Notes on Psalm 139:1

What follows are notes from Dr. Gary Staats on Psalm 139:1 which I am transcribing from an audio tape.

Psalm 139 is a great psalm concerning God’s great omniscience, omnipotence and omnipresence. He knows us. He knows all about us. He’s always with us, and He is all powerful. This is a text of reassurance of the Lord’s constant knowledge of us including our every thought and word. It is an intimate, personal relationship that we see from this psalm.

It begins,לַמְנַצֵּחַ לְדָוִד מִזְמוֹר for the leader by David a Psalm. לַ is a preposition. Notice the patha under it showing the definite article “For the” and then מְנַצֵּחַ is a piel participle meaning “leader” or “preeminent one.” Notice we have a shewa followed by a patha and then the doubling of the middle radical in the tsade with a furtive patha under the chet. We would render it, “For the preeminent one, or leader, to David, or belonging to David, - a Psalm.”
The lamed here is probably a lamed autholis, a lamed of authorship. It shows that David is the author of the Psalm. דָוִד is just David, a proper name. מִזְמוֹר is a noun that means “song.”

יְהוָה חֲקַרְתַּנִי וַתֵּדָע
Oh, Lord, you have searched me and you have known me.

יְהוָה is the tetragammaton meaning “the eternal covenant God,” or “Yahweh,” and חֲקַרְתַּנִי is a Qal perfect 2nd masculine singular with the fist person singular pronominal suffix נִי meaning “me.”
וַתֵּדָע “and you know me.” The waw is a conjunction, “and,” followed by the verb תֵּדָע which is a Qal imperfect 2nd masculine singular with a waw conversive from the root ידע “he knows.” Notice the yod has dropped out here or elided and we have compensatory lengthening from what was historically a pe waw verb, תִודָע becoming תֵּדָע when the waw dropped out.