16 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.
*Minor differences ignored. Grouped by changes, with first version listed as example.
Thine eyes beheld my shapelessness, etc. The embryo, when first conceived in the womb, has no form; and David speaks of God's having known him when he was yet a shapeless mass, to kuema, as the Greeks term it; for to embruon is the name given to the foetus from the time of conception to birth inclusive. The argument is from the greater' to the less. If he was known to God before he had grown to certain definite shape, much less could he now elude his observation. He adds, that all things were written in his book; that is, the whole method of his formation was well known to God. The term book is a figure taken from the practice common amongst men of helping their memory by means of books and commentaries. Whatever is an object of God's knowledge he is said to have registered in writing, for he needs no helps to memory. Interpreters are not agreed as to the second clause. Some read ymym, yamim, in the nominative case, when days were made; the sense being, according to them -- All my bones were written in thy book, O God! from the beginning of the world, when days were first formed by thee, and when as yet none of them actually existed. The other is the more natural meaning, That the different parts of the human body are formed in a succession of time; for in the first germ there is no arrangement of parts, or proportion of members, but it is developed, and takes its peculiar form progressively. [1] There is another point on which interpreters differ. As in the particle l', lo, the ', aleph, is often interchangeable with v vau; some read lv, to him, and others l' not. According to the first reading, the sense is, that though the body is formed progressively, it was always one and the same in God's book, who is not dependent upon time for the execution of his work. A sufficiently good meaning, however, can be got by adhering' without change to the negative particle, namely, that though the members were formed in the course of days, or gradually, none of them had existed; no order or distinctness of parts having been there at first, but a formless substance. And thus our admiration is directed to the providence of God in gradually giving' shape and beauty to a confused mass. [2]
1 - "They (my members) have been daily formed, or forming. They were not formed at once, but gradually; each day increasing in strength and size. This expression is probably parenthetical, so that the last words of the verse will refer to the writing of those things previously mentioned in God's register." -- Phillips.
2 - "The meaning is," says Warner, "there was a time when none of those curious parts, of which my form consists, existed. The germ of them all was planted by thee in the first instance; and gradually matured, by thy power, wisdom, and goodness, into that wonderful piece of mechanism which the human form exhibits." Phillips gives a different turn to the clause: "And not one of them, or among them, was omitted. Not one of the particulars concerning my formation has been left out of thy record."
Thine eyes did see my substance, yet being unperfect - This whole verse is very obscure, but the "idea" in this expression clearly is, "Before I had shape or form thou didst see what I was to be." The single word in the original translated "my substance, yet being unperfect," is גלם gôlem. It occurs only in this place, though the verb - גלם gâlam - is found in 2-Kings 2:8, where it is used in reference to the mantle of Elijah: And Elijah took his mantle, and "wrapped it together," etc. That is, he rolled it up, or he folded it. The noun, then, means that which "is" rolled or wrapped together; that which is folded up, and hence, is applicable to anything folded up or undeveloped; and would thus most aptly denote the embryo, or the foetus, where all the members of the body are as yet folded up, or undeveloped; that is, before they have assumed their distinct form and proportions. This is undoubtedly the idea here. Before the embryo had any such form that its future size, shape, or proportions could be marked by the eye of man, it was clearly and distinctly known by God.
And in thy book - Where thou recordest all things. Perhaps the allusion here would be to the book of an architect or draftsman, who, before his work is begun, draws his plan, or sketches it for the direction of the workmen.
All my members were written - The words "my members" are not in the original. The Hebrew is, as in the margin, "all of them." The reference may be, not to the members of his body, but to his "days" (see the margin on the succeeding phrase) - and then the sense would be, all my "days," or all the periods of my life, were delineated in thy book. That is, When my substance - my form - was not yet developed, when yet an embryo, and when nothing could be determined from that by the eye of man as to what I was to be, all the future was known to God, and was written down - just what should be my form and vigor; how long I should live; what I should be; what would be the events of my life.
Which in continuance were fashioned - Margin, "What days they should be fashioned." Literally, "Days should be formed." DeWette renders this, "The days were determined before any one of them was." There is nothing in the Hebrew to correspond with the phrase "in continuance." The simple idea is, The days of my life were determined on, the whole matter was fixed and settled, not by anything seen in the embryo, but "before" there was any form - before there were any means of judging from what I then was to what I would be - all was seen and arranged in the divine mind.
When as yet there was none of them - literally, "And not one among them." Before there was one of them in actual existence. Not one development had yet occurred from which it could be inferred what the rest would be. The entire knowledge on the subject must have been based on Omniscience.
Thine eyes did see my substance - גלמי golmi, my embryo state - my yet indistinct mass, when all was wrapped up together, before it was gradually unfolded into the lineaments of man. "Some think," says Dr. Dodd, "that the allusion to embroidery is still carried on. As the embroiderer has still his work, pattern, or carton, before him, to which he always recurs; so, by a method as exact, revere all my members in continuance fashioned, i.e., from the rude embryo or mass they daily received some degree of figuration; as from the rude skeins of variously coloured silk or worsted, under the artificer's hands, there at length arises an unexpected beauty, and an accurate harmony of colcurs and proportions."
And in thy book all my members were written - "All those members lay open before God's eyes; they were discerned by him as clearly as if the plan of them had been drawn in a book, even to the least figuration of the body of the child in the womb."
Thine eyes did see my substance, yet being unperfect; (l) and in thy book all [my members] were written, [which] in continuance were fashioned, when [as yet there was] none of them.
(l) Seeing that you knew me before I was composed of either flesh or bone, much more now must you know me when you have fashioned me.
Thine eyes did see my substance, yet being unperfect,.... The word (q) for "substance" signifies a bottom of yarn wound up, or any rude or unformed lump; and designs that conglomerated mass of matter separated in the womb, containing all the essentials of the human frame, but not yet distinguished or reduced into any form or order; yet, even when in this state, the eyes of the Lord see it and all its parts distinctly;
and in thy book all my members were written: which in continuance were fashioned, when as yet there was none of them; in the book of God's eternal mind, and designs, the plan of the human body was drawn, all the parts of it described, and their form, places, and uses fixed, even when as yet not one of them was in actual being; but in due time they are all exactly formed and fashioned according to the model of them in the mind of God; who has as perfect knowledge of them beforehand as if they were written down in a book before him, Or "in thy book are written all of them, what days they should be fashioned"; not only each of the members of the body were put down in this book, but each of the days in which they should be formed and come into order: "when" as yet there was "none of them"; none of those days, before they took place, even before all time; the Targum is,
"in the book of thy memory all my days are written, in the day the world was created, from the beginning that all creatures were created.''
(q) "informe meum", Montanus; "glomus meam", Michaelis.
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, Nahum 1:4 (cf. Caspari on Obadiah 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 (Exodus 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 Psalm 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 Psalm 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., Isaiah 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, Jeremiah 1:5. Among the days which were preformed in the idea of God (cf. on יצרו, Isaiah 22:11; Isaiah 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 Psalm 36:8), not: difficult of comprehension (schwerbegreiflich, Maurer, Olshausen), after Daniel 2:11, which would surely have been expressed by עמקוּ (Psalm 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 (Psalm 40:6), and cannot be brought to a summa summarum. If he desires to count them (fut. hypothet. as in Psalm 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. Jeremiah 31:26) of one who is asleep and dreaming.
Imperfect - When I was first conceived. Book - In thy counsel and providence, by which thou didst contrive and effect this great work, according to that model which thou hadst appointed.
*More commentary available at chapter level.