Psalms 77:4
You have kept my eyes from closing; I am too troubled to speak.
BSB
ASV
Thou holdest mine eyes watching: I am so troubled that I cannot speak.
KJV
Thou holdest mine eyes waking: I am so troubled that I cannot speak.
My eyes anticipated the watches. In the Hebrew it reads otherwise: "I held in check the gaze of my eyes, I was struck dumb and did not speak." What he means is this: considering my sins, I did not dare to lift my eyes to heaven. "For to the sinner God has said: Why do you declare my statutes?" Therefore I was struck dumb, I was afraid, I could not speak. This is according to the Hebrew. My eyes anticipated the watches. Before anyone else was awake, I was awake.
Thou holdest mine eyes waking,.... Or, "the watches", or rather "keepers of the eyes" (m); the eyebrows, which protect the eyes; these were held, so that he could not shut them, and get any sleep; so R.
Thou holdest mine eyes waking. The fears which thy strokes excite in me forbid my eyelids to fall, my eyes continue to watch as sentinels forbidden to rest. Sleep is a great comforter, but it forsakes the sorrowful, and then their sorrow deepens and eats into the soul. If God holds the eyes waking, what anodyne shall give us rest? How much we owe to him who giveth his beloved sleep! I am so troubled that I cannot speak. Great griefs are dumb. Deep streams brawl not among the pebbles like the shallow brooklets which live on passing showers.
Rare words are the text's own signal of a deliberate thread: the fewer the occurrences, the more the places it appears belong together.
The walk8
Follow this verse’s cross-references two steps out. Each card is a verse this one points to, and beneath it the verses that one points to in turn. Where several different paths arrive at the same place, that place is listed first: the text keeps returning to it. Every stop shows its own words, and every stop is a page.
Through
Esther 6:1That night sleep escaped the king; so he ordered the Book of Records, the Chronicles, to be brought in and read to him.
leads to
In the second year of his reign, Nebuchadnezzar had dreams that troubled his spirit, and sleep escaped him.
Then the king went to his palace and spent the night fasting. No entertainment was brought before him, and sleep fled from him.
If I have found favor in the sight of the king, and if it pleases the king to grant my petition and fulfill my request, may the king and Haman come tomorrow to the…
O, the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are His judgments, and untraceable His ways!
The poor and needy seek water, but there is none; their tongues are parched with thirst. I, the LORD, will answer them; I, the God of Israel, will not forsake them.
Through
Job 2:13Then they sat on the ground with him for seven days and seven nights, but no one spoke a word to him because they saw how intense his suffering was.
leads to
When they reached the threshing floor of Atad, which is across the Jordan, they lamented and wailed loudly, and Joseph mourned for his father seven days.
When I heard these words, I sat down and wept. I mourned for days, fasting and praying before the God of heaven.
I came to the exiles at Tel-abib who dwelt by the River Kebar. And for seven days I sat where they sat and remained there among them, overwhelmed.