to lift · verb, qal perfect, 1st person common singular
eyes
עֵינַ֑י'ei.Nai
H5869
an eye (literally or figuratively) · noun, common feminine dual construct + pronominal suffix
dwellest
הַ֝יֹּשְׁבִ֗יhai.yo.she.Vi
H3427
properly · definite article + verb, qal active participle, masculine singular construct
heavens
בַּשָּׁמָֽיִםba.sha.Ma.yim
H8064
the sky (as aloft · preposition with the article + noun, common masculine plural absolute
Strong's Exhaustive Concordance (James Strong, 1890/1894), public domain; digitized by Open Scriptures (CC BY-SA). KJV word tagging: eBible.org (public domain). Original-language text, parsing and brief lexicon: STEPBible.org data from Tyndale House, Cambridge (CC BY 4.0).
Cross-references
Psalms 121:1 I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills, from whence cometh my help.
Psalms 141:8 But mine eyes are unto thee, O GOD the Lord: in thee is my trust; leave not my soul destitute.
Psalms 25:15 Mine eyes are ever toward the LORD; for he shall pluck my feet out of the net.
Psalms 2:4 He that sitteth in the heavens shall laugh: the Lord shall have them in derision.
Psalms 11:4 The LORD is in his holy temple, the LORD’s throne is in heaven: his eyes behold, his eyelids try, the children of men.
Matthew 6:9 After this manner therefore pray ye: Our Father which art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name.
Luke 18:13 And the publican, standing afar off, would not lift up so much as his eyes unto heaven, but smote upon his breast, saying, God be merciful t…
Psalms 120:1 In my distress I cried unto the LORD, and he heard me.
Cross-references from OpenBible.info (CC BY), in the lineage of the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge (public domain).
Commentary
Matthew Henry on Psalms 123:1–end
We have here,
I. The solemn profession which God's people make of faith and hope in God, Psa 123:1, Psa 123:2. Observe, 1. The title here given to God: O thou that dwellest in the heavens. Our Lord Jesus has taught us, in prayer, to have an eye to God as our Father in heaven; not that he is confined there, but there especially he manifests his glory, as the King in his court. Heaven is a place of prospect and a place of power; he that dwells there beholds thence all the calamities of his people and thence can send to save them. Sometimes God seems to have forsaken the earth, and the enemies of God's people ask, Where is now your God? But then they can say with comfort, Our God is in the heav…
Unto thee lift I up mine eyes,.... Not only the eyes of his body, this being a prayer gesture; see Matthew 14:19; but the eyes of his mind and understanding, opened by the Spirit of God; particularly the eye of faith, by which he looked for and expected help and salvation from the Lord. The phrase is expressive of holy confidence in God, and a comfortable hope of receiving good things from him; as, on the contrary, when persons are ashamed and confounded with a sense of their sins, and the aggravations of them, and of their own unworthiness and vileness; and, on account of the same, almost out of all hope, cannot lift up their eyes to heaven, or their face before God, Ezra 9:6;
O thou that…
Psalm 123:1-4
1. I lift up my eyes to thee, who dwellest in the heavens. 2. Behold! as the eyes of servants look [75] to the hand of their roadsters; as the eyes of a handmaid look to the hand of her mistress, so do our eyes to Jehovah our God, until he have mercy upon us. 3. Have mercy upon us O Jehovah have mercy upon us; for we are greatly cloyed with reproach. 4. Our soul is in itself greatly cloyed with the mockery of men who are rich, and with the contempt of the proud.
1. I lift my eyes to thee, who dwellest in the heavens. It is uncertain at what time, or even by what Prophet, this Psalm was composed. I do not think it probable that David was its author; because, when he bewails th…
The Church Fathers
"Behold the eyes of the Lord are on them that fear him." Elsewhere, it says, "The eyes of the Lord are on the just," but here, "on those that fear him." When we look upon the Lord and our eyes are on him, so that we say, "Behold as the eyes of the servants are on the hands of their masters, so are our eyes unto the Lord our God," then, we, as it were, draw the he eye of the Lord to watch over us.
