Bible Strands
Psalms 139:2
You know when I sit and when I rise; You understand my thoughts from afar.
Berean Standard Bible
Follow its threads on the canvas →
Study note
Setting — David addresses the LORD as the speaker, directing the declaration to God within a psalm that opens with an acknowledgment of divine search and knowledge. The moment occurs in a liturgical or reflective posture where the psalmist contrasts human limitation with God’s immediate awareness.
The words — יָ֭דַעְתָּ (Ya.da'.ta) means “you know,” and בַּ֥נְתָּה (Ban.tah) means “you understand,” both verbs pointing to God’s active cognition of the speaker’s physical and mental states.
The thread — This theme of divine knowledge of human action and thought appears in 2 Kings 19:27 and Isaiah 37:28, where God declares knowledge of royal posture and rebellion, and in Matthew 9:4, where Jesus perceives internal thoughts.
Why it lands — The text requires a reader to acknowledge that no physical movement or mental process occurs outside divine awareness. It demands honest self-examination rather than comfort, since the same knowledge that observes routine also observes hidden motives.
Drafted by a language model from the text, its original words and its cross-references, then checked against them. It can still be wrong: open the verse in the app to report it.
The Hebrew words
King James Version
Thou knowest my downsitting and mine uprising, thou understandest my thought afar off.
Cross-references
- Matthew 9:4 But Jesus knew what they were thinking and said, “Why do you harbor evil in your hearts?
- 2 Kings 19:27 But I know your sitting down, your going out and coming in, and your raging against Me.
- Isaiah 37:28 But I know your sitting down, your going out and coming in, and your raging against Me.
- Psalms 94:11 The LORD knows the thoughts of man, that they are futile.
- Luke 9:47 But Jesus, knowing the thoughts of their hearts, had a little child stand beside Him.
- Proverbs 15:3 The eyes of the LORD are in every place, observing the evil and the good.
- John 2:24 But Jesus did not entrust Himself to them, for He knew them all.
- Psalms 56:8 You have taken account of my wanderings. Put my tears in Your bottle—are they not in Your book?
- Zechariah 4:10 For who has despised the day of small things? But these seven eyes of the LORD, which scan the whole earth, will rejoice when they see the plumb line in the hand of Zerubbabel.”
- Genesis 16:13 So Hagar gave this name to the LORD who had spoken to her: “You are the God who sees me,” for she said, “Here I have seen the One who sees me!”