Which verses in the Bible say that God is omniscient?

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Accepted answer

A Christianity.com article What Does it Mean That God Is Omniscient provides an excellent overview of different senses of God's omniscient with Bible verses for each category such as:

  • God Has Perfect Knowledge: Job 37:16, Matt 6:10
  • God is Our Source of Knowledge: 1 John 3:20, Matt 6:8
  • God Is Our Creator: Ps 147:4, Job 37:14-16, Matt 10:29-30, Ps 139:15-16
  • God Knows Our Hearts and Minds: Jer 16:17, Heb 4:12-13, Ps 139:4, 1 Chr 28:9, Luke 5:22, Matt 5:27-28
  • God Knows the Past, Present and Future: Isa 46:9-10, Gen 41:17-31, Dan 4:23-33, Ez 24:21
  • God Sees Everything: Ps 147:5, Prov 15:3, Ps 139:1-3
  • etc.

My favorite for applying God's omniscience to our personal life is Ps 139:1-16 which has been turned into many songs such as this beautiful choir arrangement by Bernadette Farrell:

O Lord, you have examined my heart and know everything about me.
You know when I sit down or stand up. You know my thoughts even when I’m far away.
You see me when I travel and when I rest at home. You know everything I do.
You know what I am going to say even before I say it, Lord.
You go before me and follow me. You place your hand of blessing on my head.
Such knowledge is too wonderful for me, too great for me to understand!

I can never escape from your Spirit! I can never get away from your presence!
If I go up to heaven, you are there; if I go down to the grave, you are there.
If I ride the wings of the morning, if I dwell by the farthest oceans, even there your hand will guide me, and your strength will support me.
I could ask the darkness to hide me and the light around me to become night— but even in darkness I cannot hide from you.
To you the night shines as bright as day. Darkness and light are the same to you.

You made all the delicate, inner parts of my body and knit me together in my mother’s womb.
Thank you for making me so wonderfully complex! Your workmanship is marvelous—how well I know it.
You watched me as I was being formed in utter seclusion, as I was woven together in the dark of the womb.
You saw me before I was born. Every day of my life was recorded in your book. Every moment was laid out before a single day had passed.

God's future knowledge

One great defense of God's omniscience is when defending God's knowledge of the future against Open Theism such as John Frame's article Open Theism and Divine Foreknowledge. The final section of the paper ("God’s Exhaustive Knowledge of the Future") contains many Bible verses he deployed for support.

Quotes from the article (I bolded the best verses):

... But does Scripture give positive testimony to God’s exhaustive foreknowledge?

... In Isaiah, God challenges the gods of the other nations to foretell the future, knowing that only he is able to do this (Isa. 41:21-23, 42:9, 43:9-12, 44:7, 46:10, 48:3-7).

...

Consider, as examples, the early prophecies of the history of God’s people, given by God to Noah (Gen. 9:26-27), Abraham (Gen. 15:13-16), Isaac (Gen. 27:27-29, 39-40), Jacob (Gen. 49:1-28, Balaam (Num. 23-24), and Moses (Deut. 32:1-43, 33:1-29). Here God announces (categorically, not conditionally), many centuries ahead of time, the character and history of the patriarchs and their descendants. These prophecies anticipate countless free decisions of human beings, long before any had the opportunity to form their own character.

...

Scripture is not unclear as to how God gets this extraordinary knowledge. God knows, as I said earlier, because he controls all the events of nature and history by his own wise plan. God has made everything according to his wisdom (Psm. 104:24), and he works out everything in conformity with the purpose of his will (Eph. 1:11). Therefore, God knows all about the starry heavens (Gen. 15:5, Psm. 147:4, Isa. 40:26, Jer. 33:22) and about the tiniest details of the natural world (Psm. 50:10-11, 56:8, Matt. 10:30). “God knows” is an oath-like utterance (2 Cor. 11:11, 12:2-3) that certifies the truth of human words on the presupposition that God’s knowledge is exhaustive, universal, and infallible. God’s knowledge is absolute knowledge, a perfection; so it elicits religious praise (Psm. 139:17-18, Isa. 40:28, Rom. 11:33-36).

So God “knows everything” (1 John 3:20). And,

Nothing in all creation is hidden from God’s sight. Everything is uncovered and laid bare before the eyes of him to whom we must give account. (Heb. 4:13).

Does that knowledge include exhaustive knowledge of the future? Given the inadequacy of the open theist arguments, the strong emphasis in Scripture on God’s unique knowledge of the future, and the biblical teaching that God’s plan encompasses all of history, we must say yes.

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