Albert Barnes Commentary Psalms 77:4

"Thou holdest mine eyes watching: I am so troubled that I cannot speak." — Psalms 77:4 (ASV)

You hold my eyes waking - literally, “You hold the watchings of my eyes.” Gesenius (Lexicon) translates the Hebrew word rendered “waking” as “eyelids.” This is probably the true idea. The eyelids are the watchers or guardians of the eyes; in danger and in sleep, they close. Here the idea is that God held them so that they did not close. He overcame the natural tendency of the eyes to shut. In other words, the psalmist was kept awake; he could not sleep. This he traces to God.

The idea is that God so kept Himself before the psalmist's mind—such ideas concerning God occurred to him—that he could not sleep.

I am so troubled - He was troubled with sad and dark views of God; so troubled in endeavoring to understand His character and actions; in explaining His acts; in painful ideas that suggested themselves regarding His justice, His goodness, His mercy.

That I cannot speak - I am struck dumb. I do not know what to say. I cannot find anything to say.

He who has not had thoughts like these pass through his mind must have a heart singularly and happily free by nature from skepticism, or must have reflected little on the divine administration. As the psalmist was a good man, a pious man, it is important to remark, in view of his experience, that such reflections occur not only to the minds of bad people—of the profane, of skeptics, of infidel philosophers—but they come unbidden into the minds of good people, and often in a form that they cannot calm down.

He who has never had such thoughts, happy as he may and should consider himself that he has not had them, has never known some of the deepest stirrings and workings of the human soul on the subject of religion, and is little qualified to sympathize with a spirit torn, crushed, and agitated, as was that of the psalmist on these questions, or as Augustine and thousands of others have been in later times. But let no one conclude, because he has these thoughts, that therefore he cannot be a friend of God—a converted person. The wicked person invites them, cherishes them, and rejoices that he can find what seem to him to be reasons for indulging in such thoughts against God; the good person is pained, struggles against them, endeavoring to banish them from his soul.