DAYS OR LIMBS?

 Psalm 139 

13 For you created my inmost being;
you knit me together in my mother’s womb.
14 I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;
your works are wonderful,
I know that full well.
15 My frame was not hidden from you
when I was made in the secret place,
when I was woven together in the depths of the earth.
16 Your eyes saw my unformed body;
all the days ordained for me were written in your book
before one of them came to be.

Psalm 139:16 is a key prooftext for the idea of Exhaustive Determinism taught in most Calvinist circles. The idea is that, from before time began, God ordained absolutely everything - every thought, word, and action - that would happen throughout time. 

R.C. Sproul famously wrote, “If there is one single molecule in this universe running around loose, totally free of God’s sovereignty, then we have no guarantee that a single promise of God will ever be fulfilled.”

This is nonsensical, of course, (literally!) but it's hard to argue that Psalm 139:16 isn't saying that God has predetermined our every action if all of our days are written in God's book before we live any of them. 

Well ... that's what the verse says in most English translations, anyway. 

Just yesterday I learned that there has long been a controversy about how best to translate this particular verse. 

This leaves me wondering - In all the debates I have listened to between Calvinists and non-Calvinists over the last 3 years, how have I never heard the simple fact that most Hebrew scholars lean toward the alternate translation based on the grammar of the sentence?

The JPS Hebrew-English TANAKH, for example, renders the verse this way:

16:Your eyes saw my unformed limbs;

they were all recorded in your book;

in due time they were formed to the very last one of them.

The original King James captured this same idea:

Thine eyes did see my substance, yet being unperfect; and in thy book all my members were written, which in continuance were fashioned, when as yet there was none of them.

What is being recorded in God's book is the early unfolding of the embryo's limbs and features, not all the days of life to come! That is a HUGE difference in meaning. 

Here's another factoid worth knowing whenever this verse gets thrown around as an obvious prooftext for Calvinism: Want to take a guess as to who else recognized the validity of this alternate translation as being the unfolding of the embryo's limbs?

Yup, John Calvin.