Psalm 139:16 NKJV
Your eyes saw my substance, being yet unformed.
And in Your book they all were written,
The days fashioned for me,
When as yet there were none of them.
The Architect’s Sketchbook
My Notes
“Your eyes saw my substance, being yet unformed. And in Your book they all were written, The days fashioned for me, When as yet there were none of them.” — Psalm 139:16, NKJV
This verse draws us into one of the most astonishing aspects of God’s relationship with us—His omniscience joined with His intimate care. David is overwhelmed by the thought that before he had form or breath, before even one day of his life began, God already knew everything about him. Nothing about David’s existence was accidental. Every detail—his frame, his personality, his strengths, his path—was seen, recorded, and purposed by the Lord.
David tells us that God saw our “substance”—our essential being—while we were still “unperfect” or unformed. This isn’t just casual observation; it is the intent and intentional gaze of a Creator who knows the end from the beginning. While you were still an embryo, God was already recording the “specifications” of your personality, your physical traits, and—most amazingly—your days.
The phrase “the days fashioned for me” suggests that God didn’t just make you and then leave you to wander through life by chance. He mapped out a purpose. He “fashioned” (literally formed or determined) the periods of your life before you even drew your first breath. When there was “none of them”—not a single Monday morning or Friday night—they were already recorded in His book. I like how Albert Barnes phrased it, “what would be the events of my life.”
This truth is a powerful antidote to the feeling that life is random or that we are “accidents.” You are not a surprise to God. Your difficult days, your seasons of joy, and your quiet moments of growth were all seen by Him long ago. As Spurgeon noted, “God saw us when we could not be seen, and He wrote about us when there was nothing of us to write about.”
And it goes further. For believers, this truth holds eternal meaning. God not only fashioned the days of our earthly lives—He has also written our names in another book:
“And anyone not found written in the Book of Life was cast into the lake of fire.” — Revelation 20:15, NKJV
Because of Jesus Christ, those who belong to Him have their lives recorded forever in that greater book of redemption. He who saw us before we were formed now secures us for everlasting life.
So yes, your days are known—but they are also held. God not only foresaw your story; He walks with you in it. You never surprise Him, and you are never beyond His sight or His script of grace.
Prayer
Abba, I am overwhelmed by the thought that You have a sketchbook for my life. Thank You for seeing me when I was unformed and for loving me before I existed. When I feel like my life is chaotic or without purpose, remind me that my days were fashioned by Your hand before any of them began. Help me to trust Your timing and Your plan, knowing that You are the Perfect Architect who finishes what He starts. I thank You for this in Jesus’ name, amen.
Key Takeaways
- God’s Foreknowledge is Intentional: He didn’t just “predict” your life; He designed it with specific intent.
- No Life is an Accident: Your physical form and the length of your days were settled in the divine mind before you were born.
- The Blueprint of Grace: God’s “book” includes not just your physical members, but the purpose and “good works” He prepared for you to walk in.
- Security in the Plan: Because God wrote the book, we can trust that He knows how to navigate the chapters we haven’t read yet.
Cross References (NKJV)
- Job 10:8,12: “Your hands have made me and fashioned me, an intricate unity… You have granted me life and favor, and Your care has preserved my spirit.”
- Jeremiah 1:5: “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you; before you were born I sanctified you.”
- Ephesians 2:10: “For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.”
- Psalm 56:8: “You number my wanderings; put my tears into Your bottle; are they not in Your book?”
- Revelation 3:5: “He who overcomes shall be clothed in white garments, and I will not blot out his name from the Book of Life.”
Things to Think About
- How does it make you feel to know God saw you before you were even formed?
- Reflect on a time when God’s plan became clear only in hindsight. How does that build your confidence in His design for future days?
- What parts of your story are hardest for you to trust God with? How might today’s verse reshape your perspective?
Proverb for Today
In the fear of the Lord there is strong confidence, And His children will have a place of refuge. The fear of the Lord is a fountain of life, To turn one away from the snares of death. Proverbs 14:26-27 NKJV
Daily Scripture
Nevertheless the solid foundation of God stands, having this seal: “The Lord knows those who are His,” and, “Let everyone who names the name of Christ depart from iniquity.” 2 Timothy 2:19 NKJV
Closing
“The Lord bless you and keep you; The Lord make His face shine upon you, And be gracious to you; The Lord lift up His countenance upon you, And give you peace.” ’ Numbers 6:24-26 NKJV
Grace be with you. Amen.
