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The prayer of the eyes. Have you never seen it in the eyes of patient poverty, of distress, of oppression, of the sick child? This prayer recognizes God's glory (ver. 1) and God's graciousness (ver. 3). It is the prayer of silence, of deference, of reverence, of trustfulness. It is beseeching, waiting, observant prayer. All this is implied in vers. 1, 2. It is the prayers of eyes that watch carefully the signs of "the hands" of the King.

I. That watch for His DIRECTING HAND.

1. In things temporal.

2. To spiritual service.

II. That watch for His DELIVERING AND VINDICATING HAND. He will avenge His people for the sorrow produced by the "scorn of easeful souls," and by the "spite of the proud" (ver. 4). No law acts more surely than the law of retribution.

III. That watch for His SUPPLYING HAND. What ministers wait on maul Even God becomes man's minister; and employs all natural forces and all angelic beings, and all the agencies of grace on man's behalf.

IV. That watch for His CORRECTING HAND. The contempt and scorn of the enemy are often His discipline, bitter disciplines that "exceedingly fill" the soul of the humble people of God with shame and grief. But eyes of prayer look beyond the disciplines to the glory which they forecast, and are patient.

V. That watch for His REWARDING HAND. Alsted has called this psalm "The Eye of Hope." And an upward glancing expectant hopefulness is the very spirit of it. The prayer of the eyes is the prayer of expectation; and the vision of the King shall yet broaden into the vision of the inheritance which awaits His true people, who now have few friends and comforters.

(R. Corlett Cowell.)

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KJV: {A Song of degrees.} Unto thee lift I up mine eyes, O thou that dwellest in the heavens.

WEB: To you I do lift up my eyes, you who sit in the heavens.