1 Peter 3:12

1 Peter 3:12. Because the eyes of the Lord are upon the righteous, and his ears unto their supplication. This blameless, patient, beneficent, and peaceable manner of life, which has been recommended as containing the secret of all gladness in one's life, and all goodness in one's days, is further urged on the ground of God's observant interest in our life. He keeps the righteous ever within the loving vision of His eye and gracious hearing of His ear. It cannot, therefore, but go well with them, however they be tried by slander or persecution. The word rendered ‘prayers' in the A. V. is singular in the original, and is always given as a singular by the A. V. except in this one passage. It means also rather prayer for particular benefits than prayer in general.

but the face of the Lord is upon them that do evil. Peter fails to add what the Psalmist appends here, ‘to cut off the remembrance of them from the earth.' The preposition, also, is the same here as in the former clause, and should be translated simply ‘upon,' not ‘against.' It is doubtful, too, whether any difference between the anthropomorphic terms ‘eyes' and ‘face' can be made good, such as is supposed, e.g., by Schott, who takes the former to be a figure of favourable regard, and the latter of hostile. The different meaning which God's sleepless observance must have to the evil is left as self-understood, and obtains thereby an intenser force. It is enough for the righteous to know that God's eye is upon the evil, and the knowledge of this adds to their own sense of security in the midst of enemies.