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Selected Verse: Psalms 139:13 - King James

Verse	Translation	Text
Ps 139:13	King James	For thou hast possessed my reins: thou hast covered me in my mother's womb.

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Notes on the Bible, by Albert Barnes, [1834]
For thou hast possessed my reins - The word here rendered "possessed" means properly to "set upright," to "erect," and hence, the derivative of the verb is applied to a cane or reed, as being erect. Then the word means to found, to create, Gen 14:19, Gen 14:22 - as the heavens and the earth; and then, to get, to gain, to purchase, etc. Here the word seems to be used in its original sense, to make, create, etc. The idea is, not as in our translation, that God "possessed" or "owned" them but that he had "made" them, and that, "therefore," he knew all about them. The word "reins" means literally the "kidneys;" and then, it comes to denote the inward part, the mind, the soul, the seat of the desires, affections, and passions. Jer 11:20. See Psa 7:9, note; Job 19:27, note. The meaning here is, that God had made him; that the innermost recesses of his being had been constituted as they are by God; and that, "therefore," he must be able to see all that there is in the very depths of the soul, however it may be hidden from the eye of man. Thou hast covered me in my mother's womb - The word here rendered "cover" means properly to interweave; to weave; to knit together, and the literal translation would be, "Thou hast "woven" me in my mother's womb, meaning that God had put his parts together, as one who weaves cloth, or who makes a basket. So it is rendered by DeWette and by Gesenius (Lexicon). The original word has, however, also the idea of protecting, as in a booth or hut, woven or knit together - to wit, of boughs and branches. The former signification best suits the connection; and then the sense would be, that as God had made him - as he had formed his members, and united them in a bodily frame and form before he was born - he must be able to understand all his thoughts and feelings. As he was not concealed from God before he saw the light, so he could not be anywhere.

Notes on the Bible, by Albert Barnes, [1834]

For thou hast possessed my reins - The word here rendered "possessed" means properly to "set upright," to "erect," and hence, the derivative of the verb is applied to a cane or reed, as being erect. Then the word means to found, to create, Gen 14:19, Gen 14:22 - as the heavens and the earth; and then, to get, to gain, to purchase, etc. Here the word seems to be used in its original sense, to make, create, etc. The idea is, not as in our translation, that God "possessed" or "owned" them but that he had "made" them, and that, "therefore," he knew all about them. The word "reins" means literally the "kidneys;" and then, it comes to denote the inward part, the mind, the soul, the seat of the desires, affections, and passions. Jer 11:20. See Psa 7:9, note; Job 19:27, note. The meaning here is, that God had made him; that the innermost recesses of his being had been constituted as they are by God; and that, "therefore," he must be able to see all that there is in the very depths of the soul, however it may be hidden from the eye of man.

Thou hast covered me in my mother's womb - The word here rendered "cover" means properly to interweave; to weave; to knit together, and the literal translation would be, "Thou hast "woven" me in my mother's womb, meaning that God had put his parts together, as one who weaves cloth, or who makes a basket. So it is rendered by DeWette and by Gesenius (Lexicon). The original word has, however, also the idea of protecting, as in a booth or hut, woven or knit together - to wit, of boughs and branches. The former signification best suits the connection; and then the sense would be, that as God had made him - as he had formed his members, and united them in a bodily frame and form before he was born - he must be able to understand all his thoughts and feelings. As he was not concealed from God before he saw the light, so he could not be anywhere.

