Open my eyes, that I may see wondrous things out of your law.
I am a stranger on the earth. Don’t hide your commandments from me.
My soul is consumed with longing for your ordinances at all times.
Parallel Translations
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Open my eyes, that I may see wondrous things out of your law.
I am a stranger on the earth. Don’t hide your commandments from me.
My soul is consumed with longing for your ordinances at all times.
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Open thou mine eyes, that I may behold wondrous things out of thy law.
I am a stranger in the earth: hide not thy commandments from me.
My soul breaketh for the longing that it hath unto thy judgments at all times.
Show all 3 translations
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Open Thou mine eyes, that I may behold wondrous things out of Thy law.
I am a sojourner in the earth; hide not Thy commandments from me.
My soul breaketh for the longing that it hath unto Thine ordinances at all times.
Cross-references (40)
- Ephesians 1:17-18 (v18) that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give to you a spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of him,…
- Acts 26:18 (v18) to open their eyes, that they may turn from darkness to light and from the power of Satan to God, that they may receive remission of sins…
- Isaiah 32:3 (v18) The eyes of those who see will not be dim, and the ears of those who hear will listen.
- Isaiah 35:5 (v18) Then the eyes of the blind will be opened, and the ears of the deaf will be unstopped.
- 1 Chronicles 29:15 (v19) For we are strangers before you, and foreigners, as all our fathers were. Our days on the earth are as a shadow, and there is no remaining.
Show all 40 cross-references
- Matthew 13:13 (v18) Therefore I speak to them in parables, because seeing they don’t see, and hearing, they don’t hear, neither do they understand.
- Isaiah 29:18 (v18) In that day, the deaf will hear the words of the book, and the eyes of the blind will see out of obscurity and out of darkness.
- Matthew 16:17 (v18) Jesus answered him, “Blessed are you, Simon Bar Jonah, for flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven.
- John 9:39 (v18) Jesus said, “I came into this world for judgment, that those who don’t see may see; and that those who see may become blind.”
- 2 Corinthians 4:4-6 (v18) in whom the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelieving, that the light of the Good News of the glory of Christ, who is the…
- Psalms 39:12 (v19) “Hear my prayer, Yahweh, and give ear to my cry. Don’t be silent at my tears. For I am a stranger with you, a foreigner, as all my fathers…
- Revelation 3:18 (v18) I counsel you to buy from me gold refined by fire, that you may become rich; and white garments, that you may clothe yourself, and that the…
- 2 Corinthians 3:13-18 (v18) and not as Moses, who put a veil on his face, that the children of Israel wouldn’t look steadfastly on the end of that which was passing…
- Psalms 42:1-2 (v20) As the deer pants for the water brooks, so my soul pants after you, God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. When shall I come and…
- Psalms 84:2 (v20) My soul longs, and even faints for the courts of Yahweh. My heart and my flesh cry out for the living God.
- Psalms 119:10 (v19) With my whole heart, I have sought you. Don’t let me wander from your commandments.
- Hebrews 11:13-16 (v19) These all died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them and embraced them from afar, and having confessed that they…
- Job 23:11-12 (v20) My foot has held fast to his steps. I have kept his way, and not turned away. I haven’t gone back from the commandment of his lips. I have…
- Psalms 63:1 (v20) God, you are my God. I will earnestly seek you. My soul thirsts for you. My flesh longs for you, in a dry and weary land, where there is no…
- Psalms 119:131 (v20) I opened my mouth wide and panted, for I longed for your commandments.
- Isaiah 29:10-12 (v18) For Yahweh has poured out on you a spirit of deep sleep, and has closed your eyes, the prophets; and he has covered your heads, the seers.…
- Luke 24:45 (v19) Then he opened their minds, that they might understand the Scriptures.
- Psalms 119:40 (v20) Behold, I long for your precepts! Revive me in your righteousness.
- Psalms 119:96 (v18) I have seen a limit to all perfection, but your commands are boundless.
- Psalms 119:174 (v20) I have longed for your salvation, Yahweh. Your law is my delight.
- Isaiah 63:17 (v19) O Yahweh, why do you make us wander from your ways, and harden our heart from your fear? Return for your servants’ sake, the tribes of your…
- 2 Corinthians 5:6 (v19) Therefore we are always confident and know that while we are at home in the body, we are absent from the Lord;
- Hebrews 8:5 (v18) who serve a copy and shadow of the heavenly things, even as Moses was warned by God when he was about to make the tabernacle, for he said,…
- 1 Peter 2:11 (v19) Beloved, I beg you as foreigners and pilgrims, to abstain from fleshly lusts, which war against the soul;
- Genesis 47:9 (v19) Jacob said to Pharaoh, “The years of my pilgrimage are one hundred thirty years. The days of the years of my life have been few and evil.…
- Job 27:10 (v20) Will he delight himself in the Almighty, and call on God at all times?
- Proverbs 17:17 (v20) A friend loves at all times; and a brother is born for adversity.
- Revelation 3:15-16 (v20) “I know your works, that you are neither cold nor hot. I wish you were cold or hot. So, because you are lukewarm, and neither hot nor cold,…
- Psalms 106:3 (v20) Blessed are those who keep justice. Blessed is one who does what is right at all times.
- Proverbs 13:12 (v20) Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but when longing is fulfilled, it is a tree of life.
- Song of Solomon 5:8 (v20) I adjure you, daughters of Jerusalem, If you find my beloved, that you tell him that I am faint with love.
- Luke 9:45 (v19) But they didn’t understand this saying. It was concealed from them, that they should not perceive it, and they were afraid to ask him about…
- Hebrews 10:1 (v18) For the law, having a shadow of the good to come, not the very image of the things, can never with the same sacrifices year by year, which…
- Job 39:17 (v19) because God has deprived her of wisdom, neither has he imparted to her understanding.
- Hosea 8:12 (v18) I wrote for him the many things of my law; but they were regarded as a strange thing.
Cross-references from openbible.info (CC BY 4.0)
Explain this passage (18 sources)
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John Calvin 1540 · Public Domain On v19 19. I am a stranger on the earth. It…
19. I am a stranger on the earth. It is proper to inquire into the reason for his calling himself a sojourner and stranger in the world. The great concern of the unholy and worldly is to spend their life here easily and quietly; but those who know that they have their journey to pursue, and have their inheritance reserved for them in heaven, are not engrossed nor entangled with these perishable things, but aspire after that place to which they are invited. The meaning may be thus summed up: “Lord, since I must pass quickly through the earth, what will become of me if I am deprived of the doctrine of thy law?” We learn from these words from what point we must commence our journey, if we would go on our way cheerfully unto God.
Besides, God is said to conceal his commandments from those whose eyes he does not open, because, not being endued with spiritual vision, in seeing they see not, so that what is before their eyes is hid from them. And, to demonstrate that he does not present his request in a careless manner, the prophet adds, that his affection for the law is most intense; for it is no common ardor which is expressed by him in the following language, My soul is rent with the desire it hath at all times unto thy judgments. As the man who may concentrate all his thoughts on one point with such intensity as almost to deprive him of the power of perception, may be said to be the victim of his intemperate zeal, so the prophet declares the energy of his mind to be paralyzed and exhausted by his ardent love for the law. The clause, at all times, is meant to express his perseverance; for it may occasionally happen that a man may apply himself with great ardor to the study of the heavenly doctrine; but it is only temporary-his zeal soon vanishes away. Steadfastness is therefore necessary, lest, through weariness, we become faint in our minds.
John Calvin's Commentaries (1540-1563) — public domain. Text from the Calvin Translation Society English edition (1840s-50s) via the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (ccel.org). Calvin's coverage is partial (roughly two-thirds of the Bible); uncommented books and verses are honest gaps, never fabricated. The 19th-century editor's footnotes and remarks are omitted so the notes are faithfully Calvin's own voice.
Geneva Bible translators 1599 · Public Domain On v19 Seeing man’s life in this world is but a…
Seeing man’s life in this world is but a passage, what should become of him, if thy word were not his guide?
Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain.
John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain On vv18–20 Psa 119:18 Open thou mine eyes, that I may…
Psa 119:18 Open thou mine eyes, that I may behold wondrous things out of thy law.
Ver. 18. Open thou mine eyes] Heb. unveil them, velamen amove, volumen evolve, give sight and light; irradiate both organ and object. In spirituals we are not only dim sighted, but blind as beetles, 1Co 2:14. Oh pray for that precious eye salve, Rev 3:17, for that supernal light, 2Co 4:6, and whensoever we open the Bible to read, say, as here, "Open thou mine eyes," &c., as when we close it up again say, "I have seen an end of all perfection: but thy commandment is exceeding broad," Psa 119:96.
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Wondrous things] Mirabilia magnalia, mysteria; such as none can understand and unriddle but such as plough with God’s own heifer, 1Co 2:11.
John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Matthew Poole 1685 · Public Domain On vv18–20 Open thou mine eyes; enlighten my mind by the…
Open thou mine eyes; enlighten my mind by the light of thy Holy Spirit, and dispel all ignorance and error.
Wondrous things out of thy law; those great and marvellous depths of Divine wisdom and goodness, and those profound mysteries of Christ and of God’s grace to mankind, and of that future and everlasting state, which are contained in God’s law, and which were not to be known but by divine illumination, Mat 16:17; 1Co 2:11,14; 2Co 3:14; 4:4,6; Eph 1:17, especially in the times of the Old Testament.
Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Matthew Henry 1710 · Public Domain On vv18–20 Observe here, 1. That there are wondrous things in…
Observe here, 1. That there are wondrous things in God's law, which we are all concerned, and should covet, to behold, not only strange things, which are very surprising and unexpected, but excellent things, which are to be highly esteemed and valued, and things which were long hidden from the wise and prudent, but are now revealed unto babes. If there were wonders in the law, much more in the gospel, where Christ is all in all, whose name is Wonderful. Well may we, who are so nearly interested, desire to behold these wondrous things, when the angels themselves reach to look into them, Pe1 1:12. Those that would see the wondrous things of God's law and gospel must beg of him to open their eyes and to give them an understanding. We are by nature blind to the things of God, till his grace cause the scales to fall from our eyes; and even those in whose hearts God has said, Let there be light, have yet need to be further enlightened, and must still pray to God to open their eyes yet more and more, that those who at first saw men as trees walking may come to see all things clearly; and the more God opens our eyes the more wonders we see in the word of God, which we saw not before.
Matthew Henry's Commentary on the Whole Bible (1708–1710) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Gill 1763 · Public Domain On vv18–20 My soul breaketh for the longing,.... His heart was…
My soul breaketh for the longing,.... His heart was just ready to break, and his soul fainted; he was ready to die, through a vehement desire of enjoying the object longed for, after mentioned; "hope deferred makes the heart sick", Pro 13:1; the phrase is expressive of the greatness, vehemence, and eagerness of his mind after the thing he desired, which follows:
that it hath unto thy judgments at all times; not the judgments of God on wicked men, though these are desirable for the glorifying of his justice; nor his dark dispensations of providence, though good men cannot but desire and long for the time when these judgments shall be made manifest: but rather the righteous laws and precepts of God are designed, which he desired to have a more perfect knowledge of, and yield a more constant obedience unto; or, best of all, the doctrines of grace and righteousness, that should be more clearly revealed in the times of the Messiah; who was to set judgment in the earth, his Gospel; and to bring in everlasting righteousness, and glorify the justice of God; than which nothing was more earnestly and importunately wished and longed for by Old Testament saints; see Psa 119:81.
John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Wesley 1765 · Public Domain On vv18–20 Open - Enlighten my mind by the light of…
Open - Enlighten my mind by the light of thy Holy Spirit, and dispel all ignorance and error. Behold - Those great and marvelous depths of Divine wisdom and goodness, and those profound mysteries of Christ, and God's grace to mankind, and of that everlasting state, which are not to be known but by Divine illumination.
John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.
Adam Clarke 1810 · Public Domain On vv18–20 Verse 18. Open thou mine eyes] גל עיני gal…
Verse 18. Open thou mine eyes] גל עיני gal eynai, reveal my eyes, illuminate my understanding, take away the veil that is on my heart, and then shall I see wonders in thy law. The Holy Scriptures are plain enough; but the heart of man is darkened by sin. The Bible does not so much need a comment, as the soul does the light of the Holy Spirit. Were it not for the darkness of the human intellect, the things relative to salvation would be easily apprehended.
Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Joseph Benson 1811 · Public Domain On v19 Psa 119:19-20. I am a stranger in the earth…
Psa 119:19-20. I am a stranger in the earth — Or, a sojourner. I am not here as in my home, but as a pilgrim travelling homeward in a strange land: a condition which calls for thy pity and help: see note on Psa 39:12. Hide not thy commandments from me — Which are my chief support and guide in my pilgrimage, My soul breaketh, &c. — Fainteth, as the soul frequently does, when a thing vehemently desired is denied or delayed. Or, as גרסה נפשׁיis rendered by some, my soul is taken up, or wholly employed, in longing for, or in love to, thy judgments. The whole stream of its desires runs in this channel. I shall think myself quite broken and undone, if I want the word of God to conduct and comfort me.
Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Albert Barnes 1834 · Public Domain On vv18–20 Open thou mine eyes - Margin, “Reveal.” So the…
Open thou mine eyes - Margin, “Reveal.” So the Septuagint and the Latin Vulgate. The Hebrew word means to be naked; then to make naked, to uncover, to disclose, to reveal. Here it is the same as “uncover;” that is, take away from the eyes what is before them to prevent clear vision. Compare Num 22:31; Num 24:4, Num 24:16.
That I may behold wondrous things - Things which are suited to excite wonder and amazement: that is, things which are secret or hidden from the common view; the deep, spiritual meaning of the word of God. By natural vision he might see the surface - the letter; to see the deep, hidden, real, meaning, he needed the special influence of God. Compare 1Co 2:12, 1Co 2:14-15. He believed that there were such things in the law of God; he desired to see them.
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Out of thy law - Out of the written word; out of the Scriptures. The word “law” here is used to denote “all” that God had revealed to mankind; all that is contained in the volume of inspiration. The truths taught here are
(1) That there are deep, hidden, secret things in the word of God, which are not perceived by the natural man;
(2) That those things, when understood, are suited to excite wonder, or to fill the mind with admiring views of God;
(3) That a special illumination of God is necessary that man may perceive these things; and
(4) That the proper understanding of these things is connected with prayer, and can be hoped for only in answer to prayer.
No one has a proper appreciation of divine truth - of the beauty, the spiritual meaning, the grandeur, the sublimity of the Bible - until he is a renewed - a praying - man. Compare the notes at 1Co 2:6-15.
Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges 1878 · Public Domain On vv18–20 18. Open] Lit. uncover. Natural sight is unable to…
18. Open] Lit. uncover. Natural sight is unable to discern the mysteries (cp. Psa_119:27) of Divine revelation; hence this prayer for the removal of the veil from his eyes. Cp. 2Ki_6:17 (a different word); Eph_1:17-18.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers 1878 · Public Domain On vv18–20 (18) Open.—Literally, uncover (see margin), as if without Divine…
(18) Open.—Literally, uncover (see margin), as if without Divine grace the eyes were veiled to the wonder and beauty of the moral law. (Comp. 2Co_4:18.)
A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Pulpit Commentary 1880 · Public Domain On vv18–20 Open thou mine eyes. Since the Fall, men"s eyes…
Open thou mine eyes. Since the Fall, men"s eyes are naturally blinded, or, at any rate, have a veil over them, which God must remove before they can see clearly (compare the comment on ver. 15). That I may behold wondrous things out of thy Law. Wonderful spiritual truths that lie hidden, even under the very simplest precepts of God"s Law. (comp. Mat_5:21-37)
Eye-opening.
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"Open thou mine eyes." This figure of speech is a familiar Eastern one. It is based on the observed fact that the eye, as an organ, is dependent on the mind and the will. Men have to be helped to see everything that is really worth seeing; and if they are to apprehend Divine and spiritual things, it can only be with Divine illuminations. He who sees the unseen must have come into the eye-opening power of God. The servant of Elisha, with the partly closed eyes, could see nothing but the chariots and horsemen of Syria. With opened eyes he saw all round the hills the chariots and horsemen of God. Our Lord opened the blind bodily eyes of men in order to illustrate his gracious work in souls. And the living Lord counsels his half-blinded Church at Laodicea, "Anoint thine eyes with eye-salve, that thou mayest see." The opening of the soul-eyes is a figure of speech for the quickening of the spiritual discernment. Nothing do we need more than keen sensitiveness to Divine and eternal things; insight of the Divine will; the sharpness of vision that can detect at once the pointing of the Divine finger. The prayer of the text implies
I A CONSCIOUSNESS OF THE DIMNESS OF OUR SPIRITUAL VISION. Our Lord reproached the Pharisees because they were blind, yet thought they saw with unusual clearness. "Ye say, we see, therefore your sin remaineth." There is no prayer in the man who thinks he sees. There is no conscious want to find expression. It is not merely that the vision is distorted by the self-willed spirit; it is that in the godly life things seen and temporal have the power to dim and darken the vision of things unseen and eternal. If humility proves mightier than self-satisfaction, the sense of dimness is a constant source of anxiety; but that is an anxiety which is altogether healthy.
II A CONSCIOUSNESS OF OUR DEPENDENCE ON GOD FOR THE CLEARING OF OUR SPIRITUAL VISION. A man may feel the imperfectness of his soul-vision, but think to clear it himself. It is not always duly considered that the idea of self-help spoils the religious life as truly as it prevents our entering the religious life. It may have to come through a hitter experience, but it must come somehow, that we may discover the helplessness of self-help for clearing the soul-vision; and then we pray to God, "Open thou mine eyes. R.T.
"Wondrous things.
"Open thou mine eyes, that I may behold wondrous things out of thy Law." "Law" is the will of God expressed in man, in nature, and in history.
I THE WILL OF GOD IS THE LAW OF MAN"S LIFE.
1. A law that reaches to every part of mans nature. To the inward and outward life. A law that claims to rule over reason and affection and conscience.
2. A law that guides by aiming at the renewal of our nature. In this respect how different from all human law! "The Law of the Lord is perfect, converting the soul." This Law not merely bids us obey, but urges us by grand arguments of love and obligation. And helps us by the energy of the Holy Spirit, which it promises and gives.
II THIS "LAW" CONTAINS WONDROUS THINGS.
1. Wonders of doctrine. Forgiveness through Christ. Demands the perfection of our nature. An immortal and blessed life.
2. Wonders of precept. Supreme love to God and man. No one can love God with all his soul and mind and strength without loving his neighbor as himself, any more than the earth can gravitate towards the sun without attracting toward itself the moon by the same force of gravity.
3. Wonders of promise. In personal union with Christ we find the fulfillment of all Divine promise.
III THE HOLY SPIRIT MUST GIVE US TO DISCERN THESE WONDERS. The best Christians feel that our perceptions of spiritual truth are infirm and obscure; but things are greater than we see them more wonderful than they now appear. Hence this prayer, for the opening the eyes of the heart and soul. To be a philosopher, or artist, or orator, there must be two things some genius for it, or natural capacity; and training, or instruction and discipline. To be a Christian there must be spiritual eyesight the gift of God"s Spirit. "Open thou mine eyes." And trained and disciplined insight the work also of the Spirit, our Teacher. S.
