13 For Thou, Thou hast formed my reins, Thou hast woven me together in my mother's womb. 14 I will thank Thee for that in dread fashion I am wondrously made Wondrous are Thy works, And my soul knows [it] well. 15 My bones were not hid from Thee, When I was made in secret, [And] wrought like embroidery [as] in the depths of the earth. 16 Thine eyes saw my shapeless mass, And in Thy book were they all written, The days [that] were fashioned, And yet there was not one among them. 17 And to me how precious are Thy thoughts, O God, How great is their sum! 18 Would I reckon them, they outnumber the sand; I awake--and am still with Thee. 19 Oh, if Thou wouldest smite the wicked, O God! --And [ye] men of blood, depart from me, 20 Who rebel against Thee with wicked deeds, They lift up [themselves] against Thee vainly (?) 21 Do not I hate them which hate Thee, Jehovah? And am not I grieved with those who rise against Thee? 22 With perfect hatred I hate them, They are counted for enemies to me. 23 Search me, O God, and know my heart, Try me and know my thoughts, 24 And see if there be any way of grief in me, And lead me in a way everlasting. This is the noblest utterance in the Psalter of pure contemplative theism, animated and not crushed by the thought of God's omniscience and omnipresence. No less striking than the unequalled force and sublimity with which the psalm hymns the majestic attributes of an all-filling, all-knowing, all-creating God, is the firmness with which the singer's personal relation to that God is grasped. Only in the last verses is there reference to other men. In the earlier parts of the psalm, there are but two beings in the universe--God and the psalmist. With impressive reiteration, God's attributes are gazed on in their bearing on him. Not mere omniscience, but a knowledge which knows _him_ altogether, not mere omnipresence, but a presence which _he_ can nowhere escape, not mere creative power, but a power which shaped _him_, fill and thrill the psalmist's soul. This is no cold theism, but vivid religion. Conscience and the consciousness of individual relation to God penetrate and vitalise the whole. Hence the sudden turn to prayer against evil men and for the singer's direction in the right way, which closes the hymn, is natural, however abrupt. The course of thought is plain. There are four strophes of six verses each,--of which the first (vv. 1-6) magnifies God's omniscience; the second (vv. 7-12), His omnipresence; the third (vv. 13-18), His creative act, as the ground of the preceding attributes; and the fourth (vv. 19-24) recoils from men who rebel against such a God, and joyfully submits to the searching of His omniscient eye, and the guidance of His ever-present hand.