Sensing the Unknowable: Sensing revelation, relationship, and response in Psalm 139

Abstract

Psalms write and express revelation, relationship and response on and through the body; corporeal vocabulary, awareness of embodiment and somatic metaphors abound. This rhetoric draws people in through reference to common experience and uses somatic language to express thoughts and emotions which often escape conceptualiszation, such as confusion, fear, and protection. Psalm 139 uses sensory language to stress how the Psalmist cannot escape God’s knowledge and power, and states that understanding God’s power is beyond humans. Movement, pressure and touch highlight presence and protection, and sensory awareness establishes a relationship between the protector and protected. I consider translations of tesukeni and yeshupeni and sensory metaphors, closing with a treatment of sensory awareness and cognitive understanding within the Psalm.

Keywords

• sensation
• embodied experience
• psalms
• hebrew bible