Psalm 139 Poem

One of the passages of the Bible that best describes the image of a man being surrounded by God even before being born and through the rest of his days, is the Psalm 139. King David celebrates God's all-power, omniscience, and omnipresence through this chapter not only through awe-aspiring word choice but also using three aspects of poetry: poetic features, poetic structure, and poetic patterns.

To begin with, one of the ways in which the writer exposes his ideas of God and describes his attributes can be found in the structure of the poem. David's praise to God is divided into four strophes which each hold six verses. The first six verses speak of the omniscience of God, while the next strophe describes His omnipresence. Another way that the structure is divided in is that the first eighteen verses seem to be consistent in describing God's omnipresence, pleading Him for examination and praising Him. In fact, he concludes these verses by saying,

As an example, the beginning of the Psalm starts, "[y]ou have searched me, Lord, and you know me." (Psalms 139.1) while the end of the poem states, "[s]earch me, God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts" (Psalm s 139.23). This combines parallel with repetition and the words "search" and "know" and both found at the beginning of the chapter and at the end. Additionally, in between the parallels, contrast is used to amplify the omniscience of God. In verses two and three it says, "[y]ou know when I sit and when I rise; you perceive my thoughts from afar. You discern my going out and my lying down; you are familiar with all my ways." (Psalms 139.2-3), the speaker means to underline that even in opposite circumstances, God is still there. This is also corroborated in verse eight: "If I go up to the heavens, you are there; if I make my bed in the depths, you are there (Psalms