Commentary on the Old Testament, by Carl Friedrich Keil and Franz Delitzsch [1857-78]
The fact that man is manifest to God even to the very bottom of his nature, and in every place, is now confirmed from the origin of man. The development of the child in the womb was looked upon by the Israelitish Chokma as one of the greatest mysteries, Ecc 11:5; and here the poet praises this coming into being as a marvellous work of the omniscient and omnipresent omnipotence of God. קנה here signifies condere; and סכך not: to cover, protect, as in Psa 140:8; Job 40:22, prop. to cover with network, to hedge in, but: to plait, interweave, viz., with bones, sinews, and veins, like שׂכך in Job 10:11. The reins are made specially prominent in order to mark the, the seat of the tenderest, most secret emotions, as the work of Him who trieth the heart and the reins. The προσευχή becomes in Psa 139:14 the εὐχαριστία: I give thanks unto Thee that I have wonderfully come into being under fearful circumstances, i.e., circumstances exciting a shudder, viz., of astonishment (נוראות as in Psa 65:6). נפלה (= נפלא) is the passive to הפלה, Psa 4:4; Psa 17:7. Hitzig regards נפליתה (Thou hast shown Thyself wonderful), after the lxx, Syriac, Vulgate, and Jerome, as the only correct reading; but the thought which is thereby gained comes indeed to be expressed in the following line, Psa 139:14, which sinks down into tautology in connection with this reading. `otsem (collectively equivalent to עצמים, Ecc 11:5) is the bones, the skeleton, and, starting from that idea, more generally the state of being as a sum-total of elements of being. אשׁר, without being necessarily a conjunction (Ew. 333, a), attaches itself to the suffix of עצמי. רקּם, "to be worked in different colours, or also embroidered," of the system of veins ramifying the body, and of the variegated colouring of its individual members, more particularly of the inward parts; perhaps, however, more generally with a retrospective conception of the colours of the outline following the undeveloped beginning, and of the forming of the members and of the organism in general. (Note: In the Talmud the egg of a bird or of a reptile is called מרקּמת, when the outlines of the developed embryo are visible in it; and likewise the mole (mola), when traces of human; organization can be discerned in it.) The mother's womb is here called not merely סתר (cf. Aeschylus' Eumenides, 665: ἐν σκοτοισι νηδύος τεθραμμένη, and the designation of the place where the foetus is formed as "a threefold darkness' in the Koran, Sur. xxxix. 8), the ē of which is retained here in pause (vid., Bttcher, Lehrbuch, 298), but by a bolder appellation תּחתּיּות ארץ, the lowest parts of the earth, i.e., the interior of the earth (vid., on Psa 63:10) as being the secret laboratory of the earthly origin, with the same retrospective reference to the first formation of the human body out of the dust of the earth, as when Job says, Job 1:21 : "naked came I out of my mother's womb, and naked shall I return thither" - שׁמּה, viz., εἰς τὴν γῆν τὴν μητέρα πάντων, Sir. 40:1. The interior of Hades is also called בּטן שׁאול in Jon 2:2, Sir. 51:5. According to the view of Scripture the mode of Adam's creation is repeated in the formation of every man, Job 33:6, cf. Job 33:4. The earth was the mother's womb of Adam, and the mother's womb out of which the child of Adam comes forth is the earth out of which it is taken. Psa 139:16 The embryo folded up in the shape of an egg is here called גּלם, from גּלם, to roll or wrap together (cf. glomus, a ball), in the Talmud said of any kind of unshapen mass (lxx ἀκατέργαστον, Symmachus ἀμόρφωτον) and raw material, e.g., of the wood or metal that is to be formed into a vessel (Chullin 25a, to which Saadia has already referred). (Note: Epiphanius, Haer, xxx. 31, says the Hebrew γολμη signifies the peeled grains of spelt or wheat before they are mixed up and backed, the still raw (only bruised) flour-grains - a signification that can now no longer be supported by examples.) As to the rest, compare similar retrospective glances into the embryonic state in Job 10:8-12, 2 Macc. 7:22f. (Psychology, S. 209ff., tr. pp. 247f.). On the words in libro tuo Bellarmine makes the following correct observation: quia habes apud te exemplaria sive ideas omnium, quomodo pictor vel sculptor scit ex informi materia quid futurum sit, quia videt exemplar. The signification of the future יכּתבוּ is regulated by ראוּ, and becomes, as relating to the synchronous past, scribebantur. The days יצּרוּ, which were already formed, are the subject. It is usually rendered: "the days which had first to be formed." If יצּרוּ could be equivalent to ייצּרוּ, it would be to be preferred; but this rejection of the praeform. fut. is only allowed in the fut. Piel of the verbs Pe Jod, and that after a Waw