The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Charles H. Spurgeon 1885 · Public Domain On vv18–20 Ver. 18. Open thou mine eyes. This is a…
Ver. 18. Open thou mine eyes. This is a part of the bountiful dealing which he has asked for; no bounty is greater than that which benefits our person, our soul, our mind, and benefits it in so important an organ as the eye. It is far better to have the eyes opened than to be placed in the midst of the noblest prospects and remain blind to their beauty.
That l may behold wondrous things out of thy law. Some men can perceive no wonders in the gospel, but David felt sure that there were glorious things in the law: he had not half the Bible, but he prized it more than some men prize the whole. He felt that God had laid up great bounties in his word, and he begs for power to perceive, appreciate, and enjoy the same. We need not so much that God should give us more benefits, as the ability to see what he has given.
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The prayer implies a conscious darkness, a dimness of spiritual vision, a powerlessness to remove that defect, and a full assurance that God can remove it. It shows also that the writer knew that there were vast treasures in the word which he had not yet fully seen, marvels which he had not yet beheld, mysteries which he had scarcely believed. The Scriptures teem with marvels; the Bible is wonder land; it not only relates miracles, but it is itself a world of wonders. Yet what are these to closed eyes? And what man can open his own eyes, since he is born blind? God himself must reveal revelation to each heart. Scripture needs opening, but not one half so much as our eyes do: the veil is not on the book, but on our hearts. What perfect precepts, what precious promises, what priceless privileges are neglected by us because we wander among them like blind men among the beauties of nature, and they are to us as a landscape shrouded in darkness!
The Psalmist had a measure of spiritual perception, or he would never have known that there were wondrous things to be seen, nor would he have prayed, "open thou mine eyes"; but what he had seen made him long for a clearer and wider sight. This longing proved the genuineness of what he possessed, for it is a test mark of the true knowledge of God that it causes its possessor to thirst for deeper knowledge.
David's prayer in this verse is a good sequel to Ps 119:10, which corresponds to it in position in its octave: there he said, "O let me not wander, "and who so apt to wander as a blind man? and there, too, he declared, "with my whole heart have I sought thee, "and hence the desire to see the object of his search. Very singular are the interlacings of the boughs of the huge tree of this Psalm, which has many wonders even within itself if we have opened eyes to mark them.
Ver. 18. Open thou mine eyes. Who is able to know the secret and hidden things of the Scriptures unless Christ opens his eyes? Certainly, no one; for "No man knoweth the Son but the Father; neither knoweth any man the Father save the Son, and he to whom the Son will reveal him." Wherefore, as suppliants, we draw near to him, saying, "Open thou mine eyes, "etc. The words of God cannot be kept except they be known; neither can they be known unless the eyes shall be opened, hence it is written, "That I may live and keep thy word"; and then, "Open thou mine eyes." Paulus Palanterius.
Ver. 18. Open thou mine eyes. "What wilt thou that I shall do unto thee?" was the gracious inquiry of the loving Jesus to a poor longing one on earth. "Lord! that I may receive my sight, "was the instant answer. So here, in the same spirit, and to the same compassionate and loving Lord, does the Psalmist pray, "Open thou mine eyes"; and both in this and the preceding petition, "Deal bountifully with thy servant, "we see at once who prompted the prayer. Barton Bouchier.
Ver. 18. Open thou mine eyes. If it be asked, seeing David was a regenerate man, and so illumined already, how is it that he prays for the opening of his eyes? The answer is easy: that our regeneration is wrought by degrees. The beginnings of light in his mind made him long for more; for no man can account of sense, but he who hath it. The light which he had caused him to see his own darkness; and therefore, feeling his wants, he sought to have them supplied by the Lord. William Cowper.
Ver. 18. Open thou mine eyes. The saints do not complain of the obscurity of the law, but of their own blindness. The Psalmist doth not say, Lord make a plainer law, but, Lord open mine eyes:blind men might as well complain of God, that he doth not make a sun whereby they might see. The word is "a light that shineth in a dark place" (2Pe 1:19). There is no want of light in the Scripture, but there is a veil of darkness upon our hearts; so that if in this clear light we cannot see, the defect is not in the word, but in ourselves.
The light which they beg is not anything besides the word. When God is said to enlighten us, it is not that we should expect new revelations, but that we may see the wonders in his word, or get a clear sight of what is already revealed. Those that vent their own dreams under the name of the Spirit, and divine light, they do not give you mysteria, but monstra, portentous opinions; they do not show you the wondrous things of God's law, but the prodigies of their own brain; unhappy abortives, that die as soon as they come to light. "To the law and to the testimony: if they speak not according to this word, it is because there is no light in them" (Isa 8:20). The light which we have is not without the word, but by the word.
The Hebrew phrase signifieth "unveil mine eyes." There is a double work, negative and positive. There is a taking away of the veil, and an infusion of light. Paul's cure of his natural blindness is a fit emblem of our cure of spiritual blindness: "Immediately there fell from his eyes as it had been scales: and he received sight forthwith" (Ac 9:18). First, the scales fall from our eyes, and then we receive sight. Thomas Manton.
Ver. 18. The Psalmist asks for no new revelation. It was in God's hand to give this, and he did it in his own time to those ancient believers; but to all of them at every time there was enough given for the purposes of life. The request is not for more, but that he may employ well that which he possesses. Still better does such a form of request suit us, to whom life and immortality have been brought to light in Christ. If we do not find sufficient to exercise our thoughts with constant freshness, and our soul with the grandest and most attractive subjects, it is because we want the eye sight. It is of great importance for us to be persuaded of this truth, that there are many things in the Bible still to be found out, and that, if we come in the right spirit, we may be made discoverers of some of them. These things disclose themselves, not so much to learning, though that is not to be despised, as to spiritual sight, to a humble, loving heart.
And this at least is certain, that we shall always find things that are new to ourselves. However frequently we traverse the field, we shall perceive some fresh golden vein turning up its glance to us, and we shall wonder how our eyes were formerly holden that we did not see it. It was all there waiting for us, and we feel that more is waiting, if we had the vision. There is a great Spirit in it that holds deeper and even deeper converse with our souls.
This further may be observed, that the Psalmist asks for no new faculty. The eyes are there already, and they need only to be opened. It is not the bestowal of a new and supernatural power which enables a man to read the Bible to profit, but the quickening of a power he already possesses. In one view it is supernatural, as God is the Author of the illumination by a direct act of his Spirit; in another it is natural, as it operates through the faculties existing in a man's soul. God gives "the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Christ, that the eyes of man's understanding may be enlightened." (Eph 1:17) It is important to remember this also, for here lies our responsibility, that we have the faculty, and here also is the point at which we must begin action with the help of God. A man will never grow into the knowledge of God's word by idly waiting for some new gift of discernment, but by diligently using that which God has already bestowed upon him, and using at the same time all other helps that lie within his reach. There are men and books that seem, beyond others, to have the power of aiding insight. All of us have felt it in the contact of some affinity of nature which makes them our best helpers; the kindred clay upon the eyes by which the great Enlightener removes our blindness (Joh 9:6). Let us seek for such, and if we find them let us employ them without leaning on them. Above all, let us give our whole mind in patient, loving study to the book itself, and where we fail, at any essential part, God will either send his evangelist Philip to our aid (Ac 8:26-40) or instruct us himself. But it is only to patient, loving study that help is given. God could have poured all knowledge into us by easy inspiration, but it is by earnest search alone that it can become the treasure of the soul.
But if so, it may still be asked what is the meaning of this prayer, and why does the Bible itself insist so often on the indispensable need of the Spirit of God to teach? Now there is a side here as true as the other, and in no way inconsistent with it. If prayer without effort would be presumptuous, effort without prayer would be vain. The great reason why men do not feel the power and beauty of the Bible is a spiritual one. They do not realize the grand evil which the Bible has come to cure, and they have not a heart to the blessings which it offers to bestow. The film of a fallen nature, self maintained, is upon their eyes while they read: "The eyes of their understanding are darkened, being alienated from the life of God" (Eph 4:18). All the natural powers will never find the true key to the Bible, till the thoughts of sin and redemption enter the heart, and are put in the centre of the Book. It is the part of the Father of lights, by the teaching of his Spirit, to give this to the soul, and he will, if it humbly approaches him with this request. Thus we shall study as one might a book with the author at hand, to set forth the height of his argument, or as one might look on a noble composition, when the artist breathes into us a portion of his soul, to let us feel the centre of its harmonies of form and colour. Those who have given to the Bible thought and prayer will own that these are not empty promises. John Ker, in a Sermon entitled, "God's Word Suited to Man's Sense of Wonder, "1877.
Ver. 18. O let us never forget; that the wonderful things contained in the divine law can neither be discovered nor relished by the "natural man, "whose powers of perception and enjoyment are limited in their range to the objects of time and sense. It is the divine Spirit alone who can lighten the darkness of our sinful state, and who can enable us to perceive the glory, the harmony, and moral loveliness which everywhere shine forth in the pages of revealed truth. John Morison, 1829.
Ver. 18. Uncover my eyes and I will look wonders out of thy law. The last clause is a kind of exclamation after his eyes have been uncovered. This figure is often used to denote inspiration or a special divine communication. "Out of thy law, "i.e., brought out to view, as if from a place of concealment. Joseph Addison Alexander.
Ver. 18. Wondrous things. Many were the signs and miracles which God wrought in the midst of the people of Israel, which they did not understand. What was the reason? Moses tells us expressly what if was: "Yet the Lord hath not given you an heart to perceive and eyes to see, and ears to hear, unto this day" (De 29:4). They had sensitive eyes and ears, yea, they had a rational heart or mind; but they wanted a spiritual ear to hear, a spiritual heart or mind to apprehend and improve those wonderful works of God; and these they had not, because God had not given them such eyes, ears, and hearts. Wonders without grace cannot open the eyes fully; but grace without wonders can. And as man hath not an eye to see the wonderful works of God spiritually, until it is given; so, much less hath he an eye to see the wonders of the word of God till it be given him from above; and therefore David prays, Open thou mine eyes, that I may behold wondrous things out of thy law. And if the wondrous things of the law are not much seen till God give an eye, then much less are the wondrous things of the Gospel. The light of nature shows us somewhat of the Law; but nothing of the Gospel was ever seen by the light of nature. Many who have seen and admired some excellencies in the Law could never see, and therefore have derided, that which is the excellency of the Gospel, till God had opened their heart to understand. Joseph Caryl, 1602-1673.
