Arrow Prayers

"I will direct my prayer unto Thee, and will look up."  (Psalm 5:3)

If we merely read our English version, and want an explanation of these two sentences, we find it in the figure of an archer, "I will direct my prayer unto Thee."  I will put my prayer upon the bow, I will direct it toward heaven, and then when I have shot my arrow I will look up to see where it has gone. 

But the Hebrew has a still fuller meaning than this -- "I will direct my prayer."  It is the word that is used for the laying in order of the wood and the pieces of the victim upon the altar, and it is used also for putting of the shewbread upon the table.  I will lay it out upon the altar in the morning just as the priest lays out the morning sacrifice.  "I will marshall up my prayers," I will put them in order, call up all my powers, and bid them stand in their proper places, that I may pray with all my might and pray acceptably.  "And will look up" or as the Hebrew might better be translated, 'I will look out,' I will look out for the answer.

(Charles H. Spurgeon quoted in, "Daily Meditations for Prayer, 17 January)