139:7 Evidently the confining awareness of God's omniscience led David to try to escape from the Lord. His two rhetorical questions in this verse express his inability to hide from God (cf. Jer. 23:24).
139:8-10 David gave hypothetical examples of where he might go to hide from God in these verses (cf. Rom. 8:38-39). Verse 8 is another merism (cf. vv. 2, 3) that expresses everywhere between heaven and hell. Even if he could travel as fast as the speed of light, he could not escape God (v. 9). Even there God's hand would lead him. Verse 10 pictures God gently leading and guiding David. This thought changes the fearful earlier image of God in pursuit of the psalmist.
139:11-12 David spoke of the night as bruising him (v. 11) because it is often at night that harm comes on people. The only other places in the Old Testament where the Hebrew word suptranslated "overwhelm"(NASB) or "hide"(NIV) occurs are in Genesis 3:15 and Job 9:17 where the translation is "bruise."However since darkness and light are the same to God, David felt secure always. Darkness does not hide things from God's sight as it does from human eyes.