Ver. 18. "The word is very nigh" unto us; and, holding in our hand a document that teems with what is wonderful, the sole question is, "Have we an eye to its marvels, a heart for its mercies?" Here is the precise use of the Holy Spirit. The Spirit puts nothing new into the Bible; he only so enlightens and strengthens our faculties, that we can discern and admire what is there already. It is not the telescope which draws out that rich sparkling of stars on the blue space, which to the naked eye seem points of light, and untenanted: it is not the microscope which condenses the business of a stirring population into the circumference of a drop of water, and clothes with a thousand tints the scarcely discernible wing of the ephemeral insect. The stars are shining in their glory, whether or no we have the instruments to penetrate the azure; and the tiny tenantry are carrying on their usual concerns, and a rich garniture still forms the covering of the insect, whether or no the powerful lens has turned for us the atom into a world, and transformed the almost imperceptible down into the sparkling plumage of the bird of paradise. Thus the wonderful things are already in the Bible. The Spirit who indited them at first brings them not as new revelations to the individual; but, by removing the mists of carnal prejudice, by taking away the scales of pride and self sufficiency, and by rectifying the will, which causes the judgment to look at truth through a distorted medium, by influencing the heart, so that the affections shall no longer blind the understanding, by these and other modes, which might be easily enumerated, the Holy Ghost enables men to recognize what is hid, to perceive beauty and to discover splendour where all before had appeared without form and comeliness; and thus brings round the result of the Bible, in putting on the lip the wonderful prayer which he had himself inspired: Open thou mine eyes, that I may behold wondrous things out of thy law. Henry Melvill, 1798-1871.
Ver. 18. The wondrous things seem to be the great things of an eternal world he had turned his enquiring eyes upon the wonders of nature, sun, moon, and stars, mountains, trees, and rivers. He had seen many of the wonders of art; but now, he wanted to see the spiritual wonders contained in the Bible. He wanted to know about God himself in all his majesty, purity, and grace. He wanted to learn the way of salvation by a crucified Redeemer, and the glory that is to follow.
Open mine eyes. David was not blind his eye was not dim. He could read the Bible from end to end, and yet he felt that he needed more light. He felt that he needed to see deeper, to have the eyes of his understanding opened. He felt that if he had nothing but his own eyes and natural understanding, he would not discover the wonders which he panted to see. He wanted divine teaching the eye salve of the Spirit; and therefore he would not open the Bible without this prayer, "Open thou mine eyes." Robert Murray Macheyne, 1813-1843.
Ver. 18. Wondrous things. Wherefore useth he this word "wondrous"? It is as if he would have said, Although the world taketh the law of God to be but a light thing, and it seemeth to be given but as it were for simple souls and young children; yet for all that there seemeth such a wisdom to be in it, as that it surmounts all the wisdom of the world, and that therein lie hid wonderful secrets. John Calvin.
Ver. 18. Thy law. That which is the object of the understanding prayed for, that in the knowledge whereof the Psalmist would be illuminated, is hrwt. The word signifies instruction; and being referred unto God, it is his teaching or instruction of us by the revelation of himself, the same which we intend by the Scripture. When the books of the Old Testament were completed they were, for distinction's sake, distributed into hrwt, Mybwtk, and Myaybg, or the "Law, "the "Psalms, "and the "Prophets, "Lu 24:44. Under that distribution Torah signifies the five books of Moses. But whereas these books of Moses were, as it were, the foundation of all future revelations under the Old Testament, which were given in the explication thereof, all the writings of it were usually called "the Law, "Isa 8:20. By the law, therefore, in this place, the Psalmist understands all the books that were then given unto the church by revelation for the rule of its faith and obedience. And that by the law, in the Psalms, the written law is intended, is evident from the first of them, wherein he is declared blessed who "meditates therein day and night, "Ps 1:2; which hath respect unto the command of reading and meditating on the books thereof in that manner, Jos 1:8. That, therefore, which is intended by this word is the entire revelation of the will of God, given unto the church for the rule of its faith and obedience that is, the holy Scripture.
In this law there are twalpg "wonderful things." alp signifies to be "wonderful, "to be "hidden, "to be "great" and "high; "that which men by the use of reason cannot attain unto or understand (hence twalpg are things that have such an impression of divine wisdom and power upon them as that they are justly the object of our admiration); that which is too hard for us as De 17:8, rkr Kmm alpy yk "If a matter be too hard for thee, "hid from thee. And it is the name whereby the miraculous works of God are expressed, Ps 77:11 78:11. Wherefore, these "wonderful things of the law" are those expressions and effects of divine wisdom in the Scripture which are above the natural reason and understanding of men to find out and comprehend. Such are the mysteries of divine truth in the Scripture, especially because Christ is in them, whose name is" Wonderful, "Isa 9:6; for all the great and marvellous effects of infinite wisdom meet in him. John Owen, 1616-1683.
Ver. 18. Wondrous things. There are promises in God's word that no man has ever tried, to find. There are treasures of gold and silver in it that no man has taken the pains to dig for. There are medicines in it for the want of a knowledge of which hundreds have died. It seems to me like some old baronial estate that has descended to a man (who lives in a modern house) and thinks it scarcely worth while to go and look into the venerable mansion. Year after year passes away and he pays no attention to it, since he has no suspicion of the valuable treasures it contains, till, at last, some man says to him, "Have you been up in the country to look at that estate?" He makes up his mind that he will take a look at it. As he goes through the porch he is surprised to see the skill that has been displayed in its construction: he is more and more surprised as he goes through the halls. He enters a large room, and is astonished as he beholds the wealth of pictures on the walls, among which are portraits of many of his revered ancestors. He stands in amazement before them. There is a Titian, there a Raphael, there is a Correggio, and there is a Giorgione. He says, "I never had any idea of these before." "Ah, "says the steward, "there is many another thing that you know nothing about in the castle, "and he takes him from room to room and shows carved plate, and wonderful statues, and the man exclaims, "Here I have been for a score of years the owner of this estate, and have never before known what things were in it." But no architect ever conceived of such an estate as God's word, and no artist, or carver, or sculptor, ever conceived of such pictures, and carved dishes, and statues as adorn its apartments. It contains treasures that silver, and gold, and precious stones are not to be mentioned with. Henry Ward Beecher, 1872.
Ver. 18. That I may behold wondrous things. The great end of the Word of God in the Psalmist's time, as now, was practical; but there is a secondary use here referred to, which is worthy of consideration, its power of meeting man's faculty of wonder. God knows our frame, for he made it, and he must have adapted the Bible to all its parts. If we can show this, it may be another token that the book comes from Him who made man... That God has bestowed upon man the faculty of wonder we all know. It is one of the first and most constant emotions in our nature. We can see this in children, and in all whose feelings are still fresh and natural. It is the parent of the desire to know, and all through life it is urging men to enquire. John Ker.
Ver. 18. Wondrous things out of thy law. In 118 we had the "wondrous" character of redemption; in 119 we have the "wonders" (Ps 119:18, 27, 129), of God's revelation. William Kay, 1871.
Ver. 18-19. When I cannot have Moses to tell me the meaning, saith Saint Augustine, give me that Spirit that thou gavest to Moses. And this is that which every man that will understand must pray for: this David prayed for; Open thou mine eyes that I may see the wonders of the Law; and (Ps 119:19) hide not thy commandments from me. And Christ saith, "If you, being evil, can give good gifts to your children; how much more shall your heavenly Father give his Holy Spirit to them that ask him?" so that then we shall see the secrets of God. Richard Stock, (1626).
Ver. 18.
1. The precious casket: "thy law."
2. The invisible treasure: "wondrous things."
3. The miraculous eyesight: "that I may behold."
4. The divine oculist: "Open thou mine eyes."
Ver. 18. The hidden wonders of the gospel. There are many hidden things in nature; many in our fellow men; so there are many in the Bible. The things of the Bible are hidden because of the blindness of Man.
1. The blind man's sorrow:"Open mine eyes." I cannot see. I have eyes and see not. The pain of this conscious blindness when a man really feels it.
2. The blind man's conviction:"That I may behold wondrous, "etc. There are wondrous things there to be seen. I am sure of it. There is a wonderful view,
(a) of sin;
(b) of hell, as its desert;
(c) of One ready to save;
(d) of perfect pardon;
(e) of God's love:
(f) of all sufficient grace;
(g) of heaven.
3. The blind man's wisdom. The fault is in my eyes, not in thy word. "Open my eyes, "and all will be well. The reason for not seeing is because the eyes are blinded by sin. There is nothing wanting in the Bible.
4. The blind man's prayer:"Open thou mine eyes."
(a) I cannot open them.
(b) My dearest friends cannot.
(c) Only thou canst. "Lord, I pray thee, now open them."
Many seek to stop such praying. Be like Bartimaeus who
"cried so much the more."
5. The blind man's anticipation:"That I may behold."
(a) The joy of a cured blind man when he is about to behold,
for the first time, the beauties of nature.
(b) The joy of the spiritually healed when they begin
"looking unto Jesus."
(c) The personal character of the joy: "Open thou mine eyes,
that I may behold." I have hitherto had to see through the
eyes of others. I would depend on other eyes no longer.
The glad anticipation of Job: "Whom I shall see for
myself, and mine eyes shall behold, and not another." Frederick G. Marchant, 1882.
Ver. 18. God's word suited to man's sense of wonder.
