Passage

Psalms 139.13-16

Book: Psalms · NASB95

"For You formed my inward parts; You wove me in my mother's womb. I will give thanks to You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made; Wonderful are Your works, And my soul knows it very well. My frame was not hidden from You, When I was made in secret, And skillfully wrought in the depths of the earth; Your eyes have seen my unformed substance; And in Your book were all written The days that were ordained for me, When as yet there was not one of them." (Psalms 139:13-16, NASB95)

Psalms 139:13-16 is the load-bearing Old Testament text for the sanctity-of-life apologetic and for the doctrine that God's personal knowledge of an individual precedes that individual's birth, awareness, or capacity for response. The four verses move from craftsmanship (formed, wove) to wonder (fearfully and wonderfully made) to hidden visibility (not hidden from You) to pre-temporal foreknowledge (days that were ordained for me, when as yet there was not one of them). Read together with Jeremiah 1.5 ("Before I formed you in the womb I knew you") and Job 31.15 and Psalms 51.5, the passage anchors a unified Hebrew anthropology in which personhood, divine knowledge, and intentional formation begin in utero.

Immediate context (±2 verses)

ASV (ASV)

"11. If I say, Surely the darkness shall overwhelm me, And the light about me shall be night; 12. Even the darkness hideth not from thee, But the night shineth as the day: The darkness and the light are both alike to thee."

"13. For thou didst form my inward parts: Thou didst cover me in my mother's womb. 14. I will give thanks unto thee; For I am fearfully and wonderfully made: Wonderful are thy works; And that my soul knoweth right well. 15. My frame was not hidden from thee, When I was made in secret, And curiously wrought in the lowest parts of the earth. 16. Thine eyes did see mine unformed substance; And in thy book they were all written, Even the days that were ordained for me, When as yet there was none of them."

"17. How precious also are thy thoughts unto me, O God! How great is the sum of them! 18. If I should count them, they are more in number than the sand: When I awake, I am still with thee." (Psalms 139:11-18, ASV)

WEB (WEB)

"11. If I say, "Surely the darkness will overwhelm me; the light around me will be night"; 12. even the darkness doesn't hide from you, but the night shines as the day. The darkness is like light to you."

"13. For you formed my inmost being. You knit me together in my mother's womb. 14. I will give thanks to you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Your works are wonderful. My soul knows that very well. 15. My frame wasn't hidden from you, when I was made in secret, woven together in the depths of the earth. 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."

"17. How precious to me are your thoughts, God! How vast is their sum! 18. If I would count them, they are more in number than the sand. When I wake up, I am still with you." (Psalms 139:11-18, WEB)

KJV (KJV)

"11. If I say, Surely the darkness shall cover me; even the night shall be light about me. 12. Yea, the darkness hideth not from thee; but the night shineth as the day: the darkness and the light are both alike to thee."

"13. For thou hast possessed my reins: thou hast covered me in my mother's womb. 14. I will praise thee; for I am fearfully and wonderfully made: marvellous are thy works; and that my soul knoweth right well. 15. My substance was not hid from thee, when I was made in secret, and curiously wrought in the lowest parts of the earth. 16. Thine eyes did see my substance, yet being unperfect; and in thy book all my members were written, which in continuance were fashioned, when as yet there was none of them."

"17. How precious also are thy thoughts unto me, O God! how great is the sum of them! 18. If I should count them, they are more in number than the sand: when I awake, I am still with thee." (Psalms 139:11-18, KJV)

YLT (YLT)

"11. And I say, 'Surely darkness bruiseth me, Then night [is] light to me. 12. Also darkness hideth not from Thee, And night as day shineth, as [is] darkness so [is] light."

"13. For Thou, Thou hast possessed my reins, Thou dost cover me in my mother's belly. 14. I confess Thee, because that [with] wonders I have been distinguished. Wonderful [are] Thy works, And my soul is knowing [it] well. 15. My substance was not hid from Thee, When I was made in secret, Curiously wrought in the lower part of earth. 16. Mine unformed substance Thine eyes saw, And on Thy book all of them are written, The days they were formed, And not one among them."

