Proverb 7
My mother used to always tell my son that he was the apple of her eye. Ever wonder where the saying, “You are the apple of my eye” comes from? Well, it comes from the Bible.
Keep my commandments and live,
And my teaching as the apple of your eye.
Bind them on your fingers;
Write them on the tablet of your heart. Proverb 7:2 & 3
What exactly is the apple of the eye? It is the pupil of the eye. Naturally we protect it. Think about how quickly the body closes the eye when it sees something flying into it. We physically can’t keep it open. This is because it is so important to the functioning of our vision. So when we tell someone that he/she is the apple of our eye, we are telling them that they are very precious to us.
God gave us an example of how God has kept His people as the apple of His eye. Before Moses died, when he was passing the leadership of the Israelites to Joshua, God told Moses to write a song so that they could remember who their God was and how He is always protecting them, even when they suffer in life. In this song, Moses also prophesies how the Israelites will reject God, but that He will always be with them and will call them back to Himself.
When the Most High gave the nations their inheritance,
When He separated the sons of mankind,
He set the boundaries of the peoples
According to the number of the sons of Israel.
For the LORD’S portion is His people;
Jacob is the allotment of His inheritance.
He found him in a desert land,
And in the howling wasteland of a wilderness;
He encircled him, He cared for him,
He guarded him as the apple of His eye. Deuteronomy 8-10
Knowing that God guarded Jacob as the apple of His eye is so reassuring to me. Notice that God didn’t choose Jacob while he was lounging at a feast with a table of delicacies set out before him. God found Jacob in a howling wasteland of a wilderness. We all experience times of wilderness in our own lives. Maybe we have been betrayed by a love one, or experienced a diabolical failure after putting all our energies into a project. We feel tired and totally dried out inside. However, we see how God encircles us and guards us because we are the apple of His eye. He is such a compassionate and loving God – no one on this earth is able to show lovingkindness like our God.
Because God has shown us that He is above anyone in how much He loves us and cares for us, King Solomon tells us to then, make God’s ways the apple of our eyes. We are to regard His rules for life as extremely precious in the way we live our lives. Paul gives us direction as to what living by God’s ways looks like in Galatians.
But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law. Now those who belong to Christ Jesus crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. If we live by the Spirit, let’s follow the Spirit as well. Galatians 5:22-25
This is exactly what King Solomon was telling us in Proverb 7:3 when he says to …Bind them [God’s words and ways] on your fingers; Write them on the tablet of your heart. The more we study God’s Word, and learn about God and what He purposes for our lives, the more His words are written on our hearts. Our lives, then, reflect who He is as we interact with others. Living in such a way benefits all as we become peacemakers for our friends and family and allow His peace to dominate our decisions and our lives. God’s ways should be felt as the most precious thing in our lives, making them the apple of our eye.
*All scripture is from the NASB.
