him at home as well as in their sanctuary, and in the sanctuary by sacraments as well as by prayer or praise. It is, therefore, a good sign when the claims of all duties are seriously weighed, and the state of the heart towards and in them is chiefly regarded.
II. From the reckless--those who dare not search their heart before God; they are afraid of its whispers, and conscious that a full disclosure of its secrets even to itself would be almost as humiliating as the exposure of them to others. Thus the matter will not bear thinking of, and therefore appearances are kept up at all hazards.
III. From the inconsistent, or those who are unwilling to be led out of every wicked way. It is the grand characteristic of faith unfeigned that it is willing to be kept back from all sin and to be led in the way everlasting. Examine yourselves, therefore, whether ye be in the faith, prove yourselves, etc. (Robert Philip, D. D.)
Imperfections detected
Here is a beautiful diamond, it is apparently pure white, and it sparkles with lustre. A look with the naked eye and you are satisfied the stone is without fault, a most precious and costly gem of the first water. The expert now puts into your hand a magnifying glass of great power and tells you to look at the centre of the stone, and inquires what you can see, and in reply you say there is a black speck at its very centre. To the natural eye the stone was pure white, entirely without fault; but with the assistance of this powerful glass some startling revelations are brought to light. It is equally true respecting the life of a believer, without any exception. There is a class of people in existence who claim they are capable of a perfect life in this world, and are very enthusiastic in advancing their views in public; but if the mirror of Gods truth were put to its proper use it would surely introduce them to the painful mystery of human life, and, under the powerful search-light of the Word, they would be surprised to detect the hidden faults and specks of imperfection in the holiest life. (R. Venting.)
And know my thoughts.--
Man accountable for his thoughts
I. While no one can read the thought of another, he cannot understand perfectly the processes and character of his own. The most occult of all sciences is that which concerns itself with questions how we perceive any truth, or receive any impression, or think at all. No object to which you can turn your attention is so full of perplexity as the attention itself that you pay. Whence arise these thoughts, that are drawing their trains perpetually through the mind? What are the laws that govern their intricate and disturbed order? How far are they involuntary and beyond our strongest efforts of control? What sets them in such opposition to one another, and often to our own wish? What makes them so easy and so intractable; so clear and confused; so rapid and slow; bewildered with dreams and delirium, and true and radiant as the light? We have little to answer to questions like these. There is One that knoweth. Search me, O God, and know my heart.
II. But, impenetrable as are the thoughts of man, he is accountable for them to an extent which it is serious to consider, and which he does not consider enough. There is a proverb that thoughts pass toll-free. And it is a truth that would be worth the mentioning, where a just liberty is brought into question; where either a political or a religious tyranny has set up the barriers of its proscription against the rights of the mind. It would show that no receipts of custom, and no iron hindrances can stop the progress of the understanding, which moves on with the confidence of an invisible being, and stays no question. But it is a proverb very ill applied when it gives licence to every roving imagination; when it pretends to hide us from the heavenly inspection; when it encourages the heart to grow libertine; when it denies that we are amenable in this secret region to Him from whom nothing is concealed. What are worldly thoughts but worldliness itself; and corrupt ones but corruptness of mind; and proud ones but haughtiness of heart? Who shall say, then, that thoughts cost nothing?
1. They may cost us our liberty; that very freedom which they profess to enjoy in the greatest perfection. They have their habits, like everything else in man, and may be brought slavishly under the dominion of them. Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts, is a striking example in the prophet of that figure of speech which reserves for the final word the most emphatic expression. For long after the foot and the hand, and the will itself, are withdrawn from iniquity, these subtle agents may be about their usual work of evil suggestions. They may refuse to retire, haunt with their empty shades the spots where they once stimulated to action, and torment the conscience that they can no longer betray.
2. They may cost us our reason. And what a price to pay for their mismanagement is that I They may be so ardent as to grow wild; or brood upon one point till they have no sight nor power for any other, and the healthy mind shall lose all its soundness.
3. They may cost the innocence of the mind, as well as its sanity;--they alone, though confined ever so closely within the breast. Man does not always judge so, for he is satisfied if the claims he makes are answered. He looks but at the outward appearance. But there is One who looks deeper than that, and to that One the great account is due. Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God. Only they can. The heart is the eye that is made to gaze towards Him; and if that be clouded, the whole heaven is hid, however circumspectly the steps may be directed along the earth. No need of any purpose to do mischief. No need of any perpetrated guilt. Where the thoughts are base, the soul is polluted; where they will acknowledge no discipline, it is nigh to be undone.