convertens, e.g., ויּבּשׁ = וייבּשׁ, Nah 1:4 (cf. Caspari on Oba 1:11). (Note: But outside the Old Testament it also occurs in the Pual, though as a wrong use of the word; vide my Anekdota (1841), S. 372f.) Accordingly, assuming the original character of the לא in a negative signification, it is to be rendered: The days which were (already) formed, and there was not one among them, i.e., when none among them had as yet become a reality. The suffix of כּלּם points to the succeeding ימים, to which יצּרוּ is appended as an attributive clause; ולא אחד בּהם is subordinated to this יצּרוּ: cum non or nondum (Job 22:16) unus inter eos = unus eorum (Exo 14:28) esset. But the expression (instead of ועוד לא היה or טרם יהיה) remains doubtful, and it becomes a question whether the Ker ולו (vid., on Psa 100:3), which stands side by side with the Chethb ולא (which the lxx, Aquila, Symmachus, Theodotion, the Targum, Syriac, Jerome, and Saadia follow), is not to be preferred. This ולו, referred to גלמי, gives the acceptable meaning: and for it (viz., its birth) one among them (these days), without our needing to make any change in the proposed exposition down to יצרו. We decide in favour of this, because this ולו אחד בהם does not, as ולא אחד בהם, make one feel to miss any היה, and because the ולי which begins Psa 139:17 connects itself to it by way of continuation. The accentuation has failed to discern the reference of כלם to the following ימים, inasmuch as it places Olewejored against יכתבו. Hupfeld follows this accentuation, referring כלם back to גלמי as a coil of days of one's life; and Hitzig does the same, referring it to the embryos. But the precedence of the relative pronoun occurs in other instances also, (Note: The Hebrew poet, says Gesenius (Lehrgebude, S. 739f.), sometimes uses the pronoun before the thing to which it referred has even been spoken of. This phenomenon belongs to the Hebrew style generally, vid., my Anekdota (1841), S. 382.) and is devoid of all harshness, especially in connection with כּלּם, which directly signifies altogether (e.g., Isa 43:14). It is the confession of the omniscience that is united with the omnipotence of God, which the poet here gives utterance to with reference to himself, just as Jahve says with reference to Jeremiah, Jer 1:5. Among the days which were preformed in the idea of God (cf. on יצרו, Isa 22:11; Isa 37:26) there was also one, says the poet, for the embryonic beginning of my life. The divine knowledge embraces the beginning, development, and completion of all things (Psychology, S. 37ff., tr. pp. 46ff.). The knowledge of the thoughts of God which are written in the book of creation and revelation is the poet's cherished possession, and to ponder over them is his favourite pursuit: they are precious to him, יקרוּ (after Psa 36:8), not: difficult of comprehension (schwerbegreiflich, Maurer, Olshausen), after Dan 2:11, which would surely have been expressed by עמקוּ (Psa 92:6), more readily: very weighty (schwergewichtig, Hitzig), but better according to the prevailing Hebrew usage: highly valued (schwergewerthet), cara. (Note: It should be noted that the radical idea of the verb, viz., being heavy (German schwer), is retained in all these renderings. - Tr.) "Their sums" are powerful, prodigious (Psa 40:6), and cannot be brought to a summa summarum. If he desires to count them (fut. hypothet. as in Psa 91:7; Job 20:24), they prove themselves to be more than the sand with its grains, that is to say, innumerable. He falls asleep over the pondering upon them, wearied out; and when he wakes up, he is still with God, i.e., still ever absorbed in the contemplation of the Unsearchable One, which even the sleep of fatigue could not entirely interrupt. Ewald explains it somewhat differently: if I am lost in the stream of thoughts and images, and recover myself from this state of reverie, yet I am still ever with Thee, without coming to an end. But it could only perhaps be interpreted thus if it were העירותי or התעוררתּי. Hofmann's interpretation is altogether different: I will count them, the more numerous than the sand, when I awake and am continually with Thee, viz., in the other world, after the awaking from the sleep of death. This is at once impossible, because הקיצתי cannot here, according to its position, be a perf. hypotheticum. Also in connection with this interpretation עוד would be an inappropriate expression for "continually," since the word only has the sense of the continual duration of an action or a state already existing; here of one that has not even been closed and broken off by sleep. He has not done; waking and dreaming and waking up, he is carried away by that endless, and yet also endlessly attractive, pursuit, the most fitting occupation of one who is awake, and the sweetest (cf. Jer 31:26) of one who is asleep and dreaming.

