Psalm 139:7,8,12; Proverbs 15:3; Jeremiah 23:23,24
Whither shall I go from thy spirit? or whither shall I flee from thy presence? If I ascend up into heaven, thou art there: if I make my bed in hell, behold, thou art there…Yea, the darkness hideth not from thee; but the night shineth as the day: the darkness and the light are both alike to thee.
The eyes of the LORD are in every place, beholding the evil and the good.
Am I a God at hand, saith the LORD, and not a God afar off? Can any hide himself in secret places that I shall not see him? saith the LORD. Do not I fill heaven and earth? saith the LORD.
MATTHEW HENRY (1662-1714): God asserts His own omnipresence and omniscience.
WILLIAM ARNOT (1808-1875): The proposition is absolutely universal.
JOHN CALVIN (1509-1564): To confirm this He adds, Do not I fill heaven and earth, saith Jehovah?―What therefore God declares here, that He fills heaven and earth, ought to be applied to His providence and His power.
JOHN GILL (1697-1771): The Septuagint and Arabic versions render it without the interrogative: “I am a God near, saith the Lord, and not afar off.” The meaning is, that God is alike near in one place as in another; which is a very great truth. And a very comfortable one it is to the people of God, to whom He is near in all places, and at all times; He is a present help in time of trouble; He is near them, to hear their cries, and grant their requests; He is near to give them assistance in a time of need, and to deliver them out of all their troubles; to afford them His gracious presence, and to indulge them with communion with Himself; to communicate all good things to them; to speak comfortably to them; to take them by the hand, and lead them in the way everlasting: He is at their right hand to uphold them with His, and to strengthen them with strength in their souls; to advise and counsel, and direct them; to rebuke their enemies, and save them from them that condemn them.
CHARLES SIMEON (1759-1836): He is everywhere present to protect His people, and to defeat the plots of their adversaries. He it is that has given to our enemies the strength and wisdom which they exert against us; and He engages that “none of the weapons which they form against us shall prosper,” Isaiah 54:17. “Let the weak then say, I am strong:” for “if God be for them, who shall be against them?” Only let them “acknowledge Him in all their ways,” and depend upon Him in all their trials, and they need not fear, for “His eyes run to and fro throughout the whole earth, to shew Himself strong in their behalf,” 2 Chronicles 16:9.
JOHN GILL: Indeed there are no people like them, who have God so nigh unto them.
JOHN CALVIN: This sentiment, that God is nigh and not afar off, is indeed true; but what is meant here is quite another thing—that God sees in a way very different from men, for He fully and perfectly sees what is farthest from Him…But we ought especially to consider for what purpose it is that He sees all things; which is evidently this—that He may at last call to judgment whatever is done by men.
CHARLES SIMEON: Sinners of every description commit in secret what they would not dare to perpetrate, if they knew that the eyes of their fellow-creatures were upon them―But they are under a fatal delusion: for however secret their iniquities may be, there is One who beholds them, with all their aggravating circumstances, and will bring them forth to the light, as grounds of His righteous indignation―for “God’s eyes are in every place, beholding the evil and the good.”
JOHN TRAPP (1601-1699): The evil are first mentioned, because they make question of this truth.
CHARLES SIMEON: Every man who has ever heard of God has within him a consciousness that the Divine Being is present with him, and is privy to his most secret thoughts. In the midst of their wickedness indeed men try to persuade themselves that God does not see them…But whence is this, unless from the atheistical conceit that God is not privy to their actions, or from an utter forgetfulness of His presence?
WILLIAM ARNOT: The unholy do not like to have a holy Eye ever open over them, whatever their profession may be. If fallen men, apart from the one Mediator, say or think that the presence of God is pleasant to them, it is because they have radically mistaken either their own character or His: they have either falsely lifted up their own attainments, or falsely dragged down the standard of the Judge.
CHARLES SIMEON: Yea, we may also deceive our own selves; but we cannot deceive God―He will discern our corrupt motives and principles, and will judge us according to the real quality of our actions.
JOHN CALVIN: Wherever men betake themselves, it is impossible for them to be concealed from Him.
JOHN TRAPP: “Whither shall I flee from thy presence?” Surely nowhere; they that attempt it do but as the fish which swimmeth to the length of the line with a hook in the mouth.
C. H. SPURGEON (1834-1892): “If I ascend up into heaven, thou art there: if I make my bed in hell, behold, thou art there.” A “behold” is added to the second clause, since it seems more a wonder to meet with God in hell than in heaven. Of course the presence of God produces very different effects in these places, but it is unquestionably in each; the bliss of one, the terror of the other.
JOHN MASON (1600-1672): The presence of God’s glory is in heaven; the presence of His power on earth; the presence of His justice in hell; and the presence of His grace is with His people. If He deny us His powerful presence, we fall into nothing; if He deny us His gracious presence, we fall into sin; if He deny us His merciful presence, we fall into hell.
WILLIAM ARNOT: “Hell and destruction are before the LORD: how much more then the hearts of the children of men?” Proverbs 15:11; This terrible truth these hearts secretly know, and their desperate writhings to shake it off show how much they dislike it.
MATTHEW HENRY: God is greater than our hearts, and knows them better than we know them ourselves, and therefore is an infallible Judge of every man’s character…No arts of concealment can hide men from the eye of God, nor deceive His judgment of them.
JOHN TRAPP: Hide he may, God from himself, but not himself from God.
JOHN CALVIN: There is then an application of the doctrine to our case; for we hence learn, that whatsoever we do, think, and speak, is known to God.
CHARLES SIMEON: There is one way, and only one, in which we can hide our sins from God; and that is, by fleeing to the Lord Jesus Christ for refuge: then, though God will behold the sinner, He will not behold the sin; for it shall all be “blotted out as a morning cloud,” and be “cast behind Him into the depths of the sea;” the vilest sinner in the universe, if he “be found in Christ,” shall be “without spot or blemish,” Ephesians 5:27. Such a hiding-place is Christ, of all that believe in Him, Isaiah 32:2; Acts 10:43. But it is in vain to hope that by any other means we shall escape the wrath of God: for “all things are naked and open unto the eyes of Him with whom we have to do,” Hebrews 4:13; and every sin not purged away by the blood of Jesus shall be visited with just and everlasting judgments.
CHARLES BRIDGES (1794-1869): How shall I meet these eyes? As a rebel or as a child? Do they inspire me with terror, or with love?
