DEVOTION//The apple of God's eye?

The King James translators rendered Psalm 17:8, "Keep me as the apple of the eye."  

For English people in the 1500s, the apple of one's eye was a person or thing of whom one was extremely fond and proud. That person or thing was cherished, protected, and watched over.

Not an apple

But the Hebrew word those translator rendered as "apple" is not our English word apple. The Hebrew word refers to the pupil of an eye. Literally, it describes the reflection in a person's pupil.

As sweet as we might consider it to be the apple of God's eye, the Bible compares God's relationship with us as similar to our relationship with our eyeballs. 

God’s eyeball

When an object is hurled toward our eyes, our reflexes twist our faces away as fast our heads can turn. When the sun hits our pupils, our hands immediately offer shade. When dust fills the air, our eyelids shut tight. And woe to the person who tries to poke his finger in our eye. We protect our eyes. 

So in Psalm 17:8, we are asking for Green-Beret-level protection when we pray, "Guard me like the pupil of your eye" (EHV). 

That was the same level of protection the LORD gave Israel during their wilderness wanderings, when "he guarded him [Israel] like the pupil of his eye" (Deuteronomy 32:10 EHV). 

This word for pupil urges us to guard the truths of God's Word as the wondrous treasure they are, "Obey my commands so that you may live. Protect my teachings like the pupil of your eye" (Proverbs 7:2 EHV).  

In Zechariah 2:8 another word for pupil is used, but the concept is the same. "Anyone who touches you touches the pupil of his [God's] eye" (HCSB) the Scripture promises. And who would think that they can poke God in the eye without paying a price?

Serious protection

Our Father is as serious as death about protecting us from harm, especially the eternal harm hell would otherwise have inflicted on us. Deadly serious. Serious enough to allow his Son to die for us so the hell we deserve becomes the heaven we don't deserve.

No wonder he treats us as the pupil of his eye.