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I. THE SENSE OF WONDER IN MAN, AND WHAT GENERALLY EXCITES IT. It is a great thing not to lose the sense of wonder, and yet to keep it for right objects.

2. The feeling may be excited by different objects.

(1)  The new and unexpected.

(2)  Things beautiful and grand.

(3)  The mysterious.

II. GOD HAS MADE PROVISION FOR THIS SENSE OF WONDER IN HIS REVEALED WORD.

1. The Bible addresses our sense of wonder by constantly presenting the new and unexpected to us.

(1) As to its form, it has gone on from first to last to add something new and fresh to all it had said before, and, if its circle has now closed, it is because it is already wide enough never to become old.

(2) As to the spirit of the Bible, we know how it exhorts us to search, to meditate, to "dig for wisdom as for hid treasures," which must mean that we should bring out the fresh and unexplored.

2. While the Bible makes provision for constantly new views of truth, it sets before us also things beautiful and grand, without which the new would be a matter of idle curiosity.

3. And then, if we come to the third source of wonder, that which raises it to awe, it is the peculiar province of the Bible to deal with this. Its aim is, all through, to lead us to such subjects as the soul, and God, and the eternal world, and sin, the great mystery and root of mysteries, and the marvellous remedy which has been provided for it in the descent of the Divine nature to the human, that great mystery of godliness, "God manifest in the flesh."

III. THE MEANS WE ARE TO USE IN ORDER TO HAVE GOD'S WORD THUS UNFOLDED. — The prayer of the psalmist may be our guide — "Open Thou mine eyes that I may see."

1. He asks for no new revelation. It was in God's hand to give this, and He did it in His own time to those ancient believers; but to all of them at every time there was enough given for the purposes of life. The request is not for more, but that he may employ well that which he possesses. Still better does such a form of request suit us, to whom life and immortality have been brought to light in Christ.

2. He asks for no new faculty. The eyes are there already, and they need only to be opened. It is not the bestowal of a new and supernatural power which enables a man to read the Bible to profit, but the quickening of a power he already possesses. In one view it is supernatural, as God is the Author of the illumination by a direct act of His Spirit; in another it is natural, as it operates through the faculties existing in man's soul.

(John Ker, D. D.)

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

WEB: Open my eyes, that I may see wondrous things out of your law.