Psalm 33
pt 4
In this section of the Psalm the writer considered the intimate knowledge that God has of every human, down to the innermost thoughts. First of all, there is no surveillance system like His. Cameras miss things, distort things and human perceptions and failings mar their memories of what they see. Even professionals get things wrong. Witness the continual unfolding in our culture of innocent people who have been prosecuted and jailed for crimes that other committed.
But even His observation goes further than merely that which might be seen. He has fashioned and formed them. Every molecule of them and all of the invisible things as well (soul, spirit) were created by Him. No inventor ever even came close to understanding his invention as well as the Living God knows His creatures.
13 The LORD looketh from heaven; he beholdeth all the sons of men. 14 From the place of his habitation he looketh upon all the inhabitants of the earth. 15 He fashioneth their hearts alike; he considereth all their works.
What David is not saying is that every heart is fashioned identically. Rather, “they are all alike in that it is He Who has fashioned their hearts.”
This means that His level of information concerning all of us is infinitely greater than we can even imagine.
Ever since He said, “be ye holy” (Lev 20:7), He has been recording in the minutest detail how each person has dealt with that, especially those who have had direct contact with scripture. Every action and every thought has been weighed on His perfect scales of Justice and the result has been (as it were) written in a book.
Every person who has ever undertaken to amend his ways, to repent of his sins, to turn from wickedness to righteousness has confronted the same reality as Belshazzar, “thou are weighed in the balance and found wanting.”
This incredible level of knowledge possessed by the Creator made necessary His determination to save His people by Sovereignly acting to give them the kind of spiritual life which contained the qualities that His All-Seeing Eye could observe without recording sin. “That which is born of God sinneth not,” we are told and this is why. What He observes must be without fault else He would condemn it.
This is one more incredible element of the Work of Christ. It was so effective that it atoned perfectly and completely for that wickedness which He could not but observe and judge. That Union with Christ which was created in that Work is also so effective that the life which was produced (“raised us up together with Him”) is approvable in His sight. How wonderful a work must be which can survive His gaze and still satisfy Him, that it produced a result such that He could take once wicked humans into
His Communion.
Matthew Henry had some good comments which I include below.
Ps 33:12-22
- The children of men are all under his eye, even their hearts are so; and all the motions and operations of their souls, which none know but they themselves, he knows better than they themselves, v. 13, 14.
Though the residence of God’s glory is in the highest heavens, yet thence he not only has a prospect of all the earth, but a particular inspection of all the inhabitants of the earth. He not only beholds them, but he looks upon them; he looks narrowly upon them (so the word here used is sometimes rendered), so narrowly that not the least thought can escape his observation. Atheists think that, because he dwells above in heaven, he cannot, or will not, take notice of what is done here in this lower world; but thence, high as it is, he sees us all, and all persons and thing are naked and open before him. - Their hearts, as well as their times, are all in his hand: He fashions their hearts. He made them at first, formed the spirit of each man within him, then when he brought him into being. Hence he is called the Father of spirits: and this is a good argument to prove that he perfectly knows them. The artist that made the clock, can account for the motions of every wheel. David uses this argument with application
to himself, Ps 139:1,14. He still moulds the hearts of men, turns them as the rivers of water, which way soever he pleases, to serve his own purposes, darkens or enlightens men’s understandings, stiffens or
bows their wills, according as he is pleased to make use of them. He that fashions men’s hearts fashions them alike. It is in hearts as in faces, though there is a great difference, and such a variety as that no two faces are exactly of the same features, nor any two hearts exactly of the same temper, yet there is such a similitude that, in some things, all faces and all hearts agree, as in water face answers to face, Prov
27:19. He fashions them together (so some read it); as the wheels of a watch, though of different shapes, sizes, and motions, are yet all put together, to serve one and the same purpose, so the hearts of
men and their dispositions, however varying from each other and seeming to contradict one another, are yet all overruled to serve the divine purpose, which is one. - They, and all they do, are obnoxious to his judgment; for he considers all their works, not only knows them, but weighs them, that he may render to every man according to his works, in the day, in the world, of retribution, in the judgment, and to eternity. (from Matthew Henry’s Commentary on the Whole Bible: New Modern Edition, Electronic Database. Copyright (c) 1991 by Hendrickson Publishers, Inc.)