If I should count them, they would be more in number than the sand; When I awake, I am still with You.
Parallel translations
- WEB If I would count them, they are more in number than the sand. When I wake up, I am still with you.
- KJV If I should count them, they are more in number than the sand: when I awake, I am still with thee.
- BSB If I were to count them, they would outnumber the grains of sand; and when I awake, I am still with You.
- NASB Were I to count them, they would outnumber the sand. When I awake, I am still with You.
- NLT I can’t even count them; they outnumber the grains of sand! And when I wake up, you are still with me!
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Scripture quotations taken from the (NASB®) New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1971, 1977, 1995, 2020 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved. lockman.org
Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.
Quick answer
God's thoughts toward David are more numerous than the sand, and waking he is still with God. It assures the believer of God's constant, abundant, unbroken presence.
Overview
The image of sand expresses thoughts beyond all counting, and 'when I wake up, I am still with you' conveys God's continual nearness through every moment, even sleep. Whether this hints at hope beyond death is debated, but at minimum it affirms unbroken fellowship with God. For the believer this communion is sealed forever in Christ, who promises never to leave us (Hebrews 13:5).
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 10
- Ps 3:5I laid myself down and slept. I awakened; for Yahweh sustains me.
- Ps 139:3You search out my path and my lying down, and are acquainted with all my ways.
- Ps 40:5Many, Yahweh, 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 and speak of them, they are more than can be counted.
- 1 Th 5:10who died for us, that, whether we wake or sleep, we should live together with him.
- Ps 17:15As for me, I shall see your face in righteousness. I shall be satisfied, when I awake, with seeing your form.
- Ps 16:8–11I have set Yahweh always before me. Because he is at my right hand, I shall not be moved.
- Ps 63:6–7when I remember you on my bed, and think about you in the night watches.
- Dan 12:2Many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt.
- Isa 26:19Your dead shall live. My dead bodies shall arise. Awake and sing, you who dwell in the dust; for your dew is like the dew of herbs, and the earth will cast out the departed spirits.
- Ps 40:12For innumerable evils have surrounded me. My iniquities have overtaken me, so that I am not able to look up. They are more than the hairs of my head. My heart has failed me.
Themes, concepts, people & topics
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Christ at the center
The Psalms are Christ's own prayer book and a gallery of his portraits — the suffering one of Psalm 22, the risen Lord of Psalm 16, the priest-king of Psalm 110, the Son to whom the nations are given.
How Psalms 139:18 points to him is part of the one story that runs through all Scripture — meet Jesus at the heart of the web, or follow a trail that traces him from Genesis to Revelation.
Original language
Each word below is tagged with its Strong’s number — tap one to see the underlying Hebrew word, its meaning, and every verse that uses it.