to seize (often with the accessory idea of holding in p… · verb, qal perfect, 2nd person masculine singular
eyes
עֵינָ֑י'ei.Nai
H5869
an eye (literally or figuratively) · noun, common feminine dual construct + pronominal suffix
waking
שְׁמֻר֣וֹתshe.mu.Rot
H8109
something guarded · noun, common feminine plural construct
troubled
נִ֝פְעַ֗מְתִּיnif.'Am.ti
H6470
to tap · verb, niphal perfect, 1st person common singular
speak
אֲדַבֵּֽר'a.da.Ber
H1696
perhaps properly · verb, piel imperfect, 1st person common singular
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
Job 7:13-15 When I say, My bed shall comfort me, my couch shall ease my complaint;
Psalms 6:6 I am weary with my groaning; all the night make I my bed to swim; I water my couch with my tears.
Job 2:13 So they sat down with him upon the ground seven days and seven nights, and none spake a word unto him: for they saw that his grief was very…
Esther 6:1 On that night could not the king sleep, and he commanded to bring the book of records of the chronicles; and they were read before the king.
Job 6:3 For now it would be heavier than the sand of the sea: therefore my words are swallowed up.
Cross-references from OpenBible.info (CC BY), in the lineage of the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge (public domain).
Commentary
Matthew Henry on Psalms 77:1-10
We have here the lively portraiture of a good man under prevailing melancholy, fallen into and sinking in that horrible pit and that miry clay, but struggling to get out. Drooping saints, that are of a sorrowful spirit, may here as in a glass see their own faces. The conflict which the psalmist had with his griefs and fears seems to have been over when he penned this record of it; for he says (Psa 77:1), I cried unto God, and he gave ear unto me, which, while the struggle lasted, he had not the comfortable sense of, as he had afterwards; but he inserts it in the beginning of his narrative as an intimation that his trouble did not end in despair; for God heard him, and, at length, he knew tha…
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. Moses Haccohen interprets the words, as Jarchi observes; and so the Targum,
"thou holdest the brows of my eyes;''
a person in trouble, when he can get some sleep, it interrupts his sorrow, weakens it at least, if it does not put a stop to it; wherefore it is a great mercy to have sleep, and that refreshing, Psalm 127:1, but to have this denied, and to have wearisome nights, and be in continual tossing to and fro, is very distressing:
I am so troubled that I cannot speak; his spirits were s…
Psalm 77:1-6
1. My voice came to God, and I:cried: my voice came to God, and he heard me. 2. I sought the: Lord in the day of my trouble: my hand was stretched out in the night, and remitted not my soul refused to be comforted. 3. I will remember God, and will be troubled: I will meditate, and my spirit will be oppressed [or overwhelmed] with sorrow. Selah. 4. Thou hast held the watches of my eyes: I am troubled, and will not speak. 5. I have recounted the days of old, the years of ancient times. 6. I will call to remembrance my song in the night: I will commune with my heart, and my spirit will search diligently.
1. My voice came to God, and I cried. This is not a mere complaint, as some…
The Church Fathers
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. We read also in Daniel: "And behold," he says, "an ir," that is, a watcher. "He shall not slumber nor sleep, who keeps Israel." Therefore the monk who does not keep watch cannot say this verse. I was troubled, and I did not speak. This is what the apostle says: "Let not the sun go down upon your wrath." I was troubled, as a man; I did not speak, as a Christian. Anger began in my heart, but I did not bring the anger forth into words.
With weariness he had pined away; by calling to mind God, he had been delighted, again in babbling he had fainted: what followeth? "All mine enemies have anticipated watches" (ver. 4). All mine enemies have kept watch over me; they have exceeded in keeping watch over me; in watching they have been beforehand with me. Where do they not lay traps? Have not mine enemies anticipated all watches? For who are these enemies, but they of whom the Apostle saith, "Ye have not wrestling against flesh and blood." ...Against the devil and his angels we are waging hostilities. Rulers of the world he hath called them, because they do themselves rule the lovers of the world. For they do not rule the world, as if they were rulers of heaven and earth: but he is calling sinners the world. ...With the devil and his angels there is no concord. They do themselves grudge us the kingdom of Heaven. They cannot at all be appeased towards us: because "all mine enemies have anticipated watches." They have watched more to deceive than I to guard myself. For how can they have done otherwise than anticipate watches, that have set everywhere scandals, everywhere traps? Weariness doth invest the heart, we have to fear lest sorrow swallow us up: in joy to fear lest the spirit faint in babbling: "all mine enemies have anticipated watches." In fine, in the midst of that same babbling, whiles thou art speaking, and art speaking without fear, how much is oft-times found which enemies would lay hold of and censure, whereon they would even found accusation and slander-"he said so, he thought so, he spake so!" What should man do, save that which followeth? "I have been troubled, and I spake not." Therefore when he was troubled, lest in his babbling enemies anticipating watches should seek and find slanders, he spake not. ...
Dictionary and topics
Seekers · 5:8;8:5,6; — 5:8;8:5,6;
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).
He calls his eyelids the "guards of my eyes." He who holds these so that they remain open when they want to shut together for sleep, is God; for his looking up to Him keeps the poet awake in spite of all overstraining of his powers. Hupfeld and others render thus: "Thou hast held, i.e., caused to last, the night-watches of mine eyes," - which is affected in thought and expression. The preterites state what has been hitherto and has not yet come to a close. He still endures, as formerly, such thumps and blows within him, as though he lay upon an anvil (פּעם), and his voice fails him. Then silent soliloquy takes the place of audible prayer; he throws himself back in thought to the days of old…
As the psalmist meditates at night, he feels so disturbed that he cannot sleep or speak. He has pleasant memories of the past, but he cannot look beyond the present moment into the future.
Spurgeon's Treasury of David on Psalms 77:4
Thou holdest mine eyes waking: I am so troubled that I cannot speak.
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. Words fail the man whose heart fails him. He had cried to God but he could not speak…