III. We make of great account the climate in which we live; and the air and the weather are unfailing topics everywhere. Why will we not make of still greater that inward temperature and breath of the spirit by which we are continually surrounded;--that can carry sunny remembrances through rainy days, and need not mind much the troubles that are abroad and the east wind, since they themselves are at rest and quiet? We esteem it of high consequence what house we occupy, and what its accommodations are,--where it is situated, and how it fronts. But the house of his own thoughts is the true dwelling of man. Let it receive none but worthy guests. Let it face the sky where the light is the longest. Let it be built for the ages to come. (N. L. Frothingham.)
The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Alexander MacLaren 1905 · Public Domain Psa 139:23 - Psa 139:24.
Psalms
GOD’S SCRUTINY LONGED FOR
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Psa 139:23 - Psa 139:24.
This psalm begins with perhaps the grandest contemplation of the divine Omniscience that was ever put into words. It is easy to pour out platitudes upon such a subject, but the Psalmist does not content himself with generalities. He gathers all the rays, as it were, into one burning point, and focusses them upon himself: ‘Oh, Lord! Thou hast searched me, and known me.’ All the more remarkable, then, is it that the psalm should end with asking God to do what it began with declaring that He does. He knows us each, altogether; whether we like it or not, whether we try to hinder it or not, whether we remember it or not. Singular, therefore, is it to find this prayer as the very climax of all the Psalmist’s contemplation. It is more than the ‘searching’ which was spoken of at the beginning, which is desired at the end. It is a process which has for its issue the cleansing of all the evil that is beheld. The prayer of the text is in fact the yearning of the devout soul for purity. I simply wish to consider the series of petitions here, in the hope that we may catch something of their spirit, and that some faint echo of them may sound in our desires. My purpose, then, will be best accomplished if I follow the words of the text, and look at these petitions in the order in which they stand.
I. Note then, first, the longing for the searching of God’s eye.
Now, the word which is here rendered ‘search’ is a very emphatic and picturesque one. It means to dig deep. God is prayed, as it were, to make a cutting into the man, and lay bare his inmost nature, as men do in a railway cutting, layer after layer, going ever deeper down till the bed-rock is reached. ‘Search me’-dig into me, bring the deep-lying parts to light-’and know my heart’; the centre of my personality, my inmost self. That is the prayer, not of fancied fitness to stand investigation, but of lowly acknowledgment. In other words, it is really a form of confession. ‘Search me. I know Thou wilt find evil, but still-search me!’ It seems to me that there are two main ideas in this petition, on each of which I touch briefly.
One is, that it is a glad recognition of a fact which is very terrible to many hearts. The conception of God as ‘knowing me altogether,’ down to the very roots of my being, is either the most blessed or the most unwelcome thought, according to my conception of what His heart to me is. If I think of Him, as so many of us do, as simply the ‘austere man’ who ‘gathers where he did not straw,’ and ‘reaps where he did not sow’; if my thought of God is mainly that of an Investigator and a Judge, with pure eyes and rigid judgment, then I shall be more ignorant of myself, and more confident in myself, than the most of men are when they bethink themselves, if I do not feel that I shrink up like a sensitive plant’s leaf when a finger touches it, and would fain curl myself together, and hide from His eye something that I know lurks and poisons at the centre of my being.
The gaoler’s eye at the slit in the wall of the solitary prisoner’s cell is a constant terror to the man who knows that it may be upon him at every moment, and does not know where the eyehole is, or when the merciless eye may be at it, but if we love one another we do not shrink from opening out our inward baseness to each other. We can venture to tell those that are dear to us as our own hearts the things that lie in our own hearts and make them black and ugly in all eyes but love’s; or if we cannot venture to do it wholly, at all events we do it more fully, and more willingly, and with more of something that is almost pleasure in the very act of confession, in proportion as we are bound by the sacred ties of love to the recipient of the confession. There is a joy, and a blessedness deeper than joy, in discovering ourselves, even our unworthy selves, when we know that the eye that looks is a loving eye.
If, then, we have rightly conceived of our relation to Him, that infinite Lover of all our hearts, who looks, ‘with other eyes than ours, and makes allowance for us all,’ there will be a certain blessedness, almost like joy, in turning ourselves inside out before Him; and in feeling that every corner of our hearts lies naked and opened unto the eyes of Him with whom we have to do. ‘Search me, O God!’ is the voice of confident love, which is sure of the love that contemplates the sinner.
