Our Omniscient (All-Knowing) God

July 28th, 2025
by Lance Waldie

Psalm 139:1-6 (For the choir director. A Psalm of David.) 1 O Lord, You have searched me and known me. 2 You know when I sit down and when I rise up; You understand my thought from afar. 3 You scrutinize my path and my lying down, and are intimately acquainted with all my ways. 4 Even before there is a word on my tongue, behold, O Lord, You know it all. 5 You have enclosed me behind and before, and laid Your hand upon me. 6 Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; it is too high, I cannot attain to it.

Verse one is a summary statement for what follows in vv. 2-6. David, the psalmist, speaking of God’s omniscience, literally says, “Yahweh, you have searched me and You know.” To “search” is to examine; investigate; explore. This is what God does to all humans—the “very good” apex of His creation, made in His image (Gen 1:26-31). As the producer and manufacturer of all humans, God knows everything about each person who has ever existed, those who currently exist, and all those who will one day breathe His air. What is wonderful to David is not just that God is omniscient (all-knowing), true as that is, but that God knows him personally. His candor with God points not only to a personal God who loves His creation but who is intricately involved in that creation. This destroys deism, the belief that God exists but cares little for His creation. In truth, God both loves and cares for His creation and is intricately involved in it.

No matter when David penned this psalm, whether before or after his infamous sins (cf. 2 Sam. 11-12), David was a fallen man. Yet in spite of the fact that God had searched his heart, David was not afraid of his Judge, for he knew God to be merciful and loving. Employing the use of merism, David used two contrasting situations to refer to a totality, saying that God knows “when I sit down and when I rise up” (v. 2), “my path and my lying down” (v. 3), and “enclosed me behind and before” (v. 5). For in spite of God’s intimate knowledge of David, the mercy of Yahweh is that He “laid [His] hand upon me” (v. 5). Like the hand that Israel (i.e., Jacob) laid upon Ephraim and Manasseh, the sons of Joseph, to bless them (Gen. 48:14, 17) or the hand of Yahweh Himself who laid His hand upon Moses to protect him (Exod. 33:22), God’s hand on the psalmist signifies divine protection and approval. David marveled at this!

This truth of God’s intimate knowledge of all His creatures was “too wonderful” and “too high” for David to comprehend (v. 6). He was astounded at the reality of this truth, claiming he could never fully comprehend it. After all, how is it that anyone can know another person’s thoughts (cf. v. 17) or the exact words they will speak before they ever speak them? Whereas a person might assume he will get up tomorrow and go about his day, repeating the process until death in old age, only God knows the details of each day before they occur—having ordained the day of our birth and the day of our death—and everything in between. So, only God can predict the names of those who will exist before they actually exist and tell what they will accomplish—from Josiah (cp. 1 Kings 13:2 with 2 Kings 21:24-23:24) to Cyrus (cp. Isaiah 44:28; 45:1) to Jesus of Nazareth, the Messiah (cp. Daniel 9:24-27 with Matthew 21:1ff.)—even to us!

Food For Thought
God knows everything and everyone; He is God! But God intimately knows His own—those whose faith in Him is unwavering. He has examined us and knows us thoroughly—all that we have done, all that we will do. All things work together for good to those who love God, for He not only foreknew us, He predestined, called, justified, and glorified us (Rom. 8:28-30). Nothing can separate us from His love (Rom. 8:38-39). Certainly our God’s knowledge is vast, His judgments are true, and His ways are unsearchable (Rom. 11:33-36). Yet what we know in part today will one day be fully known as we are fully known to Him (1 Cor. 13:12; cf. Heb. 4:13).