This is another in a series of excerpts from The Book of Life: What the Bible Says about God’s Registry of the Redeemed from High Street Press and available at Amazon. This except comes from Chapter 7: All My Days Were Written: Psalm 139:16.

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Your eyes saw me when I was formless; all my days were written in your book and planned before a single one of them began (Ps. 139:16).

So far in our study, we’ve explored references to “the book you [God] have written” (Exod. 32:32), “my [God’s] book” (Exod. 32:33), and “the book of life” (Ps. 69:28). Now, in Psalm 139, David marvels at the all-knowing, all-powerful, and everywhere-present attributes of God. Among the psalmist’s amazements are these words: “All my days were written in your book” (v. 16, emphasis added). 

We begin this study with a few notes about Psalm 139. This is a wisdom psalm that features elements of both a hymn and a lament. The hymn-like portions exalt Yahweh’s greatness, while the lament acknowledges God’s power over all creatures, especially the psalmist.

David organizes this psalm as a simple prayer that offers praise (vv. 1-18) and petitions (vv. 19-24). As Roger Ellsworth notes, “It should not escape our notice that the praise comes first and receives much more attention. We have a tendency to rush to God with our petitions and to spend most of our time on them.”

In this very personal psalm – note the use of “I,” “me,” “my,” and “mine” – David magnifies God’s omniscience, omnipotence, and omnipresence. In the first six verses, the psalmist marvels that God has searched out and planned his entire life. In the next six verses, he realizes it’s impossible to escape God’s presence. Whether in the heights of heaven or the depths of the underworld, the Lord is there. 

In verses 13-18, David acknowledges God’s omnipotence in forming him secretly in his mother’s womb and carefully planning his days. Finally, because of these marvelous truths, David affirms his loyalty to God. Further, he invites the Lord to examine his heart and thus prove him innocent.

Written in your book

Our focus in this psalm is on the phrase, “all my days were written in your book” (v. 16). As one commentator notes, the Hebrew is rather cryptic and may mean either that the days of David’s life were mapped out in advance (see the RSV, JB, TEV), or that David’s “embryonic members” were likewise planned and known before the many stages of their development in the womb (see the AV, RV, NEB). 

In either case, the author stresses “our pre-natal fashioning by God – a powerful reminder of the value he sets on us, even as embryos, and of his planning our end from the beginning.”

When David writes, “all my days were written in your book,” is he connecting “your book” with “the book you have written” (Exod. 32:32), “my book” (Exod. 32:33), and “the book of life” (Ps. 69:28)? There’s nothing in the text that prohibits this, although David’s emphasis here is on God’s eternal attributes of omniscience, omnipotence, and omnipresence. Further, the psalmist seems less concerned with the names written in the book than with the details of his own life, which God foreknew.

So, it seems best in this case to understand “your book” as a reference to the comprehensive and detailed mind of God, who has always known everything, down to the most minute details of what would take place in David’s life – and, of course, in ours. 

Next: All My Days Were Written (Part 2)