Commentary on the Old Testament, by Carl Friedrich Keil and Franz Delitzsch [1857-78]

The fact that man is manifest to God even to the very bottom of his nature, and in every place, is now confirmed from the origin of man. The development of the child in the womb was looked upon by the Israelitish Chokma as one of the greatest mysteries, Ecc 11:5; and here the poet praises this coming into being as a marvellous work of the omniscient and omnipresent omnipotence of God. קנה here signifies condere; and סכך not: to cover, protect, as in Psa 140:8; Job 40:22, prop. to cover with network, to hedge in, but: to plait, interweave, viz., with bones, sinews, and veins, like שׂכך in Job 10:11. The reins are made specially prominent in order to mark the, the seat of the tenderest, most secret emotions, as the work of Him who trieth the heart and the reins. The προσευχή becomes in Psa 139:14 the εὐχαριστία: I give thanks unto Thee that I have wonderfully come into being under fearful circumstances, i.e., circumstances exciting a shudder, viz., of astonishment (נוראות as in Psa 65:6). נפלה (= נפלא) is the passive to הפלה, Psa 4:4; Psa 17:7. Hitzig regards נפליתה (Thou hast shown Thyself wonderful), after the lxx, Syriac, Vulgate, and Jerome, as the only correct reading; but the thought which is thereby gained comes indeed to be expressed in the following line, Psa 139:14, which sinks down into tautology in connection with this reading. `otsem (collectively equivalent to עצמים, Ecc 11:5) is the bones, the skeleton, and, starting from that idea, more generally the state of being as a sum-total of elements of being. אשׁר, without being necessarily a conjunction (Ew. 333, a), attaches itself to the suffix of עצמי. רקּם, "to be worked in different colours, or also embroidered," of the system of veins ramifying the body, and of the variegated colouring of its individual members, more particularly of the inward parts; perhaps, however, more generally with a retrospective conception of the colours of the outline following the undeveloped beginning, and of the forming of the members and of the organism in general.

(Note: In the Talmud the egg of a bird or of a reptile is called מרקּמת, when the outlines of the developed embryo are visible in it; and likewise the mole (mola), when traces of human; organization can be discerned in it.)

The mother's womb is here called not merely סתר (cf. Aeschylus' Eumenides, 665: ἐν σκοτοισι νηδύος τεθραμμένη, and the designation of the place where the foetus is formed as "a threefold darkness' in the Koran, Sur. xxxix. 8), the ē of which is retained here in pause (vid., Bttcher, Lehrbuch, 298), but by a bolder appellation תּחתּיּות ארץ, the lowest parts of the earth, i.e., the interior of the earth (vid., on Psa 63:10) as being the secret laboratory of the earthly origin, with the same retrospective reference to the first formation of the human body out of the dust of the earth, as when Job says, Job 1:21 : "naked came I out of my mother's womb, and naked shall I return thither" - שׁמּה, viz., εἰς τὴν γῆν τὴν μητέρα πάντων, Sir. 40:1. The interior of Hades is also called בּטן שׁאול in Jon 2:2, Sir. 51:5. According to the view of Scripture the mode of Adam's creation is repeated in the formation of every man, Job 33:6, cf. Job 33:4. The earth was the mother's womb of Adam, and the mother's womb out of which the child of Adam comes forth is the earth out of which it is taken.

