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Psalm 139:17

How precious to me are your thoughts, God! How vast is their sum!

15My frame wasn’t hidden from you, when I was made in secret, woven together in the depths of the earth.
16Your 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.
17How precious to me are your thoughts, God! How vast is their sum!
18If I would count them, they are more in number than the sand. When I wake up, I am still with you.
19If only you, God, would kill the wicked. Get away from me, you bloodthirsty men!
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← Psalm 139:16Psalm 139:18 →
Notice

God’s thoughts are called both precious and vast, joining personal delight with wonder at a sum too great to count.

Questions to write on. Each one opens a new entry with this verse already attached.

What makes God’s thoughts precious to you, beyond the comfort of being known?

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How does the vastness of God’s thoughts affect your desire to understand what he is doing?

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Connect

Where else Scripture says this

8 passages readers most often link with this verse, and the thread each one shares with it.

This verse's connections, by chapterThe Bible's strongest chapter linksHover or tap a book to trace it
Psalm 40:5Many, LORD, my God, are the wonderful works which you have done, and your thoughts which are toward us. They can’t be declared back to you. If I would declare …Both psalms marvel at the number of God’s thoughts, describing a sum beyond human counting.
Psalm 92:5How great are your works, LORD! Your thoughts are very deep.Both psalms speak of God’s thoughts with wonder, one naming their vastness and the other their depth.
Jeremiah 29:11For I know the thoughts that I think toward you,” says the LORD, “thoughts of peace, and not of evil, to give you hope and a future.Jeremiah describes God’s thoughts toward his hearers as peace and hope; the psalm expresses how precious God’s thoughts are.
Isaiah 55:8–9“For my thoughts are not your thoughts, and your ways are not my ways,” says the LORD.God’s thoughts are central to both texts, described as vast in the psalm and distinct from human thoughts in Isaiah.
Psalm 68:19Blessed be the Lord, who daily bears our burdens, even the God who is our salvation. Selah.Both verses praise God, though one treasures his thoughts and the other blesses him for bearing burdens.
Psalm 36:7How precious is your loving kindness, God! The children of men take refuge under the shadow of your wings.Both psalms call something of God precious: his thoughts in Psalm 139 and his loving kindness in Psalm 36.
Ephesians 3:9–10and to make all men see what is the administration of the mystery which for ages has been hidden in God, who created all things through Jesus Christ,The connection is broad: the psalm treasures God’s thoughts, while Ephesians describes a mystery hidden in God through the ages.
Proverbs 8:31rejoicing in his whole world. My delight was with the sons of men.The shared thread is delight, directed toward God’s thoughts in the psalm and toward human beings in Proverbs.
Where this verse fits

Praise and worship. gratitude.

What the Bible says about worship →What the Bible says about gratitude →
One step

Something small to carry out of this verse

Read Psalm 139:15–18 and write one reason for wonder

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Encouragement

There is room for wonder even where understanding runs out. The psalmist treasures God’s thoughts while confessing that their sum exceeds his grasp.

Now put it in your words.

Start an entry on Psalm 139:17. Write what it stirs. Psalmlog sets your words beside Scripture and gives you one next step. Your first entry is free, no account needed.

Keep goingPsalm 139 · the whole chapter with its connection mapPsalms · every chapterBuild a reading plan through Psalms

Cross-reference data from OpenBible.info (CC BY). Scripture from the World English Bible (public domain). Arc diagram after Chris Harrison and Christoph Römhild (2007).