Fathers

Psalms 139

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Yahweh, you have searched me, and you know me. You know my sitting down and my rising up. You perceive my thoughts from afar. You search out my path and my lying down, and are acquainted with all my ways. For there is not a word on my tongue, but, behold, Yahweh, you know it altogether. You hem me in behind and before. You laid your hand on me. This knowledge is beyond me. It’s lofty. I can’t attain it. Where could I go from your Spirit? Or where could I flee from your presence? If I ascend up into heaven, you are there. If I make my bed in Sheol, behold, you are there! If I take the wings of the dawn, and settle in the uttermost parts of the sea, even there your hand will lead me, and your right hand will hold me. If I say, “Surely the darkness will overwhelm me. The light around me will be night,” even the darkness doesn’t hide from you, but the night shines as the day. The darkness is like light to you. For you formed my inmost being. You knit me together in my mother’s womb. I will give thanks to you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Your works are wonderful. My soul knows that very well. My frame wasn’t hidden from you, when I was made in secret, woven together in the depths of the earth. Your eyes saw my body. In your book they were all written, the days that were ordained for me, when as yet there were none of them. How precious to me are your thoughts, God! How vast is their sum! If I would count them, they are more in number than the sand. When I wake up, I am still with you. If only you, God, would kill the wicked. Get away from me, you bloodthirsty men! For they speak against you wickedly. Your enemies take your name in vain. Yahweh, don’t I hate those who hate you? Am I not grieved with those who rise up against you? I hate them with perfect hatred. They have become my enemies. Search me, God, and know my heart. Try me, and know my thoughts. See if there is any wicked way in me, and lead me in the everlasting way.

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What the Fathers say

Psalms 139:21

Western Saints

Augustine of Hippo

And then He tells what meanwhile, during this whole time when He already has risen, and remains still with the Father, He suffers by the intermixture of sinners in His Body, the Church, and by the separation of heretics. "If Thou, O God, shall slay the sinners (since You shall say in Your thought, Depart from Me, you men of blood), they shall receive in vanity their cities" (ver. 19-20). …

Exposition on Psalm 139 ↗

Bernard of Clairvaux

Now indeed your neighbor, whom you are truly bound to love as yourself, that he too may savor to you as he is, will surely savor to you no differently than you to yourself, who is what you are: for he is a man. You therefore who love yourself only because you love God; consequently all who similarly love him, you love as yourself. Furthermore an enemy, since he is nothing, inasmuch as he does not love God: he cannot indeed be loved as yourself, who love God; yet you will love him so that he may love. …

Sermons on the Song of Songs, Sermon 50 ↗