1. We shall make some remarks on the sense of wonder in man, and what generally excites it. One of the first causes of wonder is the new or unexpected. The second source is to be found in things beautiful and grand. A third source is the mysterious which surrounds man there are things unknowable.
2. God has made provision for this sense of wonder in his revealed word. The Bible addresses our sense of wonder by constantly presenting the new and unexpected to us; it sets before us things beautiful and grand. If we come to the third source of wonder, that which raises it to awe, it is the peculiar province of the Bible to deal with this.
3. The means we are to use in order to have God's word thus unfolded the prayer of the Psalmist may be our guide "Open thou mine eyes, that I may behold wondrous things out of thy law." John Ker, of Glasgow, 1877.
Ver. 18. Wondrous sights for opened eyes.
1. The wondrous things in God's law. A wondrous rule of life. A wondrous curse against transgression. A wondrous redemption from the curse shadowed forth in the ceremonial law.
2. Special eyesight needed to behold them. They are spiritual things. Men are spiritually blind. 1Co 2:14.
3. Personal prayer to the Great Opener of eyes. C.A.D.
Psalms 119:19*
Charles H. Spurgeon's The Treasury of David (1869–1885) — public domain. Psalms only. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
The Biblical Illustrator 1887 · Public Domain On vv18–20 Open Thou mine eyes, that I may behold wondrous…
Psa_119:18
Open Thou mine eyes, that I may behold wondrous things out of Thy law.
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Moral blindness
Moral blindness is the worst kind of blindness.
I. Physical blindness has its compensations. Other faculties and organs generally become so keen and active as to make up for the loss of the eye. The imagination also, as in the case of Milton, Homer, etc., gets power to create sunny worlds.
II. Physical blindness is not criminal. It is a calamity. All blindness arises from one of three causes, the want of the visual faculty, the want of light, or the non-employment of the visual faculty. Man is morally blind not from the first cause, for he has conscience, that is, the eye of the soul; not from the second, for he has a moral revelation outside and inside of him. It is the last; he closes his eyes.
III. Physical blindness conceals the hideous. To look upon the hideous is painful. The blind man sees them not. But the man who is morally blind has often terrible visions of the most horrible things, his conscience scares and scathes him. (Homilist.)
Spiritual illumination
I. Man by nature is spiritually blind. Open thou mine eyes.
1. This spiritual blindness is the effect of sin.
2. It is universal.
3. It deprives man of his prerogatives.
4. It exposes man to danger. The refuge is before him, but he travels the path that leads to ruin. Who so blind as the sinner?
II. The removal of this spiritual blindness will enable man to perceive the truth of gods law. He is brought into a new sphere and new world.
1. The Bible is replete with realities.
2. The realities of the Bible are wonderful.
3. They are inexhaustible.
4. Mankind stands in need of perceiving these wonderful realities.
III. The removal of this spiritual blindness is Gods work.
1. By the agency of His Word.
2. By the agency of His Holy Spirit, who applies the Word to the conscience.
IV. Application.
1. The necessity of applying to God for the removal of this spiritual darkness.
2. The impossibility of being happy without Divine light and life.
3. The obligation of the Christian to God for being possessed with light to perceive the truths of the Bible. (J. O. Griffiths.)
Gods Word suited to mans sense of wonder
I. The sense of wonder in man, and what generally excites it. It is a great thing not to lose the sense of wonder, and yet to keep it for right objects.
2. The feeling may be excited by different objects.
(1) The new and unexpected.
(2) Things beautiful and grand.
(3) The mysterious.
II. God has made provision for this sense of wonder in his revealed Word.
1. The Bible addresses our sense of wonder by constantly presenting the new and unexpected to us.
(1) As to its form, it has gone on from first to last to add something new and fresh to all it had said before, and, if its circle has now closed, it is because it is already wide enough never to become old.
(2) As to the spirit of the Bible, we know how it exhorts us to search, to meditate, to dig for wisdom as for hid treasures, which must mean that we should bring out the fresh and unexplored.
2. While the Bible makes provision for constantly new views of truth, it sets before us also things beautiful and grand, without which the new would be a matter of idle curiosity.
3. And then, if we come to the third source of wonder, that which raises it to awe, it is the peculiar province of the Bible to deal with this. Its aim is, all through, to lead us to such subjects as the soul, and God, and the eternal world, and sin, the great mystery and root of mysteries, and the marvellous remedy which has been provided for it in the descent of the Divine nature to the human, that great mystery of godliness, God manifest in the flesh.
III. The means we are to use in order to have Gods Word thus unfolded.
The prayer of the psalmist may be our guide--Open Thou mine eyes that I may see.
1. He asks for no new revelation. It was in Gods hand to give this, and He did it in His own time to those ancient believers; but to all of them at every time there was enough given for the purposes of life. The request is not for more, but that he may employ well that which he possesses. Still better does such a form of request suit us, to whom life and immortality have been brought to light in Christ.
2. He asks for no new faculty. The eyes are there already, and they need only to be opened. It is not the bestowal of a new and supernatural power which enables a man to read the Bible to profit, but the quickening of a power he already possesses. In one view it is supernatural, as God is the Author of the illumination by a direct act of His Spirit; in another it is natural, as it operates through the faculties existing in mans soul. (John Ker, D. D.)
A necessary prayer
There are two classes of persons who may learn something from this prayer of the psalmist.
I. There are those-and many of them good Christians--who do not take so large a view of the Bible as they ought. They confine themselves to some doctrines and precepts, central and needful, and they read the Bible to find these in constantly recurring forms, just as some men look on flowers chiefly as verifying some botanical theory. This reduces the Book of God to a set of doctrinal moulds, and often makes what should be the most interesting of all books, one to which they have to urge themselves by a constraint of conscience, when they might be drawn to it by the attraction of constant freshness and growing beauty. For our own sakes, and for the sake of presenting it in its true light to the world, let us seek to study it in all the vividness of life and variety of colour with which God has set it forth. The special want of our time is to make the Bible more human without making it less Divine.
2. There is another class who may have given much thought to the Bible, and obtained from it fresh views of man and nature and God, but they have not yet lifted up the heart with this petition, Open Thou mine eyes, etc. They have not felt their need of any such enlightenment, because they have not felt the presence of sin, nor realized the darkness that it pours over the spiritual vision. Let them ask of its Author the Divine eye-salve with which He anoints the eyes. Its first revelations may be unwelcome, and men may be startled to see how fancied wealth and fulness sink into spiritual poverty and misery. But continued vision will open up Divine remedies, gold tried in the fire, and white raiment, the value of which will only be enhanced by growing insight. (John Ker, D. D.)
The Bible as containing the wonderful
The Bible contains Wondrous things. Wonderful in their nature, wonderful in their number, and wonderful in their influence. As containing the wonderful--
I. It agrees with the constitution of the human mind.
1. Man has a craving for the wonderful.
2. Man has a need for the wonderful to excite his faculties, to stimulate his inquiries, to challenge his powers.
II. It accords with the character of nature. All nature is crowded with the wonderful. We need not take the microscope to search the myriad worlds invisible to the naked eye, or the telescope innumerable worlds and systems rolling through infinite space to discover the wonderful. The wonderful comes under our eye, sounds in our ear, and beats in our pulse every moment. If the Bible did not contain the wonderful it would not be in harmony with nature, not in harmony with the works of God, either in this planet or in any parts of immensity.
III. It reproves the dogmatism of religionists. (Homilist.)
Spiritual discernment
Two forms of Divine teaching are implied in these words--revelation and spiritual apprehension to receive that which is revealed; truth in the written Word, and the inward illumination of the Holy Spirit; the one therefore universal, common to all men--the open Bible, the Gospel preached to every creature under heaven; the other personal, private, incommunicable by man to man; the one the noonday sunshine flooding the whole world with light from the hills on the horizon to the grass and pebbles at your feet; the other the eye in which a clouded lens or a palsied nerve leaves you dark in the midst of the blaze of noon.
1. The distinction which is here implied is in perfect harmony and analogy with all the conditions of human knowledge. Every branch of human knowledge has what in the philosophical language of the day is called its objective and subjective side. In every art, every science, every pursuit, there are these two things; there are general laws, rules, theories, principles, illustrations, examples, which can be committed to writing, stored up in books, taught in words by the teacher to the scholar; and there is the personal aptitude, which may be developed by culture if it be latent, but which can never be bestowed when it is wanting. In the very same family one child has a talent for drawing and painting, and no ear whatever for music; another, if he were to drudge with the pencil or brush for years would never make anything of it, but music speaks a language that seems like his native tongue, and, with moderate teaching and moderate opportunities, yields up its secret to his ear and his finger. So it is familiarly in business as well as in art and in science, in everything that man can teach man; one succeeds where another fails, and the best and ablest, and most skilful teacher has often to say in despair, If you cannot see it, I cannot make you see it. Now, if we find something exactly corresponding to this in regard to spiritual truth; if this book is one book to one man and quite another book to another; if doctrines which to some minds shine by their own light need no proof but what is in them, are to others dark, mysterious, difficult, and to others totally incredible or utterly uninteresting--this, you observe, is no more than you might expect; it is merely the repetition within the sphere or region of spiritual truth of what is abundantly familiar to us in all other directions. But it does not follow that the difference between the Christian and the unbeliever, between the earnest inquirer after Divine truth, and the careless, unintelligent, irreligious hearer, is to be accounted for on the same principles, and is simply of the same kind, as the difference between the musician and the painter, between the linguist and the mathematician, between the keen successful man of business and the blunderer who is always failing. Thank God, no; but surely this follows, that the prevalence of scepticism or of irreligion, were these a hundred times more prevalent than they are, does not produce the shadow of a presumption that the Christian is wrong in his faith, or that he is deluded in his experience.