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Summary of Commentaries:
Psalm 139:16 highlights God’s omniscience and intentionality. Commentators like Spurgeon and Barnes explain that God perceives our “unformed substance” long before physical development, acting as a divine Architect who drafts a masterpiece in His book. This blueprints not only our physical members but also the very days and events of our lives. Because every detail is divinely appointed, we are called to humility, valuing ourselves and others as God’s purposeful, sacred creations.
Commentaries:
Charles Spurgeon
“Thine eyes did see my substance, yet being unperfect.” While as yet the vessel was upon the wheel, the Potter saw it all. The Lord knows not only our shape, but our substance: this is substantial knowledge indeed. The Lord’s observation of us is intent and intentional,—”Thine eyes did see.” Moreover, the divine mind discerns all things as clearly and certainly as men perceive by actual eyesight. His is not hearsay acquaintance, but the knowledge which comes of sight.
“And in thy book all my members were written, which in continuance were fashioned, when as yet there was none of them.” An architect draws his plans, and makes out his specifications; even so did the great Maker of our frame write down all our members in the book of his purposes. That we have eyes, and ears, and hands, and feet, is all due to the wise and gracious purpose of heaven; it was so ordered in the secret decree by which all things are as they are. God’s purposes concern our limbs and faculties. Their form, and shape, and everything about them were appointed of God long before they had any existence. God saw us when we could not be seen, and he wrote about us when there was nothing of us to write about. When as yet there were none of our members in existence, all those members were before the eye of God in the sketch-book of his foreknowledge and predestination.
This verse is an exceedingly difficult one to translate, but we do not think that any of the proposed amendments are better than the rendering afforded us by the Authorized Version. The large number of words in italics will warn the English reader that the sense is hard to come at, and difficult to express, and that it would be unwise to found any doctrine upon the English words; happily, there is no temptation to do so.
The great truth expressed in these lines has, by many, been referred to the formation of the mystical body of our Lord Jesus. Of course, what is true of man, as man, is emphatically true of Him who is the representative man. The great Lord knows who belong to Christ; his eye perceives the chosen members who shall yet be made one with the living person of the mystical Christ. Those of the elect who are as yet unborn, or unrenewed, are nevertheless written in the Lord’s book. As the form of Eve grew up in silence and secrecy under the fashioning hand of the Maker, so at this hour is the Bride being fashioned for the Lord Jesus; or, to change the figure,—a body is being prepared in which the life and glory of the indwelling Lord shall forever be displayed. The Lord knoweth them that are his: he has a specially familiar acquaintance with the members of the body of Christ; he sees their substance, unperfect though they be.
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Enduring Word
Your eyes saw my substance, being yet unformed: What David (and others) could not see, God could see perfectly. This is another demonstration of his perfect knowledge and care. (Guzik)
i. The Puritan commentator John Trapp had a strange statement on the phrase, which was not hidden: “Aquinas saith that at the resurrection the bodies of the saints shall be so clear and transparent that all the veins, humours, nerves, and bowels shall be seen, as in a glass. It is sure that they are so to God when first formed in the womb.”
In Your book they were all written, the days fashioned for me: God’s perfect knowledge did not only extend to the past, before David was born. It also extended to the future, and God knew David’s days as if they had been written in a book. (Guzik)
i. “The Lord’s writing in the book (cf. Psalm 51:1; Psalm 69:28) refers to God’s knowledge and blessing of his child ‘all the days’ of his life (cf. Ephesians 2:10). His life was written in the book of life, and each of his days was numbered.” (VanGemeren)
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Albert Barnes
Thine eyes did see my substance, yet being unperfect – This whole verse is very obscure, but the “idea” in this expression clearly is, “Before I had shape or form thou didst see what I was to be.” The single word in the original translated “my substance, yet being unperfect,” is גלם gôlem. It occurs only in this place, though the verb – גלם gâlam – is found in 2 Kings 2:8, where it is used in reference to the mantle of Elijah: And Elijah took his mantle, and “wrapped it together,” etc. That is, he rolled it up, or he folded it. The noun, then, means that which “is” rolled or wrapped together; that which is folded up, and hence, is applicable to anything folded up or undeveloped; and would thus most aptly denote the embryo, or the foetus, where all the members of the body are as yet folded up, or undeveloped; that is, before they have assumed their distinct form and proportions. This is undoubtedly the idea here. Before the embryo had any such form that its future size, shape, or proportions could be marked by the eye of man, it was clearly and distinctly known by God.
