Comparing David And Longman's Teachings

The psalm readily divides into four parts of six verses each (Walvoord 891). In the first part, David expresses God’s omniscient nature (Ps. 139:1-6). Rather than present a rigid statement of God’s knowledge, David speaks of it in adoration (Kidner 500). David is happy to confess that God has searched him and does know him. The perfect verb tense, expressing past action with continuing results, shows that God always intimately knows the hearts and minds of all people (Keil 5: 809). Yet, the term “search” does not mean that God acquires this information through effort like we do when we lose our car keys; instead, it means that God thoroughly knows all people as if He had minutely examined them (Spurgeon 258). The knowledge God has is part of His deity, so He need not exert any effort to obtain it. This is unlike pagan deities whose knowledge is limited and who are never thought to be all-knowing (Walton 433). Pagan deities are also not personally known to their worshipers, but David makes the matter of omniscience personal (Spurgeon 259). …show more content…
The actions he undertakes and the thoughts he imagines are all known to God. Longman observes that David uses a series of merisms, which is a “pair of opposites that denote everything in between” (Longman 452). Mundane activities men undertake daily are well-known by God (Walvoord 891). Far away thoughts are seen by God, and because He is impartial, He rightly interprets all these thoughts (Spurgeon 259). The individual habits each person possesses are before the Lord (259). Even the words people think to speak are known to God before they are