to erect · verb, qal perfect, 2nd person masculine singular
reins
כִלְיֹתָ֑יkhil.yo.Tai
H3629
a kidney (as an essential organ) · noun, common feminine plural construct + pronominal suffix
covered
תְּ֝סֻכֵּ֗נִיte.su.Ke.ni
H5526
properly · verb, qal imperfect, 2nd person masculine singular + pronominal suffix
mother’s
אִמִּֽי'i.Mi
H517
a mother (as the bond of the family) · noun, common feminine singular construct + pronominal suffix
womb
בְּבֶ֣טֶןbe.Ve.ten
H990
the belly · preposition + noun, common feminine singular construct
Strong's Exhaustive Concordance (James Strong, 1890/1894), public domain; digitized by Open Scriptures (CC BY-SA). KJV word tagging: eBible.org (public domain). Original-language text, parsing and brief lexicon: STEPBible.org data from Tyndale House, Cambridge (CC BY 4.0).
Cross-references
Jeremiah 1:5 Before I formed thee in the belly I knew thee; and before thou camest forth out of the womb I sanctified thee, and I ordained thee a prophet…
Psalms 119:73 Thy hands have made me and fashioned me: give me understanding, that I may learn thy commandments.
Isaiah 44:2 Thus saith the LORD that made thee, and formed thee from the womb, which will help thee; Fear not, O Jacob, my servant; and thou, Jesurun, w…
Job 31:15 Did not he that made me in the womb make him? and did not one fashion us in the womb?
Job 10:9-12 Remember, I beseech thee, that thou hast made me as the clay; and wilt thou bring me into dust again?
Psalms 22:9-10 But thou art he that took me out of the womb: thou didst make me hope when I was upon my mother’s breasts.
Psalms 71:6 By thee have I been holden up from the womb: thou art he that took me out of my mother’s bowels: my praise shall be continually of thee.
Isaiah 46:3 Hearken unto me, O house of Jacob, and all the remnant of the house of Israel, which are borne by me from the belly, which are carried from…
Cross-references from OpenBible.info (CC BY), in the lineage of the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge (public domain).
Commentary
Matthew Henry on Psalms 139:7-16
It is of great use to us to know the certainty of the things wherein we have been instructed, that we may not only believe them, but be able to tell why we believe them, and to give a reason of the hope that is in us. David is sure that God perfectly knows him and all his ways,
I. Because he is always under his eye. If God is omnipresent, he must needs be omniscient; but he is omnipresent; this supposes the infinite and immensity of his being, from which follows the ubiquity of his presence; heaven and earth include the whole creation, and the Creator fills both (Jer 23:24); he not only knows both, and governs both, but he fills both. Every part of the creation is under God's intuition and i…
For thou hast possessed my reins,.... His thoughts and counsels, the reins being the seat of instruction and counsel; hence God is called the trier of the reins, and searcher of the hearts of the children of men; he is the possessor or master of their most secret thoughts, and thoroughly knows them; see Psalm 7:9; they are also the seat of the affections, which are naturally sinful and inordinate, and set upon carnal and earthly things; but the Lord possesses and engrosses the affections of his people in the best sense, Psalm 73:25; moreover the reins are the seat of lust, the bed in which it is conceived and brought forth, and God knows the first motions of it there; and that the imaginatio…
Psalm 139:13-16
13. For thou hast possessed [209] my reins; thou hast covered me [210] in my mother's womb, 14. I will praise thee; for I have been made wonderful terribly; marvellous are thy works, and my soul shall know them well. 15. My strength is not hid from thee, [211] which thou hast made in secret: I was woven together in the lowest parts of the earth. 16. Thine eyes did see my shapelessness; all are written in thy book, they were formed by days, and not one of them.