Psa 139:16

The embryo folded up in the shape of an egg is here called גּלם, from גּלם, to roll or wrap together (cf. glomus, a ball), in the Talmud said of any kind of unshapen mass (lxx ἀκατέργαστον, Symmachus ἀμόρφωτον) and raw material, e.g., of the wood or metal that is to be formed into a vessel (Chullin 25a, to which Saadia has already referred).

(Note: Epiphanius, Haer, xxx. 31, says the Hebrew γολμη signifies the peeled grains of spelt or wheat before they are mixed up and backed, the still raw (only bruised) flour-grains - a signification that can now no longer be supported by examples.)

As to the rest, compare similar retrospective glances into the embryonic state in Job 10:8-12, 2 Macc. 7:22f. (Psychology, S. 209ff., tr. pp. 247f.). On the words in libro tuo Bellarmine makes the following correct observation: quia habes apud te exemplaria sive ideas omnium, quomodo pictor vel sculptor scit ex informi materia quid futurum sit, quia videt exemplar. The signification of the future יכּתבוּ is regulated by ראוּ, and becomes, as relating to the synchronous past, scribebantur. The days יצּרוּ, which were already formed, are the subject. It is usually rendered: "the days which had first to be formed." If יצּרוּ could be equivalent to ייצּרוּ, it would be to be preferred; but this rejection of the praeform. fut. is only allowed in the fut. Piel of the verbs Pe Jod, and that after a Waw convertens, e.g., ויּבּשׁ = וייבּשׁ, Nah 1:4 (cf. Caspari on Oba 1:11).

(Note: But outside the Old Testament it also occurs in the Pual, though as a wrong use of the word; vide my Anekdota (1841), S. 372f.)

Accordingly, assuming the original character of the לא in a negative signification, it is to be rendered: The days which were (already) formed, and there was not one among them, i.e., when none among them had as yet become a reality. The suffix of כּלּם points to the succeeding ימים, to which יצּרוּ is appended as an attributive clause; ולא אחד בּהם is subordinated to this יצּרוּ: cum non or nondum (Job 22:16) unus inter eos = unus eorum (Exo 14:28) esset. But the expression (instead of ועוד לא היה or טרם יהיה) remains doubtful, and it becomes a question whether the Ker ולו (vid., on Psa 100:3), which stands side by side with the Chethb ולא (which the lxx, Aquila, Symmachus, Theodotion, the Targum, Syriac, Jerome, and Saadia follow), is not to be preferred. This ולו, referred to גלמי, gives the acceptable meaning: and for it (viz., its birth) one among them (these days), without our needing to make any change in the proposed exposition down to יצרו. We decide in favour of this, because this ולו אחד בהם does not, as ולא אחד בהם, make one feel to miss any היה, and because the ולי which begins Psa 139:17 connects itself to it by way of continuation. The accentuation has failed to discern the reference of כלם to the following ימים, inasmuch as it places Olewejored against יכתבו. Hupfeld follows this accentuation, referring כלם back to גלמי as a coil of days of one's life; and Hitzig does the same, referring it to the embryos. But the precedence of the relative pronoun occurs in other instances also,

(Note: The Hebrew poet, says Gesenius (Lehrgebude, S. 739f.), sometimes uses the pronoun before the thing to which it referred has even been spoken of. This phenomenon belongs to the Hebrew style generally, vid., my Anekdota (1841), S. 382.)

and is devoid of all harshness, especially in connection with כּלּם, which directly signifies altogether (e.g., Isa 43:14).