2. The Bible amply recognizes and abundantly teaches this double character of Divine knowledge, this analogy between Divine knowledge and every other kind of knowledge, but at the same time with a broad and vital difference. The Bible knows nothing, either in the Old Testament or in the New, of any doctrine of reserve. Where it speaks it speaks to all; its voice is to the sons of men; its sound is gone out through all the earth, and its word is to the end of the world; but at the same time nothing is more emphatically and plainly taught in the Bible itself than that these open pages, open to the whole world, and even to be pressed upon the eyes of all men who can be persuaded to look into them, are all the while a sealed book except to those who have eyes to see. So far as it is possible for truth to be put into words, so far the Holy Scriptures are able to make us wise unto salvation. But the Scriptures themselves tell us that there is a learning that cannot be put into words, that cannot be written, or printed, or spoken, and that, therefore, cannot be communicated by man to his fellow-man; that there must be the eye to see and the ear to hear.
3. It is an unspeakably consoling and delightful reflection that this impossibility of attaining spiritual truth apart from Divine teaching which Gods Word so plainly sets forth, puts no hindrance in any mans way, no hindrance in the way of the simplest learner, no hindrance in the way of the unbeliever any more than of the believer, if only the unbeliever is desirous of knowing what is truth. Our Saviours words, when He says, No man can come to Me, except the Father who hath sent Me, draw him, are not building up a barrier between Himself and any human soul; they are throwing down all barriers; they are assuring us that so far as is possible, God has put all men upon one spiritual level of privilege and opportunity. It is not that a hindrance and a barrier has been built up; it is that human nature, as it exists, needs the Divine light, the Divine grace, the Divine help, as it needs the Divine atonement and the Divine Saviour, and that as man cannot lift himself, even a single foot or inch from his mother earth by his own power, so much less can he lift himself one step towards God, unless not only the light shine down and shows him what he is, and what God is, but the saving hand lays hold of him and inspires within his heart the assurance that the hand that has once taken hold upon him shall never loose its hold. (E. R. Conder, D. D.)
Divine illumination
I. Some things in which it does not consist.
1. It does not consist in any degree of knowledge acquired in the ordinary manner.
2. It does not consist in revelations of new truths.
3. It does not consist merely in lively and affecting views of the truths already revealed in the Word of God.
4. It does not consist in any conceptions, or creations of the imagination, respecting God, Christ, heaven, or hell.
II. In what, then, does it consist? It is a sense Of Divine things. In its results it differs entirely from a mere opinion or judgment of the mind. There may be an opinion founded on the testimony of others, that light is pleasant; but of this pleasantness the blind man has no just conception. If sight is granted to him, he will find light to be widely different from anything which he had ever conceived. So of Divine things. The natural man may believe them to be excellent and glorious, but of this excellency and glory he has no just conception. The natural man discerneth not the things of the Spirit. A sense of their superlative excellency and glory in the mind is as certainly the work of God as sight in the natural eye, or hearing in the natural ear, or tasting in its appropriate organ.
III. The production of this spiritual understanding His people is everywhere in the Scriptures literally and immediately ascribed to the Almighty.
IV. Conclusion. This subject suggests,
1. The reason why those who have been newly born into the kingdom of Christ seem to regard everything as new, and feel themselves to be in a new world.
2. That persons of very limited capacities may have spiritual understanding.
3. The importance of inquiring concerning the nature of our understanding in a spiritual respect.
4. No other knowledge is so pure and elevated as that which is thus acquired.
5. No other knowledge is so capable of producing sacred joy.
6. No other knowledge is so purifying in its influence. A spiritual understanding of the character of God, a holy sense of His presence, a sacred view of the character of Christ, a holy sense of the presence and work of the Spirit, a spiritual appreciation of the extent and spirituality of the law--all these things are pre-eminently calculated to excite the renovated heart to walk in the statutes and commandments of the Lord. (J. Foot, D. D.)
Divine revelation
I. It contains wonders. The Bible has many wonders, but the great wonder is the Incarnation of Christ. It is that into which angels desire to look, that which will be the study of eternity.
II. Man should discover these wonders. To know Christ is of paramount importance to him. It is his life eternal.
III. To discover these wonders god must open mans eyes. Man has spiritual eyes, eyes to see moral truth and God. These eyes are closed. No one can open them but the Divine Ophthalmist. Oh that men saw things as they really are! (Homilist.)
Spiritual vision
I. We are all born spiritually blind. Think of Samson when the Philistines put out his eyes. What a picture of misery l and further, what a picture of man l a mirror where unconverted men, had they eyes to see, might behold themselves. Was he taken captive of the Philistines?--so are they of their vices. Did he pass his days in the service of his enemies?--slaves of Satan, they serve one who hates them with cruel hatred. Was he bound in fetters of brass?--what are fetters of brass or iron to the chains of the drunkard, of the licentious, of the miser, of the lover of this world? Was he blinded as well as bound?--so are they. Eyes have they, but they see not; the god of this world hath blinded the minds of them which believe not; they are insensible to their state. But here fails the parallel. Samson felt his degradation keenly; longed for liberty; groped about to find a door of escape. How different the poor sinner! He hugs his chain, and delights in the vices that enslave him.
II. Consider some of the characteristics of this blindness.
1. Blindness deprives its subjects of many pleasures which Gods goodness lavishes on us, and, through our eyes, pours into our hearts.
2. Blindness makes the condition of its subjects one of painful dependence.
3. Blindness exposes its subjects to deception. Satan makes thousands believe that all is right, that the path they tread is one of safety, when all the while, step by step down, but gently down, he conducts his blind, deluded, singing, dancing joyous victims on to the brink of ruin, and to that last, fatal step which plunges them into hell.
4. Again, blindness exposes us to danger. A blind man will starve with bread within his reach; parched and perishing with thirst, he will pass the well that invited his lips to drink; drowning, with a rope thrown within his grasp, and the cries of eager voices in his ear, Lay hold of life! he will sink into a watery grave--lost, when he might have been saved. Such is the case of the unconverted.
III. The eyes of the blind being opened, they behold wondrous things out of the law of God. There was an eminent philosopher who had devoted a lifetime to the pursuits of science, and not, as he thought, in vain. She had crowned his brow with laurels, and inscribed his name in the temple of fame. In the evening of his days, at the eleventh hour, God was pleased to call him, open his eyes, convert him; and now, he who was deeply read in science and conversant with its loftiest speculations, as he bent his grey head over the Bible, declared that, if he had his life to live over again, he would spend it in the study of the Word of God. He felt like a miner, who, after toiling long and to little purpose in search of gold, with one stroke of his pick-axe lays open a vein of the precious metal and becomes rich at once--the owner of a vein that grows the richer the deeper the mine is driven. Such a treasure the Bible offers to those whose eyes God has opened to its wonders of grace and glory. It is inexhaustible.
IV. God only can open our eyes. Hence to Him David directs the prayer of my text; and also this--Lighten mine eyes, lest I sleep the sleep of death. Men use instruments to restore sight, and nowhere does surgery achieve a nobler triumph, or bestow greater blessings on mankind, than in yonder theatre, where skill and a steady hand cut into the sightless balls; and man, opening a way for the light of heaven, imitates Christ in His divine works of might and mercy--pouring light into the blind mans eyes, and joy into the blind mans heart. God also uses instruments--His instrument the Word, His agent the Holy Spirit. By these, working faith in men, and renewing them in the spirit of their minds, He has often answered, and is now ready to answer the prayer, Open Thou mine eyes. (T. Guthrie, D. D.)
The lifted veil
It was an ancient custom for the reader of the Law in a Jewish synagogue to put a veil upon his face. Originally designed as an act of reverence, as if the glory of this law was too dazzling for the human eye to behold, the veil upon the countenance has become an awful type of the veil that is Upon the heart. Century after century has passed away, and still in every Jewish synagogue Moses is read. But so blinded are the minds of those who read, and of those who listen, that they do not perceive the beauty, or understand the meaning of their own Scriptures--an affecting proof of the necessity of the Spirits teaching, for the right understanding of the Word of God.
I. Gods law contains wondrous things. All the Divine works are wonderful. There is not a leaf which God has moulded, or an insect He has formed, or an atom He has made, which does not demand, and will not repay, our thoughtful study. But Revelation contains a brighter display of His wisdom and love than nature with all its sublime and glorious discoveries.
II. The enlightened mind can alone understand it.
1. There is ignorance. Having the understanding darkened, is the brief but solemn description which the apostle gives of the Gentiles, and it is a true representation of unregenerate nature.
2. Then there is prejudice. We cannot understand a truth, if we dislike that truth.
3. Unbelief prompts men to misinterpret Scripture, and renders them ingenious in their objections against it.
4. Worldliness is another veil which hides from our view the wonders of Gods Word.
III. That God only can communicate the light we need.
1. The Spirit humbles us, and humility enables us to understand the Scriptures.
2. The Spirit purifies the heart, and purity enables us to understand the Scriptures.
3. The Spirit fills our hearts with love, and love enables us to understand the Scriptures. (H. J. Gamble.)
Longing for spiritual sight
I. The involved acknowledgment of spiritual ignorance.
II. The reasons upon which the plea rests.
1. Spiritual sight or knowledge is of itself a great blessing
2. Such a petition honours and acknowledges the work of the Holy Ghost.
3. There are wonders in the system of revealed truth which have yet to be explored and known.
4. The opening of our eyes is a work of Divine grace and power, and stands intimately connected with our pardon and regeneration.
5. This prayer stands before us as a spiritual and heaven-inspired petition, because of its opposition to the spirit and desires of the carnal mind.
6. Unless this prayer, or its equivalent, be uttered in an earnest and believing spirit, a blinding process will go on, which can only terminate in the darkness of death eternal. (A. Barrett.)
