Day 33: The Little Man in the Eye
Read: Psalm 17:6–9
Keep me as the apple of your eye; hide me in the shadow of your wings.
— Psalm 17:8 (ESV)
Reflect
"The apple of your eye" is an old English way of naming the pupil. Hebrew has its own name for it, and it is a tender one. The word is 'ishon, "little man."
Why call the pupil a little man? The usual explanation is that when you look closely into someone's eye, you see a tiny reflection of yourself there. The full phrase in this verse is "the little man, the daughter of the eye."
That is a vivid detail, but the verb carries the meaning. It is shamar, "keep" — guard, watch over. The eye is the part of the body you guard by reflex; the hand flies up and the lids close before you decide anything. So David's prayer is: guard me the way you guard your own eye, the part you protect without thinking.
To be the apple of his eye is to be kept as something precious. Not something at the edge of his care. Not a name on a list he checks now and then.
The second half of the verse adds a second picture: "hide me in the shadow of your wings." Close guarding, and close covering. One image is about being protected as something precious. The other is about being sheltered. David asks for both, and he expects God to give both.
Across Scripture
Moses used this same picture for Israel in the wilderness: God found his people in a barren land and "kept him as the apple of his eye" (Deuteronomy 32:10). Proverbs uses it for God's teaching, which we are to guard just as closely (Proverbs 7:2). The shelter of his wings runs from Ruth (Ruth 2:12) through Psalm 91:4 to Jesus, who lamented over Jerusalem and longed to gather her children "as a hen gathers her brood under her wings" (Luke 13:34).
Sit With It
You are not a distant object he keeps track of. You are kept, guarded as closely as an eye. Let that be the first picture of yourself you carry into today.
Pray
Keep me as the apple of your eye.
Scripture quotations are from the ESV® Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®), © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.