And for us Christian people, to whom all these attributes of Deity are gathered together and brought very near our hearts and our experiences in the person of our Brother Christ, the thought of such knowledge of us becomes still more blessed. Just as the Apostle who was conscious of many sins, could say to his Master, not in petulance, but in deeply-moved confidence, ‘Thou knowest all things! Why dost Thou ask me questions? Thou knowest all things; Thou knowest, notwithstanding my denials, that I love Thee,’ so may we turn to Jesus Christ, who knows what is in men, and who knows each man, and may be sure that the eye which looks upon our unworthiness pities our sinfulness, and is ready to bear it all away. There is a deeper gladness in pouring out our hearts to our loving Lord than in locking them in sullen silence, with the vain conceit that we thereby hide ourselves from Him. Make a clean breast of your evil, and you will find that the act has in it a blessedness all unique and poignant. ‘Pour out your hearts before Him, O ye people! God is a refuge for us.’
This prayer is also an expression of absolute willingness to submit to the searching process. God is represented in my text as searching the secrets of a man’s heart, not that God may know, but that the man may know. By His Spirit He will come into the innermost corners of our nature, if this prayer is a real expression of our desire, and there the illumination of His presence will flash light into all the dark places of our experience and of our natures. We cannot afford to be in ignorance of these. Pestilence breathes in the unventilated, unlighted, uncleansed recesses of a neglected nature. It is only on condition of the light of God’s convincing Spirit being cast into every part of our being that we shall be able to overcome and annihilate the creeping swarms of microscopic sins that are there, minute but mighty in their myriads to destroy a man’s soul. ‘Search me’ is the expression of a penitence that knows itself to be full of evil, that does not know all the evil of which it is full, that needs enlightenment, that desires deliverance, that is sure of the love that looks, and that so spreads itself, as a bleacher spreads some piece of stained cloth in the gracious sunshine and sprinkles it with the pure water of heaven that all the stains may melt away.
It is useless to ask God to search us if we lock our hearts against His searching. The mere natural exercise, if I may so say, of the divine attribute of Omniscience we cannot hinder. He knows us thereby altogether, whether we like it or not; but the ‘searching’ of my text is one which He cannot put in force without our consent. We have to confess our sins unto the Lord ere this kind of divine scrutiny can be brought to bear. By His natural Omniscience, He knows them altogether, but the seeing which is preparatory to destroying them depends on our willingness to submit ourselves to the often painful process by which He drags our sins to light. Do you want Him to come and search your hearts, and tell you in your spirits what He has found there? Do you desire to know your hidden evil? Then keep close to Him, and tell Him what the sin is which you know to be sin; and ask Him to show you what the sins are which, as yet, you have not grown up to the height of understanding and acknowledging.
II. Next, there follows the longing for the divine testing of our thoughts.
Now you will have observed, I suppose, that in the second clause of my text, ‘try me, and know my thoughts’ the result of the investigation is somewhat different from that of the previous clause. The ‘searching’ issued in a divine knowledge of the heart; the ‘trying,’ or testing, issues in a divine knowledge of the thoughts. The distinction between these two, in the Biblical use of the expressions, is not precisely the same as in our modern popular speech. We are accustomed to talk of the heart as being the seat of emotions, affections, feelings, whereas we relegate thoughts to the head. But Scripture does not quite take that metaphorical view. In it the heart is the centre of personal being, and out of it there come, not only emotions and loves, but ‘thoughts and intents.’ The difference, then, between these two, ‘heart’ and ‘thoughts’ is this, the one is the workshop and the other is the product. The heart is the place where the thoughts are elaborated. So you see the process of the Psalmist’s prayer is from the centre a little outwards, first the inmost self, and then the ‘thoughts,’ meaning thereby the whole web of activities, both intellectual and emotional, of which the heart, in his sense of the word, is the seat and source. In like manner as the field of investigation is somewhat shifted in the second petition, so the manner of investigation is correspondingly different. ‘Search’ is the divine scrutiny of the inner man by the eye; ‘test’ is the trial as metals are tried and proved by the fiery furnace.
So, then, the innermost man is searched by the divine knowledge, and the thoughts which the innermost man produces are tested by the divine providence. And our second petition is for a trial by facts, by external agencies, of the true nature and character of the purposes, desires, designs, intentions, as well as of the affections and loves and joys. That is to say, this second prayer submits absolutely to any discipline, fiery and fierce and bitter, by which the true character of a man’s activities may be made clear to himself. Oh! it is a prayer easily offered; hard to stand by. It is a prayer often answered in ways that drive us almost to despair. It means, ‘Do anything with me, put me into any seven-fold heated furnace of sorrow, do anything that will melt my hardness, and run off my dross, which Thy great ladle will then skim away, that the surface may be clear, and the substance without alloy.’
Do you pray that prayer, brother! knowing all that it means, and being willing to take the answer, in forms that may rack your heart, and sadden your whole lives? If you are wise, you will. Better to go crippled into life than, ‘having two hands or two feet, to be cast into hell fire’! Better to be saved though maimed, than to be entire and lost.