"17. And to me how precious have been Thy thoughts, O God, how great hath been their sum! 18. I recount them! than the sand they are more, I have waked, and I am still with Thee." (Psalms 139:11-18, YLT)

Setting

Speaker: David, in first-person prayer
Audience: YHWH, addressed directly; secondarily the worshipping assembly of Israel
Location: Israel (ascribed to David; specific occasion not preserved)
Time period: c. 1000 BC, late Davidic monarchy

Theological reading

The four verses are a single argument moving from formation to foreknowledge. Formed my inward parts uses the verb qanah (KJV "possessed my reins") for the most hidden organ-systems; wove (KJV "covered", sakak) and the parallel skillfully wrought (raqam, the language of embroidery) describe the womb as God's textile workshop. The point is craftsmanship under sustained personal attention, not a delegated biological process. David's response is not biological wonder in the abstract but praise: I will give thanks to You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. The unborn body is the object of divine artistry and the legitimate object of awe.

Verse 16 raises the metaphysical stakes. Your eyes have seen my unformed substance (golem, an undifferentiated mass) means God's personal knowledge precedes the formed body; in Your book were all written the days that were ordained for me, when as yet there was not one of them extends that knowledge to the entire lifespan before any of it exists. This is a strong statement of divine providential foreknowledge: not merely that God will know what happens, but that the totality of a person's days is already inscribed in the divine record before any day occurs. Combined with Jeremiah 1.5, where YHWH's knowledge and consecration of Jeremiah precedes his formation in the womb, this gives the biblical foundation for preformation theology and for the pro-life argument that the unborn are persons known by God.

The pro-life deployment is straightforward: if God personally forms, knows, and ordains the days of the human being in utero, then the human being in utero is the kind of thing it is wrong to destroy. The argument does not require resolving the question of when "ensoulment" occurs in patristic terms because Psalm 139 collapses the question; the unborn are already the object of God's personal craftsmanship and foreknowledge from a stage prior to formed substance (golem). See Pro-Life Premise-Based Argument for the structured deployment.

Key words

H6213 - asah, asah, "to make / to work"; the language of divine making applied to the body in utero.
H3045 - yada, yada, "to know"; the cognate for God's intimate personal knowledge of the unborn (cf. Jeremiah 1.5).
H5315 - nephesh, nephesh, "soul / living being"; David's nephesh "knows it very well" the wonder of being made.

Theological themes

Sanctity of life from conception. God's personal craftsmanship begins in utero; the unborn are already objects of divine work.
Divine foreknowledge. The complete lifespan is written in God's book before any of it exists, anchoring a strong reading of providence.
Embodied wonder. The body is fearfully and wonderfully made, not a contingent vehicle for the soul but the object of divine artistry.
Hidden visibility. Darkness and womb-depth do not hide from God; nothing about creaturely existence is private to the creator.
Personal address. The Psalm is sustained second-person prayer; the doctrine of providence is embedded in worship, not in abstract metaphysics.

Cross-references

Jeremiah 1.5 - "Before I formed you in the womb I knew you"; the strongest parallel to verse 16's pre-formation knowledge.
Job 31.15 - "Did not He who made me in the womb make him?"; the unborn share the same maker as the born.
Psalms 51.5 - David's own conception language ("In sin my mother conceived me"); the same womb-stage as the object of theological reflection.
Luke 1.41-44 - John the Baptist's prenatal recognition of the unborn Christ; New Testament confirmation of in-utero personhood.
Genesis 1.26 - the image-of-God anthropology that Psalm 139 presupposes.

Quoted in

Why these four translations

ris3n chose ASV, WEB, KJV, and YLT for two reasons together. They are the most literal English translations available (formal-equivalence: word-for-word renderings that preserve the Hebrew and Greek grammar rather than smoothing it into modern dynamic-equivalence idiom). And they are in the public domain in the United States, which means fair-use quotation at any length requires no publisher license. Modern licensed translations (NASB95, ESV, NIV) restrict volume of quotation under their copyright terms, so they are not used at stub-level coverage here. NASB95 appears only on hand-curated rich passage hubs under Lockman Foundation's fair-use allowance.

The four:

ASV (American Standard Version, 1901). The basis of the modern critical-text English tradition.
WEB (World English Bible, contemporary). Public-domain revision in the ASV line, in current English.
KJV (King James Version, 1611). Reformation-era, Textus Receptus base.
YLT (Young's Literal Translation, Robert Young, 1862). Hyper-literal preservation of Hebrew and Greek grammar; useful for word-study work even where English reads stiff.

See Bibles for the full per-translation history, translators, textual basis, strengths, and weaknesses.