It is the confession of the omniscience that is united with the omnipotence of God, which the poet here gives utterance to with reference to himself, just as Jahve says with reference to Jeremiah, Jer 1:5. Among the days which were preformed in the idea of God (cf. on יצרו, Isa 22:11; Isa 37:26) there was also one, says the poet, for the embryonic beginning of my life. The divine knowledge embraces the beginning, development, and completion of all things (Psychology, S. 37ff., tr. pp. 46ff.). The knowledge of the thoughts of God which are written in the book of creation and revelation is the poet's cherished possession, and to ponder over them is his favourite pursuit: they are precious to him, יקרוּ (after Psa 36:8), not: difficult of comprehension (schwerbegreiflich, Maurer, Olshausen), after Dan 2:11, which would surely have been expressed by עמקוּ (Psa 92:6), more readily: very weighty (schwergewichtig, Hitzig), but better according to the prevailing Hebrew usage: highly valued (schwergewerthet), cara.

(Note: It should be noted that the radical idea of the verb, viz., being heavy (German schwer), is retained in all these renderings. - Tr.)

"Their sums" are powerful, prodigious (Psa 40:6), and cannot be brought to a summa summarum. If he desires to count them (fut. hypothet. as in Psa 91:7; Job 20:24), they prove themselves to be more than the sand with its grains, that is to say, innumerable. He falls asleep over the pondering upon them, wearied out; and when he wakes up, he is still with God, i.e., still ever absorbed in the contemplation of the Unsearchable One, which even the sleep of fatigue could not entirely interrupt. Ewald explains it somewhat differently: if I am lost in the stream of thoughts and images, and recover myself from this state of reverie, yet I am still ever with Thee, without coming to an end. But it could only perhaps be interpreted thus if it were העירותי or התעוררתּי. Hofmann's interpretation is altogether different: I will count them, the more numerous than the sand, when I awake and am continually with Thee, viz., in the other world, after the awaking from the sleep of death. This is at once impossible, because הקיצתי cannot here, according to its position, be a perf. hypotheticum. Also in connection with this interpretation עוד would be an inappropriate expression for "continually," since the word only has the sense of the continual duration of an action or a state already existing; here of one that has not even been closed and broken off by sleep. He has not done; waking and dreaming and waking up, he is carried away by that endless, and yet also endlessly attractive, pursuit, the most fitting occupation of one who is awake, and the sweetest (cf. Jer 31:26) of one who is asleep and dreaming.

Adam Clarke Commentary on the Whole Bible - Published 1810-1826
Thou hast possessed my reins - As the Hebrews believed that the reins were the first part of the human fetus that is formed, it may here mean, thou hast laid the foundation of my being.

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²⁷ Whom I shall see for myself, and mine eyes shall behold, and not another; though my reins be consumed within me.

⁹ Oh let the wickedness of the wicked come to an end; but establish the just: for the righteous God trieth the hearts and reins.

²⁰ But, O LORD of hosts, that judgest righteously, that triest the reins and the heart, let me see thy vengeance on them: for unto thee have I revealed my cause.

²² And Abram said to the king of Sodom, I have lift up mine hand unto the LORD, the most high God, the possessor of heaven and earth,

¹⁹ And he blessed him, and said, Blessed be Abram of the most high God, possessor of heaven and earth:

²⁶ Upon this I awaked, and beheld; and my sleep was sweet unto me.

²⁴ He shall flee from the iron weapon, and the bow of steel shall strike him through.

⁷ A thousand shall fall at thy side, and ten thousand at thy right hand; but it shall not come nigh thee.

⁶ Sacrifice and offering thou didst not desire; mine ears hast thou opened: burnt offering and sin offering hast thou not required.

⁶ A brutish man knoweth not; neither doth a fool understand this.

¹¹ And it is a rare thing that the king requireth, and there is none other that can shew it before the king, except the gods, whose dwelling is not with flesh.

