Psalm 119:18

Open thou mine eyes, that I may behold wondrous things out of thy law.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(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. 2Corinthians 4:18.)

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

119:17-24 If God deals in strict justice with us, we all perish. We ought to spend our lives in his service; we shall find true life in keeping his word. Those that would see the wondrous things of God's law and gospel, must beg him to give them understanding, by the light of his Spirit. Believers feel themselves strangers on earth; they fear missing their way, and losing comfort by erring from God's commandments. Every sanctified soul hungers after the word of God, as food which there is no living without. There is something of pride at the bottom of every wilful sin. God can silence lying lips; reproach and contempt may humble and do us good, and then they shall be removed. Do we find the weight of the cross is above that we are able to bear? He that bore it for us will enable us to bear it; upheld by him we cannot sink. It is sad when those who should protect the innocent, are their betrayers. The psalmist went on in duty, and he found comfort in the word of God. The comforts of the word of God are most pleasant to a gracious soul, when other comforts are made bitter; and those that would have God's testimonies to be their delight, must be advised by them. May the Lord direct us in exercising repentance of sin, and faith in Christ.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

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 Numbers 22:31; Numbers 24:4, Numbers 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 1 Corinthians 2:12, 1 Corinthians 2:14-15. He believed that there were such things in the law of God; he desired to see them.

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 1 Corinthians 2:6-15.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

GIMEL. (Ps 119:17-24).

17-20. Life is desirable in order to serve God; that we may do so aright, we should seek to have our eyes opened to behold His truth, and earnestly desire fully to understand it.

Matthew Poole's Commentary

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, Matthew 16:17 1 Corinthians 2:11,14 2 Corinthians 3:14 4:4,6 Eph 1:17, especially in the times of the Old Testament.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

Open thou mine eyes,.... The eyes of my heart or understanding, as Kimchi; or, "reveal mine eyes" (t); take off the veil from them: there is a veil of darkness and ignorance on the hearts of all men, with respect to divine and spiritual things; their understandings are darkened, yea, darkness itself. This veil must be removed; the scales must drop from their eyes; their eyes must be opened and enlightened, before they can discern spiritual things contained in the word of God; and even good men need to have the eyes of their understandings more and more enlightened into these things, as the psalmist here petitions, and the apostle prays for his Ephesians, Ephesians 1:17;

that I may behold wondrous things out of thy law; the law strictly taken, which had great and excellent things in it; and was wonderful for the compendiousness of it; for the justice, holiness, and equity of its precepts; especially for its spirituality, and above all for Christ, being the end of it; the two last more particularly could only be discerned by a spiritual man: or rather the five books of Moses, the almost only Scriptures extant in David's time, in which there were many wonderful things concerning Christ; some delivered by way of promise and prophecy of him, under the characters of the seed of the woman, the seed of Abraham, the Shiloh, and the great Prophet; and many others in dark figures, types, and shadows, which required a spiritual sight to look into; of which the rock and manna, the brasen serpent, passover, &c. are instances: but rather, as the word "law" signifies "doctrine", the doctrine of the Gospel may be meant; which contains mysteries in it, respecting the trinity of Persons in the Godhead, the person of Christ, his incarnation, sufferings and death; the blessings of grace through him; the doctrines of peace, pardon, righteousness, eternal life, and the resurrection of the dead; with many others.

(t) "revela oculos meos", Pagninus, Montanus, Musculus, Cocceius, Gejerus, Michaelis; "velamen detrahe oculis meis", Tigurine version.

Geneva Study Bible

Open thou mine eyes, that I may behold wondrous things out of thy law.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

18. Open] Lit. uncover. Natural sight is unable to discern the mysteries (cp. Psalm 119:27) of Divine revelation; hence this prayer for the removal of the veil from his eyes. Cp. 2 Kings 6:17 (a different word); Ephesians 1:17-18.

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 18. - 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. Matthew 5:21-37). Psalm 119:18

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

The eightfold Gimel. This is his life's aim: he will do it under fear of the curse of apostasy; he will do it also though he suffer persecution on account of it. In Psalm 119:17 the expression is only אחיה as Psalm 118:19, not ואחיה as in Psalm 119:77, Psalm 119:116, Psalm 119:144 : the apodosis imper. only begins with ואשׁמרה, whereas אחיה is the good itself for the bestowment of which the poet prays. גּל in Psalm 119:18 is imper. apoc. Piel for גּלּה, like גס in Daniel 1:12. נפלאות is the expression for everything supernatural and mysterious which is incomprehensible to the ordinary understanding and is left to the perception of faith. The Tפra beneath the surface of its letter contains an abundance of such "wondrous things," into which only eyes from which God has removed the covering of natural short-sightedness penetrate; hence the prayer in Psalm 119:18. Upon earth we have no abiding resting-place, we sojourn here as in a strange land (Psalm 119:19, Psalm 39:13; 1 Chronicles 29:15). Hence the poet prays in Psalm 119:19 that God would keep His commandments, these rules of conduct for the journey of life, in living consciousness for him. Towards this, according to Psalm 119:20, his longing tends. גּרס (Hiph. in Lamentations 3:16) signifies to crush in pieces, Arab. jrš, and here, like the Aramaic גּרס, גּרס, to be crushed, broken in pieces. לתאבה (from תּאב, Psalm 119:40, Psalm 119:174, a secondary form of אבה) states the bias of mind in or at which the soul feels itself thus overpowered even to being crushed: it is crushing form longing after God's judgment, viz., after a more and more thorough knowledge of them. In Psalm 119:21 the lxx has probably caught the meaning of the poet better than the pointing has done, inasmuch as it draws ἐπικατάρατοι to Psalm 119:21, so that Psalm 119:21 consists of two words, just like Psalm 119:59, Psalm 119:89; and Kamphausen also follows this in his rendering. For ארוּרים as an attribute is unpoetical, and as an accusative of the predicate far-fetched; whereas it comes in naturally as a predicate before השּׁגים ממּצותיך: cursed (ארר equals Arab. harra, detestari), viz., by God. Instead of גּל, "roll" (from גּלל, Joshua 5:9), it is pointed in Psalm 119:22 (מעל) גּל, "uncover" equals גּלּה, as in Psalm 119:18, reproach being conceived of as a covering or veil (as e.g., in Psalm 69:8), cf. Isaiah 22:8 (perhaps also Lamentations 2:14; Lamentations 4:22, if גּלּה על there signifies "to remove the covering upon anything"). גּם in Psalm 119:23, as in Jeremiah 36:25, has the sense of גּם־כּי, etiamsi; and גּם in Psalm 119:24 the sense of nevertheless, ὅμως, Ew. 354, a. On נדבּר בּ (reciprocal), cf. Ezekiel 33:30. As in a criminal tribunal, princes sit and deliberate how they may be able to render him harmless.