Footnotes

1. Psalm 139:1 This psalm is one of the pearls of the Psalter in its literary beauty and profound doctrine: the complete knowledge that God has about each person. The human heart is transparent to God’s look; he knows the most secret and most unknown movements of our souls. Feeling the hand of God on himself provoked sadness and anxiety in Job (see Job 23–24; Jer 15:6f), but in the psalmist, it instills serenity and abandonment. He no longer asks God to turn away his face but to lead him on the path of fidelity. The psalmist awakens to God; the one whom he thought he had to seek out is already there, present in him as his source of life, more present to him than he is to himself.
   We can pray this psalm to remind ourselves of the complete knowledge that Jesus has of us (see Jn 10:14f). For he is our Creator and Savior (see Col 1:16f; Heb 1:1f), who restores the supernatural world and re-creates each of his disciples, making new creatures of them to his own image (see Eph 2:10; Col 3:11).
2. Psalm 139:1 For the director: these words are thought to be a musical or liturgical notation.
3. Psalm 139:1 God is all-seeing and all-knowing. His knowledge is not sterile but personal and active, discriminating in favor of those who are faithful to the Lord.
4. Psalm 139:2 You know when I sit and when I stand: a Hebrew idiom that, when combined with the parallel “go out and lie down” (or “go out and come in”: see Isa 37:28), signifies: “in all that I do.”
5. Psalm 139:5 Place your hand upon me: a gesture performed by the judge or the witness (see Job 9:33). It expresses God’s absolute mastery over human beings (see Ex 33:22; Rev 1:17).