⁸ They shall be abundantly satisfied with the fatness of thy house; and thou shalt make them drink of the river of thy pleasures.

²⁶ Hast thou not heard long ago, how I have done it; and of ancient times, that I have formed it? now have I brought it to pass, that thou shouldest be to lay waste defenced cities into ruinous heaps.

¹¹ Ye made also a ditch between the two walls for the water of the old pool: but ye have not looked unto the maker thereof, neither had respect unto him that fashioned it long ago.

⁵ Before I formed thee in the belly I knew thee; and before thou camest forth out of the womb I sanctified thee, and I ordained thee a prophet unto the nations.

¹⁴ Thus saith the LORD, your redeemer, the Holy One of Israel; For your sake I have sent to Babylon, and have brought down all their nobles, and the Chaldeans, whose cry is in the ships.

¹⁷ How precious also are thy thoughts unto me, O God! how great is the sum of them!

³ Know ye that the LORD he is God: it is he that hath made us, and not we ourselves; we are his people, and the sheep of his pasture.

²⁸ And the waters returned, and covered the chariots, and the horsemen, and all the host of Pharaoh that came into the sea after them; there remained not so much as one of them.

¹⁶ Which were cut down out of time, whose foundation was overflown with a flood:

¹¹ In the day that thou stoodest on the other side, in the day that the strangers carried away captive his forces, and foreigners entered into his gates, and cast lots upon Jerusalem, even thou wast as one of them.

⁴ He rebuketh the sea, and maketh it dry, and drieth up all the rivers: Bashan languisheth, and Carmel, and the flower of Lebanon languisheth.

⁸ Thine hands have made me and fashioned me together round about; yet thou dost destroy me.
⁹ Remember, I beseech thee, that thou hast made me as the clay; and wilt thou bring me into dust again?
¹⁰ Hast thou not poured me out as milk, and curdled me like cheese?
¹¹ Thou hast clothed me with skin and flesh, and hast fenced me with bones and sinews.
¹² Thou hast granted me life and favour, and thy visitation hath preserved my spirit.

¹⁶ Thine eyes did see my substance, yet being unperfect; and in thy book all my members were written, which in continuance were fashioned, when as yet there was none of them.

⁴ The Spirit of God hath made me, and the breath of the Almighty hath given me life.

⁶ Behold, I am according to thy wish in God's stead: I also am formed out of the clay.

² And said, I cried by reason of mine affliction unto the LORD, and he heard me; out of the belly of hell cried I, and thou heardest my voice.

²¹ And said, Naked came I out of my mother's womb, and naked shall I return thither: the LORD gave, and the LORD hath taken away; blessed be the name of the LORD.

¹⁰ They shall fall by the sword: they shall be a portion for foxes.

⁵ As thou knowest not what is the way of the spirit, nor how the bones do grow in the womb of her that is with child: even so thou knowest not the works of God who maketh all.

¹⁴ I will praise thee; for I am fearfully and wonderfully made: marvellous are thy works; and that my soul knoweth right well.

⁷ Shew thy marvellous lovingkindness, O thou that savest by thy right hand them which put their trust in thee from those that rise up against them.

⁴ Stand in awe, and sin not: commune with your own heart upon your bed, and be still. Selah.

⁶ Which by his strength setteth fast the mountains; being girded with power:

¹⁴ I will praise thee; for I am fearfully and wonderfully made: marvellous are thy works; and that my soul knoweth right well.

¹¹ Thou hast clothed me with skin and flesh, and hast fenced me with bones and sinews.

²² The shady trees cover him with their shadow; the willows of the brook compass him about.

⁸ Grant not, O LORD, the desires of the wicked: further not his wicked device; lest they exalt themselves. Selah.

⁵ As thou knowest not what is the way of the spirit, nor how the bones do grow in the womb of her that is with child: even so thou knowest not the works of God who maketh all.