13. For thou hast possessed my reins Apparently he prosecutes the same subject, though he carries it out somewhat farther, declaring that we need not be surprised at God's knowledge of the most secret thoughts of men,…
The Church Fathers
"For Thou, O Lord, hast possessed my reins" [Psalm 139:13]. The Possessor is within; He occupies not only the heart, but also the reins; not only the thoughts, but also the delights: He then possesses that whence I should feel delight at any light in this world: He occupies my reins: I know not delight, save from the inward light of His Wisdom. What then? Do you not delight that your affairs are very prosperous, times fortunate to you? Do you not delight in honour, in riches, in your family? "I do not," says he. Wherefore? Because "You have possessed my reins, O Lord; You have taken me up from my mother's womb." While I was in my mother's womb, I did not regard with indifference the darkness of that night and the light of that night....Now, having been taken up from the womb of that our mother, we look on them with indifference, and say, "As is His darkness, so is also His light." Neither does earthly prosperity make us happy, nor earthly adversity wretched. We must maintain righteousness, love faith, hope in God, love God, love our neighbours also. After these toils we shall have unfailing light, day without setting. Fleeting is all the light and darkness of this night.
Therefore the Lord supported us when he fashioned us; he supports us also when he bids us to be born. Consequently, the just person says, "You have supported me from my mother's womb." Whose mother's? "Before I formed you in the womb, I knew you." Those, whom the Lord forms, he also supports; he supports them even in their coming forth: "And before you came forth from your mother's womb, I sanctified you." He is our supporter, for he has supported us with his hands. He is called a supporter as the Creator of the human race. And he is our supporter, for he has supported us by his visitation, that he may protect us. In view of this, the psalmist himself says in another passage, "He that dwells in the aid of the most High shall say to the Lord, 'You are my supporter and my refuge.' " The first support is that of God's working in us, the second in that of his protection of us. Indeed, listen to Moses saying, "Spreading his wings he received them and supported them upon his shoulders." He supported them like the eagle, which was accustomed to examine its progeny, so as to keep and to bring up those whom it observed to possess the qualities of a true offspring and the gift of an undamaged constitution and to reject those in whom it detected weakness of a degenerate origin even at that tender age.
The Church Fathers: public-domain translations (Ante-Nicene and Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers), verse-indexed by SermonIndex (CC BY 4.0).
Dictionary and topics
Psalms, Book Of — The present Hebrew name of the book is Tehill’im, “Praises;” but in the actual superscriptions of the psalms the word Tehillah is applied only to one, (Psalms 145:1) ... which is indeed emphatically…
Reins — The kidneys, the supposed seat of the desires and affections; used metaphorically for “heart.” The “reins” and the “heart” are often mentioned together, as denoting the whole moral constitution of…
Holy Spirit, The, Is God · As omnipresent — As omnipresent
Dictionary: Easton's (1897) and Smith's (1863), public domain. Topics: Nave's Topical Bible (1896) and Torrey's Topical Textbook (1897), public domain. Both as parsed by NEUU (CC BY 4.0).
The fact that man is manifest to God even to the very bottom of his nature, and in every place, is now confirmed from the origin of man. The development of the child in the womb was looked upon by the Israelitish Chokma as one of the greatest mysteries, Ecc 11:5; and here the poet praises this coming into being as a marvellous work of the omniscient and omnipresent omnipotence of God. קנה here signifies condere; and סכך not: to cover, protect, as in Psa 140:8; Job 40:22, prop. to cover with network, to hedge in, but: to plait, interweave, viz., with bones, sinews, and veins, like שׂכך in Job 10:11. The reins are made specially prominent in order to mark the, the seat of the tenderest, most s…
The delicate, inner parts of the body include a person’s very being. • Even when hidden in his mother’s womb, the psalmist was guided by the Lord.
Spurgeon's Treasury of David on Psalms 139:13
For thou hast possessed my reins: thou hast covered me in my mother’s womb.
For thou hast possessed my reins. Thou art the owner of my inmost parts and passions: not the indweller and observer only, but the acknowledged lord and possessor of my most secret self. The word "reins" signifies the kidneys, which by the Hebrews were supposed to be the seat of the desires and longings; but perhaps it indicates here the most hidden and vital portion of the man; this God doth not only inspect, and visit, but it is his own; he is as much at home there as a landlord on his own estate, or a proprietor in his own house. Thou hast covered me in my mother's womb. There I lay hidden—covered by thee. Before…
