Bible Strands
Psalms 119:37
Turn my eyes away from worthless things; revive me with Your word.
Berean Standard Bible
Follow its threads on the canvas →
Study note
Setting — The psalmist petitions Yahweh, bracketed between a request to turn his heart from covetous gain (v. 36) and a request to establish God's word to produce reverence (v. 38). The moment is one of reorientation: the speaker recognizes his gaze is misdirected and asks for correction.
The words — שָׁוְא (shav') carries the sense of emptiness or worthlessness, the same root behind "vanity" in Ecclesiastes; it is not merely "bad" but hollow. The BSB renders חַיֵּנִי (chaiyeni) as "revive me," but the literal sense is "keep me alive" or "preserve my life," a stronger claim than mere renewal.
The thread — 1 John 2:16 names "the desires of the eyes" as a category of worldly temptation; Proverbs 4:25 commands the opposite posture, fixing the gaze straight ahead; Isaiah 33:15 describes the righteous one who refuses gain from extortion, the same covetous pull v. 36 rejects.
Why it lands — The verse locates the problem in the eyes, not the will: attraction to empty things is a sensory pull, not a reasoning error. The remedy offered is not self-discipline but God's word as the force that sustains life against that pull.
Drafted by a language model from the text, its original words and its cross-references, then checked against them. It can still be wrong: open the verse in the app to report it.
The Hebrew words
King James Version
Turn away mine eyes from beholding vanity; and quicken thou me in thy way.
Cross-references
- 1 John 2:16 For all that is in the world—the desires of the flesh, the desires of the eyes, and the pride of life—is not from the Father but from the world.
- Proverbs 4:25 Let your eyes look forward; fix your gaze straight ahead.
- Isaiah 33:15 He who walks righteously and speaks with sincerity, who refuses gain from extortion, whose hand never takes a bribe, who stops his ears against murderous plots and shuts his eyes tightly against evil—
- Numbers 15:39 These will serve as tassels for you to look at, so that you may remember all the commandments of the LORD, that you may obey them and not prostitute yourselves by following your own heart and your own eyes.
- Job 31:1 “I have made a covenant with my eyes. How then could I gaze with desire at a virgin?
- Psalms 119:40 How I long for Your precepts! Revive me in Your righteousness.
- Proverbs 23:5 When you glance at wealth, it disappears, for it makes wings for itself and flies like an eagle to the sky.
- Matthew 5:28 But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman to lust after her has already committed adultery with her in his heart.
- Psalms 71:20 Though You have shown me many troubles and misfortunes, You will revive me once again. Even from the depths of the earth You will bring me back up.
- 2 Samuel 11:2 One evening David got up from his bed and strolled around on the roof of the palace. And from the roof he saw a woman bathing—a very beautiful woman.