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: — This psalm is as near an approach to Pantheism as the Bible ever gets; yet it is wholly distinct from Pantheism. It does not make everything a part of God, but insists that God is in everything and every place. The writer feels Him in every movement of the circling air, and hears Him in every sound. God is here, and there, and everywhere, in the heights and in the depths, in the darkness and the light, filling all star-lit spaces and searching each human heart.

I. THE SPIRIT AND PRESENCE WHICH NO MAN CAN ESCAPE. It is a bit of his own story. He had not always found peace and joy in the overshadowing of Divine love. There had been a load upon his conscience, and torturing guilt in his heart. He had endeavoured to run away from the wrath which his sin had provoked, from the unsleeping justice which pursued him, from the witness of God in his own reproaching conscience. He had tried to silence the rebuking voice, to quiet the disturbing fears, to forget his own thoughts and hide himself from himself. And the effort had been vain, impotent, impossible. Everywhere he heard the still small voice, and felt the Unseen Presence. Everywhere God makes Himself felt by men, in kindness, if possible, and if not, then in wrath. Men must believe in Him; they cannot help it. Kill their religion a hundred times, and it has a hundred resurrections. It is in all men. It is the fire which never goes quite out. Atheism is never more than a wave on the sea of humanity, which rises, falls, and quickly disappears. God will not let Himself be denied and forgotten. He speaks in too many voices for that; through nature and conscience, sins, penalties, and guilty terrors; through life's changes, uncertainties, sorrows, and misfortunes; through pain, and death, and human gladness, and human mystery; through returning seasons and unerring laws; through the works of righteousness and the wages of iniquity, He is ever about us. His presence is in every heart, and He laughs at the folly which thinks to escape Him.

II. REST AND CONFIDENCE AND JOY WHICH HIS SPIRIT AND PRESENCE GIVE to those who recognize Him every-where, and walk in His light and love. If a man aspires after goodness, he will wish to be always near the one Source of goodness. If he is making a brave fight against his sins, he will always want to feel the mighty hand upon him from which alone comes victory; and if he is worn and worried with the dark problems and mysteries of life, nothing will satisfy him but the thought that Divine light and wisdom are moving and working in all that darkness. Get to feel that His light and wisdom are everywhere, that His love, pity, and forbearance are everywhere, that His providential care is everywhere, that His ear is everywhere open to your prayers, and His mercy is everywhere on the wing to bring you answers, and then your remotest thought will be how you can escape Him. Your every-day cry will be, "Come nearer, make Thyself felt. Compass me about, hold me fast." It is the all-pervading presence of God that makes life bearable to him, and the one thing which makes the Christian life possible. If God were not in your place of business your hearts would grow hard as nails. If God were not in your homes your sweetest affections would become stale and sour. If God were not in your places of temptation you would never enter them without falling. If the Spirit of God did not visit you in the thronging streets and the giddy world you would degenerate into coarse worldliness. If He were not everywhere, painting Himself afresh on your hearts and minds, you would lose all sense of His beauty. If He were absent from your scenes of sorrow, if you did not feel His hand holding yours in hours of pain, and by the death-bed side, you would be overcome with fear or die of heart-break. We live because He lives everywhere. We hope because He revives His promises in us everywhere.

(J. O. Greenhough, M. A.)

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KJV: Whither shall I go from thy spirit? or whither shall I flee from thy presence?

WEB: Where could I go from your Spirit? Or where could I flee from your presence?