What Does It Mean Have Something as "The Apple of Your Eye"?
…keep my commandments and live; keep my teaching as the apple of your eye… -Proverbs 7:2
It’s likely that you know “apple of your eye” means that something is precious. It’s an idiom that we like to use in our music. Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros spun this gem:
Well, holy moly, me oh my
You're the apple of my eye
Girl, I've never loved one like you (source)
Or if you prefer a classic, this from Louis Armstrong:
You're the apple of my eye
You're luscious and you're sweet
You're the apple of my eye
You're sweet enough to eat (source)
Proverbs 7:2 isn’t the first time this phrase appears in the Bible either. In Dt. 32:10 it is said of Israel that God, “kept him as the apple of his eye” and in Psalm 17:8, David prays, “Keep me as the apple of the eye, hide me under the shadow of your wings”. We use this idiom when we want to communicate that something is precious to us.
Have you ever wondered, though, what this little idiom means? Where did this come from? It’s an interesting history. Let’s begin with the Hebrew.
The Hebrew expression has nothing to do with apples. It literally means, “the little man in your eye”. If you want to understand this expression, go stare at your eye in the mirror. Or if you have a great friend that won’t be super creeped out, get really close and ask them what they see in your eye. They’ll be able to see themselves. It’s the little man in their eye.
The Hebrews understood that to intently focus upon someone or something is to believe it to be precious. If we would say then that we are “the apple of God’s eye”, we would be saying that He is intently focused upon us with love and care. We are precious to Him.
Proverbs 7:2, then, means that the son is to intently focus upon the father’s instruction. He is to consider them to be precious and worthy of his attention. This will be even more valuable when we consider the context of Proverbs 7. The entire chapter is about being drawn away into adultery. That doesn’t happen if the right thing is the apple of your eye. As John Kitchen rightly says, “God’s divine instruction should have no rival in our lives and be surrendered to no seduction.” (John Kitchen, Proverbs, 158)
So, how’d an apple get involved? Did people just really love apples and consider them precious? Not quite. It has more to do with how Anglo-Saxons used the word “apple” for “pupil”:
Scholars speculate that Anglo-Saxons used the word “apple” for “pupil” because they conceived of this part of the eye as a solid ball that could actually fall out if a person wasn’t careful, but you can see a little version of yourself reflected in a particularly shiny apple, too. (Source)
Or we might blame Shakespeare, or at least his contemporaries:
The original meaning of the eye’s apple was purely anatomical. It derives from the fact that there was no scientific word to describe the pupil of the eye. In Shakespeare’s time they referred to the pupil as the ‘apple of the eye,’ as it was round and solid and resembled an apple. The term ‘pupil’ as we use it today, came much later. (Source)
Language is a funny thing. Because when we were trying to name that “apple of the eye” we chose the word “pupil”, which oddly enough has another meaning— “little boy”. So, we’ve come full circle and back into the Hebrew expression. What does it mean for something to be the apple of our eye? It means that we’re so intently focused upon it, viewing it as precious, that its reflection is seen in our eye.
This sparks a question. What holds that place in my eye? Where is my focus? What am I viewing as precious? Can my wife see herself in my eyes? Do my children see themselves in my eye? Does Christ, and the rule and commandments of Christ hold this place?
The reality is that what typically finds itself in the apple of our eye is a glowing screen. I’m grateful that Christ’s love for us isn’t dependent upon what we are holding in our eye. But our future is settled because of who is centered in His eye. It’s certainly the glory of God which is the fuel for our redemption—but Scripture also speaks of redeemed humanity holding that place in the eye of God. We’re precious and intently focused upon.
And it’s the wonder and beauty of this which captivates us, and hopefully moves our eyes away from a glowing screen, away from all the things which are found “under the sun”, and onto the God who loves us intensely and intentionally.