Psalms 139:7 - Coke's Commentary on the Holy Bible

Whither shall I go from thy Spirit, &c.— Though the Psalmist acknowledged the divine omniscience to be full of wonders, and a height to which no human, no finite understanding could possibly ascend; yet he saw, at the same time, that it might be capable of the plainest and most convincing proofs; and that there were really obvious and incontestable proofs of it in nature. And these, or at least the two general heads to which they are, in all their forms and variety of lights, reducible, he himself has in the subsequent part of the psalm distinctly mentioned, viz. God's being the contriver and author of the whole frame of things; and his constant, essential, and intimate presence with the system of creation, and with every individual comprehended in it. The last of these the Psalmist introduces by way of inquiry; how it was possible for any, if they were unnaturally inclined to it, and from an utter darkness of their reason, and ignorance of the most important privileges and consolations of derived and dependant natures, desirous of it,—to fly from that vital and efficacious Spirit, which co-exists with, animates, and diffuses beauty, and order, and tendencies to happiness, throughout the whole of created being. "Whither, says he, shall I go, &c. Psalms 139:8. If I ascend up into heaven, beyond which I cannot discern the most diminutive and contracted orbs of light,—thou art there: If I make my bed in hell, or could plunge myself into the most obscure and unknown mansions of the dead, and the worlds invisible, where even imagination loses itself in darkness, behold, thou art there. Psalms 139:9. If I take the wings of the morning, &c. i.e. If, with the swiftness of the rays of the rising sun, I could shoot myself in an instant to the uttermost parts of the western ocean, Psalms 139:10, even there shall thy hand lead me, &c. i.e. I should still exist in God; his presence would be diffused all around me; his enlivening power would support my frame. Psalms 139:11-12. If I say, surely, &c.—The darkness and the light are both alike to thee; Equally conspicuous am I, and all my circumstances, all my actions, under the thickest, and most impenetrable shades of night, as in the brightest splendors of the noon-day sun. Psalms 139:13. For thou hast possessed my reins, &c." See Foster's Discourses, as above, and Job 11:8. Bishop Lowth observes, that the common interpretation of the 9th verse does not satisfy him. He thinks that the two members of this distich, like those of the former, are plainly opposed to each other: that a two-fold passage is expressed, one to the east, the other to the west; and that the distance of the flight, not the celerity of it, is spoken of. "If I direct my wings towards the morning [or the east; If I dwell in the extremity of the western sea, &c." See his 16th and 29th Prelections.