(18) If I should . . .--The original is more expressive:--
"Let me count them--more than the sand they are many:
I have awaked--and still with thee."
With the countless mysteries of creation and providence the poet is so occupied, that they are his first waking thought; or, perhaps, as the Hebrew suggests, his dreams are continued into his early thoughts.
"Is not the vision He? tho' He be not that which He seems?
Dreams are true while they last; and do we not live in dreams?"
Verse 18. - If I should count them, they are more in number than the sand (comp. Psalm 40:5, "Thy thoughts which are to usward cannot be reckoned up"). When I awake, I am still with thee. I meditate on thee, both sleeping and waking, nor ever find the subject of my thought exhausted.
139:17-24 God's counsels concerning us and our welfare are deep, such as cannot be known. We cannot think how many mercies we have received from him. It would help to keep us in the fear of the Lord all the day long, if, when we wake in the morning, our first thoughts were of him: and how shall we admire and bless our God for his precious salvation, when we awake in the world of glory! Surely we ought not to use our members and senses, which are so curiously fashioned, as instruments of unrighteousness unto sin. But our immortal and rational souls are a still more noble work and gift of God. Yet if it were not for his precious thoughts of love to us, our reason and our living for ever would, through our sins, prove the occasion of our eternal misery. How should we then delight to meditate on God's love to sinners in Jesus Christ, the sum of which exceeds all reckoning! Sin is hated, and sinners lamented, by all who fear the Lord. Yet while we shun them we should pray for them; with God their conversion and salvation are possible. As the Lord knows us thoroughly, and we are strangers to ourselves, we should earnestly desire and pray to be searched and proved by his word and Spirit. if there be any wicked way in me, let me see it; and do thou root it out of me. The way of godliness is pleasing to God, and profitable to us; and will end in everlasting life. It is the good old way. All the saints desire to be kept and led in this way, that they may not miss it, turn out of it, or tire in it.
If I should count them, they are more in number than the sand,...., That is, if I should attempt to do it, it would be as vain and fruitless as to attempt to count the sands upon the seashore, which are innumerable; Psalm 11:5. So Pindar says (s), that sand flies number, that is, is not to be numbered; though the Pythian oracle boastingly said (t), I know the number of the sand, and the measures of the sea; to which Lucan (u) may have respect when he says, measure is not wanting to the ocean, nor number to the sand; hence geometricians affect to know them; so Archytas the mathematician, skilled in geometry and arithmetic, is described and derided by Horace (w) as the measurer of the earth and sea, and of the sand without number; and Archimedes wrote a book called (x), of the number of the sand, still extant (y), in which he proves that it is not infinite, but that if even the whole world was sand it might be numbered; but the thoughts of God are infinite;
when I wake, I am still with thee; after I have been reckoning them up all the day, and then fall asleep at night to refresh nature after such fatiguing researches; when I awake in the morning and go to it again, I am just where I was, and have got no further knowledge of God and his thoughts, and have as many to count as at first setting out, and far from coming to the end of them: or else the sense is, as I was under thine eye and care even in the womb, before I was born, so I have been ever since, and always am, whether sleeping or waking; I lay myself down and sleep in safety, and rise in the morning refreshed and healthful, and still continue the care of thy providence: it would be well if we always awaked with God in our thoughts, sensible of his favours, thankful for them, and enjoying his gracious presence; as it will be the happiness of the saints, that, when they shall awake in the resurrection morn, they shall be with God, and for ever enjoy him.
(s) Olymp. Ode 2. in fine. (t) Apud Herodot. Clio, sive l. 1. c. 47. (u) Pharsal. l. 5. v. 182. (w) Carmin. l. 1. Ode. 28. v. 1, 2.((x) Vid. Turnebi Advers. l. 26. c. 1.((y) Fabrit. Biblioth. Gr. l. 3. c. 22. s. 8.
"Let me count them--more than the sand they are many:
I have awaked--and still with thee."
With the countless mysteries of creation and providence the poet is so occupied, that they are his first waking thought; or, perhaps, as the Hebrew suggests, his dreams are continued into his early thoughts.
"Is not the vision He? tho' He be not that which He seems?
Dreams are true while they last; and do we not live in dreams?"
TENNYSON: Higher Pantheism.
when I wake, I am still with thee; after I have been reckoning them up all the day, and then fall asleep at night to refresh nature after such fatiguing researches; when I awake in the morning and go to it again, I am just where I was, and have got no further knowledge of God and his thoughts, and have as many to count as at first setting out, and far from coming to the end of them: or else the sense is, as I was under thine eye and care even in the womb, before I was born, so I have been ever since, and always am, whether sleeping or waking; I lay myself down and sleep in safety, and rise in the morning refreshed and healthful, and still continue the care of thy providence: it would be well if we always awaked with God in our thoughts, sensible of his favours, thankful for them, and enjoying his gracious presence; as it will be the happiness of the saints, that, when they shall awake in the resurrection morn, they shall be with God, and for ever enjoy him.
(s) Olymp. Ode 2. in fine. (t) Apud Herodot. Clio, sive l. 1. c. 47. (u) Pharsal. l. 5. v. 182. (w) Carmin. l. 1. Ode. 28. v. 1, 2.((x) Vid. Turnebi Advers. l. 26. c. 1.((y) Fabrit. Biblioth. Gr. l. 3. c. 22. s. 8.