And in thy book – Where thou recordest all things. Perhaps the allusion here would be to the book of an architect or draftsman, who, before his work is begun, draws his plan, or sketches it for the direction of the workmen.
All my members were written – The words “my members” are not in the original. The Hebrew is, as in the margin, “all of them.” The reference may be, not to the members of his body, but to his “days” (see the margin on the succeeding phrase) – and then the sense would be, all my “days,” or all the periods of my life, were delineated in thy book. That is, When my substance – my form – was not yet developed, when yet an embryo, and when nothing could be determined from that by the eye of man as to what I was to be, all the future was known to God, and was written down – just what should be my form and vigor; how long I should live; what I should be; what would be the events of my life.
Which in continuance were fashioned – Margin, “What days they should be fashioned.” Literally, “Days should be formed.” DeWette renders this, “The days were determined before any one of them was.” There is nothing in the Hebrew to correspond with the phrase “in continuance.” The simple idea is, the days of my life were determined on, the whole matter was fixed and settled, not by anything seen in the embryo, but “before” there was any form – before there were any means of judging from what I then was to what I would be – all was seen and arranged in the divine mind.
When as yet there was none of them – literally, “And not one among them.” Before there was one of them in actual existence. Not one development had yet occurred from which it could be inferred what the rest would be. The entire knowledge on the subject must have been based on Omniscience.
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John Gill
Thine eyes did see my substance, yet being unperfect,…. The word for “substance” signifies a bottom of yarn wound up, or any rude or unformed lump; and designs that conglomerated mass of matter separated in the womb, containing all the essentials of the human frame, but not yet distinguished or reduced into any form or order; yet, even when in this state, the eyes of the Lord see it and all its parts distinctly;
and in thy book all [my members] were written: [which] in continuance were fashioned, when [as yet there was] none of them; in the book of God’s eternal mind, and designs, the plan of the human body was drawn, all the parts of it described, and their form, places, and uses fixed, even when as yet not one of them was in actual being; but in due time they are all exactly formed and fashioned according to the model of them in the mind of God; who has as perfect knowledge of them beforehand as if they were written down in a book before him, Or “in thy book are written all [of them], what days they should be fashioned”; not only each of the members of the body were put down in this book, but each of the days in which they should be formed and come into order: “when” as yet there was “none of them”; none of those days, before they took place, even before all time; the Targum is, “in the book of thy memory all my days are written, in the day the world was created, from the beginning that all creatures were created.”
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Matthew Henry
As a great mercy, that all our members in continuance were fashioned, according as they were written in the book of God’s wise counsel, when as yet there was none of them; or, as some read it, and none of them was left out. If any of our members had been wanting in God’s book, they would have been wanting in our bodies, but, through his goodness, we have all our limbs and senses, the want of any of which might have made us burdens to ourselves. See what reason we have then to praise God for our creation, and to conclude that he who saw our substance when it was unfashioned sees it now that it is fashioned.
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Miscellaneous Comments
“Thine eyes did see my substance, yet being unperfect,” etc. From whence we may learn, first, not to be proud of what we are; all’s the work of God. How beautiful or comely, how wise or holy soever you are, ’tis not of yourselves. What hath any man, either in naturals or supernaturals, which he hath not received? Secondly, despise not what others are or have, though they are not such exact pieces, though they have not such excellent endowments as yourselves; yet they are what God hath made them. Thirdly, despise not what yourselves are. Many are ashamed to be seen as God made them; few ale ashamed to be seen what the devil hath made them. Many are troubled at small defects in the outward man; few are troubled at the greatest deformities of the inward man: many buy artificial beauty to supply the natural; few spiritual, to supply the defects of the supernatural beauty of the soul.
—Abraham Wright.
A skillful architect, before he builds, draws a model, or gives a draught of the building in his book, or upon a table; there he will show you every room and contrivance: in his book are all the parts of the building written, while as yet there are none of them, or before any of them are framed and set up. In allusion to architects and other artisans, David speaks of God, “In thy book all my members were written;” that is, Thou hast made me as exactly as if thou hadst drawn my several members and my whole proportion with a pen or pencil in a book, before thou wouldst adventure to form me up. The Lord uses no book, no pen to decipher his work. He had the perfect idea of all things in himself from everlasting, but he may well be said to work as by pattern, whose work is the most perfect pattern.
—Joseph Caryl.
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