‘Try me.’ It is an awful prayer. Let us not offer it lightly, or unadvisedly; but if we are wise let it be our inmost desire. And when the answer comes, and sorrows fall, do not let us murmur, do not let us kick, do not let us wonder, but let us say, ‘Thou art a God that hearest prayer,’ and ‘I will glorify God in the fires.’ Then ‘the trial of your faith being much more precious than of gold that perisheth, though it be tried with fire, shall be found unto praise and honour and glory.’
III. The next petition of my text is a longing for the casting out of evil.
‘See if there be any wicked way in me.’ Now, that if is not the ‘if’ of doubt whether any such ‘ways’ are in the man, but it is the ‘if’ of consciousness that there are such, though what they are he may not clearly discern. And so, it is the ‘if’ of humility-knowing that he is not justified because he knows nothing against himself-and not the ‘if’ of presumption.
I have only time to observe here, in a word or two, what would well deserve more expanded treatment, and that is, the very striking and significant expression here employed for this evil way that the Psalmist desires to be detected, that it may be cast out. The word rendered ‘wicked’-or more properly, wickedness-is literally ‘forced labour,’ which was, in old times, and still is in some countries, laid upon the inhabitants at the command of authority; and then, because forced labour is grievous labour, it comes to mean sorrow. So the ‘way of wickedness’ that the Psalmist feels is in him is the way of compulsory service, and the way that leads to sorrow. That is to say, all sin is slavery, and all sin leads to a bitter and a bad end, and its fruit is death. And so, because the man feels that his better self is in bondage, and shudderingly apprehends that the courses which he pursues can only end in bitterness and misery, he turns to God and asks Him that He would enlighten him as to what these fatal courses are. ‘See if there be any way of wickedness in me,’ because he is quite sure that the evil which God sees, God will help him to overcome.
Ah, friends! we all have such ways deeply lodged within us, and we do not always know that we have; but if we will turn ourselves to Him, He will prevent our ‘condemning ourselves in things that we allow’ and increasing the sensitiveness of our consciences, He will teach us that many things that we did not know to be wrong are harmful.
As soon as we learn that they are, He will help us to cast them out. God has nothing to do with our evil but to fight against it. Be sure of this, that whatsoever evil in us He thus searches and shows us. He does so in order to fling it from us. He goes down into the cellars of our hearts, with the candle of His Spirit in His hand, in order that He may lay hold of all the explosives there, and having drenched them so that they shall not catch fire, may cast them clean out so that they may not blow us to destruction.
IV. The last petition of my text is for guidance in ‘the everlasting way.’
The ‘ways of wickedness’ are in us; the ‘way everlasting’ we need to be led into. That is to say, naturally we incline to evil; it must be the divine hand and the divine Spirit that lead our feet in the paths of righteousness. When we ask Him to ‘guide us in the way everlasting,’ we ask that we may know what is duty, and that we may incline to do it. And He answers it by the gift of His divine Spirit, by the quickening of our consciences, by bringing nearer to our hearts the great Example who has left us His footsteps as a legacy that we may tread in them.
Whosoever walks in Christ’s footsteps is walking in ‘the way everlasting,’ for that path is rightly so named which leads to eternal blessedness. It is everlasting, too, inasmuch as nothing of human effort or work abides except that which is in conformity with the will of God, and inasmuch as it, and it alone, is not broken short off by death, but runs, borne upon one mighty arch that spans the gorge, clean across the black abyss, and continues straight on in the same course, only with a swifter upward gradient, through all the ages of eternity. The man who here has lived for God will live yonder as he has lived here, only more completely and more joyously for ever. ‘A highway shall be there, and a way, and the ransomed of the Lord shall return and come to Zion with songs, and everlasting joy upon their heads.’
Alexander MacLaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture (1904–1910) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
unfoldingWord translationNotes 2017 · CC BY-SA 4.0 Examine me
Examine me
This is a request for God to tell the psalmist about any sinful thoughts that he may have. AT: "Please search me" or "I beg you to search me" (See: Assumed Knowledge and Implicit Information)
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Examine me, God, and know my heart; test me and know my thoughts
These two sentences have similar meanings. The second one strengthens the thought in the first. (See: Parallelism)
any wicked way
Here "way" stands for behavior. (See: Metaphor)
the everlasting way
Here "way" refers to trust and obedience in God. Anyone who "walks" this way will have everlasting life. (See: Metaphor)
translationWords
know
heart
test
evil
eternity
unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.
Tyndale Open Study Notes 2022 · CC BY-SA 4.0 139:23-24 The psalmist’s prayer against the wicked leads him…
139:23-24 The psalmist’s prayer against the wicked leads him also to reflect on himself; he does not presume that he is righteous. This prayer has been repeated by believers over the centuries.
Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.