Here is my fairly literal translation of these verses:
13Because You formed my inmost being and wove me together in the womb of my mother.
14I will praise You upon because I am distinguished [by] feared things. Your doings [are] amazed things and my soul knows [that] greatly.
15My skeleton was not hidden from You when I was made in secret, [when] I was intricately woven in [the] depths of [the] earth.
16Your eyes saw my embryo and upon Your book all of them were written; days were formed and not one among them.
One thing I have to confess is that the Hebrew in this Psalm is particularly difficult. They had such an ornery habit of writing in verbal shorthand and then I think that the genre of poetry affords David even greater license here. The result is that the Hebrew sentences look incomplete to our Western minds, much seems simply left out, and it seems like one has to get deeply into a picture-mindset to even guess at exactly what he means. For whatever it’s worth, I’m not alone in this evaluation. Spurgeon said (particularly of verse 16), “This verse is an extremely difficult one to translate … the sense is hard to come at, and difficult to express …” I don’t think the ideas being expressed are difficult to understand; it’s just figuring out how to translate the specific words and phrases into English that definitely leaves a man scratching his head.
That said, I might have to work up two or three blogs on this section. It holds some enormous implications, I think.
David’s obvious point, I think, is to illustrate God’s omni-ness which had been the subject of verses 1-12. Perhaps we most intimately know His omni-ness in the undeniable miracle of our own creation. Perhaps we would better recognize His omni-ness throughout our lives if we would but seriously ponder it in our own creation. Spurgeon said, “We need not go to the ends of the earth for marvels … they abound in our own bodies.”
Who can deny the truth of these four verses? I was woven together in my mother’s womb. I was intricately woven. God was there. My skeleton was not hidden from him. He saw my embryo. And it all came about seemingly in complete darkness and mystery. I could run ahead to the obvious implication: How can I ever doubt the presence and minute care of the God Who was there weaving me into existence? However, I think I’ll come back to that.
Spurgeon said something else which I thought was explosive: “A great artist will often labour alone in his studies, and not suffer his work to be seen until it is finished; even as did the Lord fashion us where no eye beheld us, and the veil was not lifted till every member was complete … Much of the formation of our inner man still proceeds in secret.”
First of all, I want to ponder Spurgeon’s thought that the artist will “not suffer his work to be seen until it is finished.” Why not? Generally speaking, because it’s ugly. Generally speaking the “parts and pieces” of any creation are themselves ugly. It’s true of music. We all know how awful an alto part usually sounds by itself. It only becomes beautiful when it blends with the soprano. But how much more is that true of a human body? Beyond debate, a human body can be an amazingly beautiful thing – but only when it’s all together. One slice of a surgeon’s knife and things get unbelievably ugly fast! No one wants to see the joints, the tendons, the organs, the brains, and everything else that all fits together to make a complete human. I think this truth, that generally speaking things are ugly until they’re complete, is another fractal of our existence. It is a pattern that repeats itself in a million different ways on a million different scales.
What particularly moved me to observe this fractal was Spurgeon’s comment, “Much of the formation of our inner man still proceeds in secret.” This seems so true to me. “He that hath begun a good work will continue it until the day of Jesus Christ…” God is at work. The Great Artist is sculpting His people. All things are working together for good. … But it doesn’t look that way now. Frankly, much of our lives are ugly. There’s the ugliness of our past sins and failures and stupid decisions; the ugliness of any kind of pain or sorrow or loss; the ugliness of confusion itself. But what does the Bible say? “When Christ, who is your life, appears, you also will appear with Him in glory” (Col 3:4). Our very sanctification is the same fractal, the same pattern. Its beauty can only be seen when it’s complete.
This is enormously encouraging to me. I am very aware of so much failure. I have such crushing regrets. I wish I didn’t have to have so much that is ugly about me. I fully acknowledge that I must own responsibility for my choices and all of that. But that said, the truth of Psalm 139 reminds me, “By the grace of God I am what I am” (I Cor 15:10). Even my failures and the things that appear ugly are all a part of the Great Artist’s work. While trying to be responsible moment by moment, yet I must trust that somehow all the ugliness will weave together into something beautiful in the Artist’s hands – and that the beauty may only be seen when it is all complete. Today, by the grace of God I am what I am.
“Lift up your heads, O ye gates, that the King of Glory may come in!”
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