The need of spiritual
vision:--In the Old Testament what do we see? A great many Christian people see very little in the Old Testament, and they are always ready to criticize. I know men in the Church who go into raptures over the poetry of Homer, or the eloquence of Demosthenes, or the philosophy of Plato, about the artistry of Greece or about the jurisprudence of Rome; but they have no enthusiasm whatever for these great, noble teachers who declare the simple everlasting laws which are the very light and fire. In this great Book of Righteousness, this Old Testament, a good many of us see but little into the gleam here and there; our eyes have not been opened to its breadth and depth and significance. I remember once looking over a magnificent piece of scenery--mountains, rocks, and sea--and all of it bathed in the splendours of the setting sun. And I heard a lady close to me complain that she did not think much about it because it was all land and water. Exactly. But, I say, what if Claude had been there? What if Turner had been there? What would they have seen in that panorama of splendour and delight? What did your Master see in the Old Testament? How Christ appealed to these prophets, minstrels, and seers, and how He brought out of that Old Testament all the wondrous things of the Sermon on the Mount! The Church wants its eyes opening to the full noon of the Old Testament, where God has given to us such grand histories, and statutes, and suggestions. You may well pray, Open Thou mine eyes that I may understand these great teachings, that I may appreciate these great parables of truth and of righteousness. What do a great many of us see in the New Testament? Do you think, to-day, that we see all the glory of the incarnate Christ? Do you think that we have seen with open eyes the crucified Christ--the Christ of the Resurrection? My soul has feelers, not eyes; I grope, I do not see. Oh, that I might get eyes, that I could see, that I could see the glory of God, that I could see the beauty of Christ, that I could see the majesty of His higher law, that I could see a door opening into heaven t Open Thou mine eyes, that I may see the wonderful things out of Thy law. There is another thing. Here you consider the special appeal: that I may see wonderful things out of Thy law. What wonderful things? I tell you one is this: We ought all to pray to God that He would open our eyes to the reality of the law of righteousness. Oh, what you want God to do with this generation is to work into its understanding and soul the truth, the reality, the inviolability of the moral commandment. One French writer says he does not like Christianity because it condemns a man if he does not believe in it. And the law of gravitation condemns you if you do not believe in it. I wish we could for once believe that the law, the higher law, is as true as the law of gravitation, and that it will as certainly inflict upon the transgressor a penalty, only infinitely more disastrous. But there is another thing which we want to have our eyes opened to about the law of righteousness, and that is its universal application; that it is like the sky shutting us all down. Oh, that society might feel the obligation universally, the absolute obligation, rich and poor, intellectual and vulgar; clergy and laity; public virtue and private virtue all under one great commandments--thou shalt, thou shalt not! We want our eyes opening to the broad, solid, imperative commandment, as we shall all one day stand before one throne and each and all give an account of themselves. (W. L. Watkinson.)
The wonders of Gods law
There is nothing so wonderful as Gods law; nay, it may justly be said to include in itself all that is most wonderful, all that truly merits our admiration, all that will really reward our curiosity. For what is it? The psalmist here was not thinking merely of the law given to Moses, or of the words written in any book, however sacred; he was not thinking of spoken words or written characters, but of Gods eternal realities. He was an earnest man, and his mind sought to be in contact with truth itself; he was a pious man, and his heart longed for nothing less or lower than communion with the living God. He felt himself in the Divine presence, and he felt that the Divine law was within and around him. The wonders of physical nature, and the human soul and human history, and of redeeming love and grace, are all wonders of that law of God which the psalmist longed and prayed to behold, that law which ruleth alike in what is least and greatest, to which all things in heaven and earth do homage, the seat of which is the bosom of the Eternal, the voice of which is the harmony of the universe. There is no science cultivated among us which can ever have anything else for its highest aim than simply to discover and exhibit some part of the Divine law, since the end of every kind of study worthy of our engaging in is directly or indirectly to extend our knowledge of laws which we distinguish from one another by calling laws of astronomy or chemistry, laws of language or history, physical, morn], or spiritual laws, but which all agree in being laws of God, the operations of His will, the expressions of His character, the rules which He has implanted in His creatures, and assigned to them as the conditions and limits of their workings. But the most important of Gods laws are those which He has given us for the regulation of our own lives. In reality, whether we see it or not, there is far more that is wonderful in these laws than in any other. They are, for example, the laws of God in a far higher sense than other laws; the laws of the physical world might have been quite different from what they are. God made them to be what they are by making the physical world itself what it is; if He had made quite a different material world, with quite other laws, He would have been none the less God, the true object of our worship. But He did not make by any forth-putting of His will the fundamental laws of moral life to be what they are; they are eternal and unchangeable. That God should alter them would be for Him to cease to be wise and righteous and holy and loving, it would be for Him to cease to be good. The wonders of these laws are thus the wonders of the Divine nature, and far greater, therefore, than any wonders of created nature; at the same time these laws are the laws of our natures, of our spirits, of what is much higher and much more wonderful than anything else to be beheld in nature. On earth, it has been said, there is nothing great but man, and in man there is nothing great but mind; and certainly a soul is a far more wonderful thing than even a star, a spiritual being than a material world, and its laws far more wonderful. It is spiritual law which determines mens relations to their God and one another, and it is on obedience or disobedience to it that the weal or woe of individuals or societies chiefly depends, so that all the marvels and mysteries of human life and destiny gather around. If we would see, however, the wonders in the most impressive light, we must turn to Revelation. Every miracle, every prophecy, every striking dispensation recorded in Scripture, whatever else it may have meant, was always a proclamation of God to men that they should reverence this His law. If we can see no wonders in the law which Christ died to satisfy and glorify, if we do not see it to be unspeakably more wonderful than all other law, assuredly our blindness is great indeed, and we cannot too earnestly cry to a merciful God, open Thou mine eyes. (R. Flint, D. D.)
The wonders of Gods law
The psalmists delight in Gods law, and intense desire to know Gods judgments, may thus be read as an expression of a feeling which we may cherish towards everything that is going on in our world and among the stars. There are wondrous things for us to behold in the processes of nature and human life. The more our eyes are open to the ordering and the law of God in all existences and events the more fascinating will our view of the universe become to us; and as our brief sojourning here draws toward its close, the more intensely interesting will all our experience of life and the vistas of promise beyond become to us. Consider, first, why it is that we take pleasure in watching the course of events. What deeper motive is there which leads men with increasing civilization to ask daily, What is the news? Why is it that we wish to live where we can keep in quick touch with everything that is transpiring throughout the whole world? Not simply because they are current events, but because they are events in history; because they are things happening in the life and progress of the world; because these facts are parts and moments of some vast half-discovered whole of human history; because they are not mere happenings, but they are orderings of events; because they are not mere blows of events struck over and over again upon the hollow round of the world, sounding ever the same dull tone; but because they are events beaten out to some single purpose; because they are successive notes in the worlds marching music. What beyond our passing sympathy interests us so much is not merely the event, or the fact in itself, but something to which the fact belongs, the movement, the order, the problem, the on-reaching history, the providential purpose to which it belongs. Oh, the charm of the seen is the unseen, and the perpetual fascination of history is the revealing of its Messianic law and order l Consider as another instance our interest in common human life. What is that ultimately, in the last analysis of our comradeships or our friendships? Some of you can remember for many years past. But in what, as one whole, lies to you the real human interest of all this which you have been seeing, and knowing in your sojourning here? The persons, the events, the friends, the faces? Yes, they shall always Be of concern, some of dear memory and hope to you; but the supreme interest of your life as a whole, in all its human contacts and experiences, lies after all not in what you have seen and known, but in something that you have half seen, or dimly grasped after, or at times without seeing have become inwardly, deeply sure of; it has been the leading of God through it all; something more than human felt through all human love and sorrow; the Infinite surrounding the finiteness of it all; the eternal giving and taking the lives of men back into itself; the larger hope, the ever forward movement, the eventful Providence; the mystery of some higher purpose, measureless, unknown, let with moments of bright revealings; oh, this is something vaster and diviner, which as you sit and think over the long past, seems to take it all up, events, persons, sorrows, joys, all that you have been and seen, and felt, into one indistinguishable memory and dream and hope of glory, and to leave your heart, like the psalmist of old, saying. I have seen wondrous things, etc. (Newman Smyth, D. D.)
Spiritual sight
The spiritual eyesight must be opened in order that the spiritual beauty and wisdom and glory of the Divine Word may be discovered. When the great philosopher, Sir David Brewster, was dying, he said to Sir James Simpson, I have had the light for many years, and oh, how bright it is! I feel so perfectly sure, so perfectly happy. Come and see. That is the short, simple, earnest common-sense appeal which is made to every honest seeker after truth, every soul troubled with a sense of sin and guilt. Come and see. (Christian Age.)
Removing obstruction to sight
The other day (writes Mr. Reader Harris, K.C.) I had the privilege Of witnessing one of our great surgeons remove the cataract from a womans eye. It is a beautiful illustration of Gods work of deliverance from sin. It was done almost instantaneously. The cataract was taken out of the eye. The surgeon took it right out, and then, very soon afterwards, he put glasses on that womans eye, and he said: Mr. Harris, take out your watch, and to the woman he said: How long have you been blind? She said: I have been blind for six years. Now, he said, look through this glass, and tell what his watch says. She read it at once, hour hand and minute hand. Why? Because the surgeon had taken out of the eye that which obscured the vision; and because that operator had not only taken out what hindered the vision but he had given her, in the lens, that which could take the place of it. May God clarify our spiritual vision by purifying our hearts, and filling them with the Holy Ghost! (Sunday Circle.)
Spiritual Vision
The naked eye can see only about 3,500 stars, but the man who looks and sees through the telescope the star dust of eighty-five million worlds grows more interested through deeper views into the skies. So with the Bible, when the eyes of our understanding are opened on the vast firmament of Bible truth by the aid of the telescope of spiritual discernment. (J. Crafts.)
The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Alexander MacLaren 1905 · Public Domain On v19 Psa 119:19, Psa 119:64.