What does he mean then by saying, "for he must reign until he has put all enemies under his feet"? Is the Lord to reign only until his enemies begin to be under his feet, and once they are under his feet will he cease to reign? Of course his reign will then commence in its fullness when his enemies begin to be under his feet. David also in the fourth Song of Ascents speaks thus, "Behold, as the eyes of servants look to the hand of their master, as the eyes of a maiden unto the hand of her mistress, so our eyes look to the Lord our God, until he has mercy on us." Will the prophet, then, look to the Lord until he obtains mercy, and when mercy is obtained will he turn his eyes down to the ground, although elsewhere he says, "My eyes fail, looking for your salvation, and for your righteous promise"? I could accumulate countless instances of this usage and cover the verbosity of our assailant with a cloud of proofs; I shall, however, add only a few and leave the reader to find similar ones for himself.
...Let this singer ascend; and let this man sing from the heart of each of you, and let each of you be this man, for when each of you saith this, since ye are all one in Christ, one man saith this; and saith not, "Unto Thee, O Lord, have" we "lift up" our "eyes;" but, "Unto Thee, O Lord, have I lift up mine eyes" (ver. 1). Ye ought indeed to imagine that every one of you is speaking; but that One in an especial sense speaketh, who is also spread abroad over the whole world... What maketh the heart of a Christian heavy? Because he is a pilgrim, and longeth for his country. If thy heart be heavy on this score, although thou hast been prosperous in the world, still thou dost groan: and if all things combine to render thee prosperous, and this world smile upon thee on every side, thou nevertheless groanest, because thou seest that thou art set in a pilgrimage; and feelest that thou hast indeed happiness in the eyes of fools, but not as yet after the promise of Christ: this thou seekest with groans, this thou seekest with longings, and by longing ascendest, and while thou ascendest dost sing the Song of Degrees.
Dictionary and topics
Dwell — Tents were in primitive times the common dwellings of men. Houses were afterwards built, the walls of which were frequently of mud (Job 24:16; Matt. 6:19, 20) or of sun-dried bricks. God “dwells in…
Desire · SPIRITUAL — SPIRITUAL
Eye, The · The Jews: Raised up, in prayer — The Jews: Raised up, in prayer
Dictionary: Easton's (1897) and Smith's (1863), public domain. Topics: Nave's Topical Bible (1896) and Torrey's Topical Textbook (1897), public domain. Both as parsed by NEUU (CC BY 4.0).
The destinies of all men, and in particular of the church, are in the hand of the King who sits enthroned in the unapproachable glory of the heavens and rules over all things, and of the Judge who decides all things. Up to Him the poet raises his eyes, and to Him the church, together with which he may call Him "Jahve our God," just as the eyes of servants are directed towards the hand of their lord, the eyes of a maid towards the hand of her mistress; for this hand regulates the whole house, and they wait upon their winks and signs with most eager attention. Those of Israel are Jahve's servants, Israel the church is Jahve's maid. In His hand lies its future. At length He will take compassion…
Ps 123 This lament on the psalmist’s lowly position expresses vivid trust in the Lord (123:1-2). The psalmist prays for God’s favor on the community, as the reality of evil surrounds them (123:3-4). The poet looks beyond Jerusalem (Ps 122) to God’s throne in heaven.
Spurgeon's Treasury of David on Psalms 123:1
Unto thee lift I up mine eyes, O thou that dwellest in the heavens.
Unto thee lift I up mine eyes. It is good to have some one to look up to. The Psalmist looked so high that he could look no higher. Not to the hills, but to the God of the hills he looked. He believed in a personal God, and knew nothing of that modern pantheism which is nothing more than atheism wearing a fig leaf. The uplifted eyes naturally and instinctively represent the state of heart which fixes desire, hope, confidence, and expectation upon the Lord. God is everywhere, and yet it is most natural to think of him as being above us, in that glory land which lies beyond the skies. "O thou that dwellest in the heavens", ju…
