Psalms 139:13-14

13, 14. From God in universal space and material nature, the psalmist returns to contemplate God, in his own mysterious origin and personal being. The creative power and wisdom of God, operating according to his absolute knowledge of the formative atoms and occult laws of embryonic life, are a further mystery, and a ground of praise and thanksgiving.

Possessed The Hebrew will bear the meaning “formed;” it may also indicate possession and control.

Reins In Hebrew psychology, the soul or mind, as it relates to the power of acutest sensibility.

Covered It is more common, modernly, to translate the word woven, thou hast interweaved me, that is, with bones, sinews, nerves, muscles, vascular ducts, etc. But it is better here to take the usual rendering, “covered,” that is, sheltered, protected, which suits the idea of the extreme delicacy of the parts, as in Psalms 140:7. See on Psalms 139:15.

Fearfully… wonderfully made The Niphal participial form of the word “fearfully” usually takes the sense of terrible, dreadful. Psalms 45:4; Psalms 65:5. There is no such word as wonderful or made in the original. The Hebrew word simply means, distinguished, equal to favoured, honoured. “I will praise thee, for I am fearfully distinguished,” namely, by my rank of being, and this amazing care and contrivance of God in my origination.