From of old no one has heard or perceived by the ear, no eye has seen a God besides you, who acts for those who wait for him.
Here, I. The petition is that God would appear wonderfully for them now, Isa 64:1, Isa 64:2. Their case was represented in the close of the foregoing chapter as very sad and very hard, and in this case it was time to cry, "Help, Lord; O that God would manifest his zeal and his strength!" They had prayed (Isa 63:15) that God would look down...
Commenting on Isaiah 64:1-5
For since the beginning of the world men have not heard, nor perceived by the ear,.... Not only the things unexpected, undesired, and undeserved, had been done for the Lord's people of old; but there were other things, unheard of and unseen, which God, in his secret counsels, had prepared for them; and for which reason his appearance in his providential dispensations was the more to be desired and entreated.
perceived by the ear--Paul (Co1 2:9) has for this, "nor have entered into the heart of man"; the virtual sense, sanctioned by his inspired authority; men might hear with the outward ear, but they could only by the Spirit "perceive" with the "heart" the spiritual significancy of God's acts, both those in relation to Israel, primarily referred to here, and those relating to the Gospel secondarily, which Paul refers to.