Psalms
A STRANGER IN THE EARTH
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Psa 119:19, Psa 119:64.
There is something very remarkable in the variety-in-monotony of this, the longest of the psalms. Though it be the longest it is in one sense the simplest, inasmuch as there is but one thought in it, beaten out into all manner of forms and based upon all various considerations. It reminds one of the great violinist who out of one string managed to bring such music and melody.
The one thought is the infinite preciousness of God’s law, by which, of course, is not meant the written record of that law which lies in Scripture, but the utterances of God’s law in any form, by which men may receive it. You will find that that wider signification of the word ‘law,’ ‘commandment,’ ‘statute,’ is essential to the understanding of every portion of this psalm.
And now these two petitions which I have put together base the prayer, which they both offer, in slightly varied form {‘Teach me Thy statutes,’ or ‘Hide not Thy commandments from me,’} upon two diverse considerations, which, taken in conjunction, are extremely interesting.
The two facts on which the one petition rests, are like two great piers on two opposite sides of a river, each of which holds one end of the arch. ‘The earth is full of Thy mercy’; ay! but ‘I am a stranger upon the earth.’ These two things are both true, and from each of them, and still more from both of them taken together, rises up this petition. Let us look then at the facts, and then at the prayer that is built upon them.
Take first that thought of the rejoicing earth, full of God’s mercy as some cup is full of rich wine, or as the flowers in the morning are filled with dew. The Bible does not look at the external world, the material universe, from a scientific point of view, nor does it look at it from a poetical point of view, but from a simply religious one. Nothing that modern science has taught us to say about the world in the least affects this principle which the Psalmist lays down, that it is all full of God’s mercy. The thought is intended to exclude man and man’s ways and all connected with him, as we shall see presently, but the Psalmist looks out upon the earth and all the rest of its inhabitants, and he is sure of two things: one, that God’s direct act is at work in it all, so as that every creature that lives, and everything that is, lives and is because God is there, and working there; and next, that everything about us is the object of loving thoughts of God’s; and has, as it were, some reflection of God’s smile cast across it like the light of flowers upon the grass. Spring days with life ‘re-orient out of dust,’ and the annual miracle beginning again all round, with the birds in the trees, that even dwellers in towns can hear singing as if their hearts would burst for very mirth and hopefulness, the blossoms beginning to push above the frosty ground, and the life breaking out of the branches that were stiff and dry all through the winter, proclaim the same truth as the Psalmist was contemplating when he spoke thus. He looks all round, and everywhere sees the signature of a loving divine Hand.
The earth is full to brimming of Thy mercy. It takes faith to see that; it takes a deeper and a firmer hold of the thought of a present God than most men have, to feel that. For the most of us, the world has got to be very empty of God now. We hear rather the creaking of the wheels of a great machine, or see the workings of a blind, impersonal force. But I believe that all that is precious and good in the growth of knowledge since the old days when this Psalmist wrote may be joyfully accepted by us, and deep down below all we may see the deeper, larger truth of the living purpose and will of God Himself. And I know no reason why twentieth-century men, full to the fingertips of modern scientific thought, may not say as heartily as the old Psalmist said, ‘The earth, O Lord! is full of Thy mercy.’
But then there is another side to all this. Amidst all this sunny play of gladness, and apocalypse of blessing, there stands one exception. Hearken to the other word of my texts, ‘I am a stranger upon the earth.’ Man is out of joint with the great whole, out of harmony with the music, the only hungry one at the feast. All other creatures are admirably adapted for the place they fill, and the place they fill is sufficient for them. But I stand here, knowing that I do not belong to this goodly fellowship, feeling that I am an exception to the rule. As Colonel Gardiner said, ‘I looked at the dog, and I wished that I was a dog.’ Ah! many another man has felt, Why is it that whilst every creature, the motes that dance in the sunbeam, and the minutest living things, however insignificant, are all filled to the very brim of their capacity-why is it that I, the roof and crown of things, stand here, a sad and solitary stranger, having made acquaintance with grief; having learned what they know not, the burden of toil and care, cursed with forecast and anticipation, saddened by memory, torn by desires? ‘We look before and after, and pine for what is not.’ All other beings fit their place, and their place fits them like a glove upon a fair hand, but I stand here ‘a stranger upon the earth.’ And the more I feel, or at least the more I am convinced that it is full of God’s mercy, the more I feel that there is something else which I need to make me, in my fashion, as really and as completely blessed as the lowest of His creatures.
The Psalmist tells us what that something more is: ‘I am a stranger upon the earth; hide not Thy commandments from me.’ That is my food, that is what I need; that is the one thing that will make our souls feel at rest, that we shall have not merely a Bible in our hands, but the will of God, the knowledge and the love of the will of God, in our hearts. When we can say ‘I delight to do Thy will, and my whole being seeks to lay itself beneath the mould of Thine impressing purpose, and to be shaped accordingly’; Oh! then, then the care and the toil and the sorrow and the restlessness and the sense of transiency, all change. Some of them pass away altogether; those of them that survive are transfigured from darkness to glory. Just as some gloomy cliff, impending over the plain, when the rising sun smites upon it, is changed into a rosy and golden glory, so the frowning peaks that look down upon us, are all transmuted and glorified, when once the light of God’s recognised will falls upon them.
‘All is right that seems most wrong,
If it be His sweet will.’
And when He has not hidden His commandments from us, but we have them in our hearts, for the joy and the strength of our lives, then, then it does not matter, though we have to say, ‘foxes have holes, and birds of the air have their roosting-places,’ and I only, in creation, have ‘not where to lay my head.’ If we have His will in our hearts, and are humbly and yet lovingly trying to do it, then toil becomes easy, and work becomes blessedness. If we have His will in our hearts, and are seeking to cleave to it, then and only then, do we cease to feel that it is sad that we should be strangers upon the earth, because then and then only can we say ‘we seek for a better country, that is, a heavenly.’
Oh, dear friends! we shall be cursed with restlessness and ‘weighed upon with sore distress’; and a fleeting world will, by its very fleetingness, be a misery to us, until we have learned to yield our wills to God, and to drink in His law as the joy and the rejoicing of our hearts. A stranger upon the earth needs the statutes of the Lord, he needs no more, and then they will be as the Psalmist says in another place, ‘his song in the house of his pilgrimage.’
But the first of our two texts suggests further to us the certainty that this petition shall not be in vain. If the thought, ‘I am a stranger in the earth,’ teaches us our need of God’s commandments, the thought, ‘the earth is full of Thy mercies,’ assures us that we shall get what we need.
Surely it is not going to be the case that we only are to be left hungry when all other creatures sit at His table and feast there. Surely He who knows what each living thing requires, and opens His hand, and satisfies their desires, is not going to leave the nobler famishing of an immortal soul uncared for.
Surely if all through the universe besides, we see that the measure of a creature’s capacity is the measure of God’s gift to it, there is not going to be, there need not be, any disproportion between what we require and what we possess. Surely if His ear can hear and translate, and His loving hand can open to satisfy, the croaking of the young raven when it cries, He will neither mistake nor neglect the voice of a man’s heart, when it is asking what is so in accordance with His will as that He should let him know and love His statutes.
It is not meant to be the case that we lie in the middle of His creation, the one exception to the universal law, like Gideon’s fleece, dry and dusty, while every poor bit of bush and grass round about is soaked with His dew. If ‘the earth is full of Thy mercy,’ Thou thereby hast pledged Thyself that my heart shall be full of Thy law and Thy grace, if I desire it.
And so, dear brethren! whilst the one of these twin considerations should send us to our knees, the other should hearten and wing our prayers. And if, on the one hand, we feel that to bring us up to the level of the poorest of His creatures, we need a firm grasp and a hearty love of His law deep in our spirits, on the other hand, the fact that the feeblest and the poorest of His creatures is saturated and soaked with as much of God’s goodness as it can suck in, may make us quite sure that our souls will not vainly pant after Him in a ‘dry and thirsty land where no water is.’ ‘The earth, O Lord! is full of Thy mercy.’ Am I to be empty of the highest mercy, the knowledge of Thy will? Never! never!
And so, ‘Say not, Who shall ascend up into the heavens? say not, Who shall pass over the sea to bring Thy law near, that we may hear and do it? Behold! the word is very nigh thee.’ The law, the will of God, and the power to perform it are braided together, in inextricable union, in Jesus Christ Himself; and the prayer of my psalm most deeply understood, turns itself all into this:-Give me Christ, more of the knowledge of Him who is my law and Thine uttered will; more of the love of Him whom to love is to be at home everywhere, and to be filled with Thy mercy; more of the likeness to Him whom to imitate is holiness; whom to resemble is perfection. ‘The earth is full of Thy mercy.’ ‘The Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us; and we beheld His glory, full of grace and truth.’ And of that fulness can all we receive. Then will we be strangers here no longer; and our hearts will be replenished with a better mercy than all the universe beside is capable of containing.
Alexander MacLaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture (1904–1910) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
unfoldingWord translationNotes 2017 · CC BY-SA 4.0 On v19 I am a foreigner in the land
I am a foreigner in the land
Possible meanings are 1) the writers speaks of his short life on earth as if he were a foreigner who would not stay long in the land. AT: "I am like a foreigner living a short time in the land" or 2) the writer's ignorance of God's law as if he were a foreigner who did not know the laws of the land. AT: "I am ignorant like a foreigner in the land" (See: Metaphor)
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My desires are crushed by the longing
The writer speaks of his desires being very strong as if they were in pain. AT: "My inner being strongly desires to know" or "My soul aches because I want so much to know" (See: Metaphor)
translationWords
alien
command
know
righteous
decree
unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.
Tyndale Open Study Notes 2022 · CC BY-SA 4.0 On v20 119:20-21 The arrogant are probably those who mock the…
119:20-21 The arrogant are probably those who mock the psalmist (119:22-23).
Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.