When it is said
It is said at home, before reading the Bible or hearing it read.
Russian prayer books place it among the prayers before reading the Gospel.
Its words reach beyond the Bible. It also asks that our reading of the lives and words of the saints may renew us, and not become a sin for us.
Where it comes from
Author doubtful
Did St John Chrysostom write it?
Russian prayer books credit it to St John Chrysostom, archbishop of Constantinople from AD 398 to 404. It was in print under his name by 1903, in a book for teaching the faith by Archpriest Grigory Dyachenko. In 1906 the St Petersburg Theological Academy printed a shorter form among his works in Russian, with a note that it is not considered genuine. It was taken from a sermon on patience wrongly credited to him.
Azbyka.ru prayer book: prayers before and after reading the Gospel; Archpriest Grigory Dyachenko, Lessons and Examples of Christian Faith; Chrysostom’s works in Russian, St Petersburg Theological Academy, 1906, with the editors’ note (azbyka.ru)
Made from the Bible’s words
Much of the prayer is Scripture. “Open my eyes” and “I am a stranger on the earth; do not hide Your commandments from me” are from Psalm 119. “The unknown and hidden things of Your wisdom” is a line of Psalm 51, as the Slavonic psalter has it. Its closing words, “every good gift and every perfect gift”, are from the Letter of James.
Azbyka.ru prayer book, with its Russian version of the prayer
Advice credited to St Ephrem
Hieromonk Job (Gumerov), a Russian priest and monk who answers readers’ questions about the faith, quotes advice given under the name of St Ephrem the Syrian: when you sit down to read, first pray, “Lord, open the ears and eyes of my heart, that I may hear Your words and do Your will.” The prayer opens in almost the same words.
Hieromonk Job (Gumerov), Pravoslavie.ru: which prayer to say before reading the Gospel
What the words mean
Ears or eyes?
Today’s Russian prayer books ask Christ to open “the ears of my heart” to hear His word. Dyachenko’s book, printed by 1903, has “the eyes of my heart”. So does the English most often printed. A shorter form printed under Chrysostom’s name in 1906 asks for both the ears and the eyes of the heart. This page follows the prayer book.
Azbyka.ru prayer book; Archpriest Grigory Dyachenko, Lessons and Examples of Christian Faith; Chrysostom’s works in Russian, St Petersburg Theological Academy, 1906, with the editors’ note (azbyka.ru); St John Chrysostom Orthodox Church, House Springs, Missouri
To read, not to “cherish”
The English most often printed asks for light “not only to cherish those things which are written, but to do them”. The Slavonic word there means “to read”. A modern Russian version says it plainly: not only to read what is written, but to do it.
Azbyka.ru prayer book, with its Russian version of the prayer; St John Chrysostom Orthodox Church, House Springs, Missouri
The Scripture in it
Open my eyes that I may see wondrous things from Your law. I am a stranger on the earth; do not hide Your commandments from me.
Surely You desire truth in the inmost being; You teach me wisdom in the inmost place.
Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, with Whom there is no change or shifting shadow.
Be doers of the word, and not hearers only. Otherwise, you are deceiving yourselves.
“to shine on those who live in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the path of peace.”
Bible text: Berean Standard Bible, public domain.
In Church Slavonic
Господи Иисусе Христе, отверзи ми уши сердечныя услышати слово Твое, и разумети и творити волю Твою, яко пришлец есмь на земли:
не скрый от мене заповедей Твоих, но открый очи мои, да разумею чудеса от закона Твоего; скажи мне безвестная и тайная премудрости Твоея.
На Тя уповаю, Боже мой, да ми просветиши ум и смысл светом разума Твоего не токмо чести написанная, но и творити я, да не в грех себе святых жития и словесе прочитаю, но в обновление, и просвещение, и в святыню, и в спасение души, и в наследие жизни вечныя.
Яко Ты еси просвещаяй лежащих во тьме и от Тебе есть всякое даяние благо и всяк дар совершен. Аминь.
From the prayer book on Azbyka.ru, a Russian Orthodox website, in Church Slavonic.