What does it mean to be the apple of God's eye?

The ground of the appeal then is given: "For thus saith the Lord of hosts; After the glory hath he sent me unto the nations which spoiled you; for he that toucheth you toucheth the apple of his eye." (v. 8.) The expression — after the glory — has been, owing to ignorance of dispensational truth, a source of great perplexity to many teachers and readers. But to those who understand that it is not until after the appearing of the Lord in glory that He will gather His scattered people from the four winds of Leaven (Matthew 24:30-31), and thereafter judge the nations (Matthew 25:31-32), it is a beautiful example of the exactitude of Scripture. This is then the order: after the glory, after the appearing of the Lord, His manifestation to Israel, when, as we read in Zech. 12:10, they will look on Him whom they had pierced, He will establish His earthly throne in Jerusalem, and He will use His people as His battle-axe and weapons of war to break in pieces the nations, and to destroy kingdoms. (Jer. 51:20.) The reason is given, "For he that toucheth you toucheth the apple of his eye"; i.e., will do himself irreparable damage, or injure himself in the most sensitive part.† "For, behold," the Lord proceeds, "I will shake mine hand upon them, and they shall be a spoil to their servants: and ye shall know that the Lord of hosts hath sent me." (v. 9.) Jehovah will in this manner execute judgment upon the nations, and His people, in the words of another prophet, "shall take them captives, whose captives they were; and they shall rule over their oppressors." (Isaiah 14:2.) And this verification of the message of the prophet should convince the people of the divine mission of the angel of the Lord. (Compare John 17:21-23).

Zion has never delivered itself, but God's Word here will have special force to them in a coming day, when they will indeed be delivered. However, God's work with them in this regard will not be completed until “after glory” (v. 8), that is, after the glorious manifestation of the Lord Jesus as King of kings and Lord of lords. He will appear in Jerusalem to Judah first (Zech. 12:9-14), and the Jews will be broken down in deep repentance before Him. Afterward, He will go forth from Zion (Joel 3:16) to fight against the King of the North and his armies, together with other armies also, and then Judah shall indeed be delivered. He will be jealous regarding His people, for those who touch them are touching “the apple of His eye,” the pupil, the most sensitive area. He feels deeply everything that affects His beloved people Israel, and certainly no less that which affects His body, the Church.

"He found him in a desert land, and in a waste, howling wilderness." Where did God find you and me? In the quarry of nature. We were in the gutter, but, thank God, He came to the gutter for us. We were unclean and sinful. Some of us may have been respectable, and others disrespectable, but we were all covered with sin, that thing that nailed the Son of God to the cross. But He sought us and saved us. How great is the grace of our God!

"He led him about, He instructed him; He kept him as the apple of His eye." There is nothing in the human body so guarded as the eye. The eyelid guards it in a wonderful way. When the miner hits the coal with his pick, and the dust flies from it, the lid closes instantly upon that most sensitive member. God kept His people as the apple of His eye. Think of the preciousness of such a statement. It was good for Israel. It is good for you and me.

But Israel did not immediately possess their land. God "found him in a desert land," the wasteland of a howling wilderness (v.10). Of course it was God who led them from Egypt into the wilderness, but He intends to emphasize the fact of Israel's being in a desolate, homeless state, in which God encircled him, instructed him and kept him "as the apple of His eye." This is not the same word as the fruit, but refers to the pupil of the eye, which is extremely sensitive and therefore guarded.

Where had He found them? In a desert land, yea, a howling wilderness; but where the Lord's care had only the more opportunity for display. Compassed about, watched over, guarded as the pupil of the eye, they had proved this. By the law He had stirred them up like the eagle her nest, while with outstretched wings as in the pillar of cloud, He had sheltered and nestled them, then borne them up and carried them in His feathers. He, He alone did this, asking help of no strange god, and setting them upon the high places of Canaan, amid the abundance of that plenteous land.

ishon. Gesenius says this word signifies 'little man' and then 'the little man of the eye; 'that is, "the pupil of the eye in which, as in a mirror, a person sees his own image reflected in miniature." He says "this pleasing image is found in several languages." It is the part of the eye specially to be guarded: God preserved His own as the apple of His eye. Deut. 32:10; Ps. 17:8. His law should be kept as a precious thing. Prov. 7:2.

babah, the black or pupil of the eye, or, as others, 'the gate of the eye.' To touch God's people is touching the apple of His eye. Zech. 2:8.

"Keep me as the apple of Your eye" (v. 8). The sensitivity of the pupil of the eye symbolizes the reality of God's sensitivity to anything that touches his beloved Son, for "the Father loves the Son" (John 5:20). In fact, this is true of all believers as is indicated in the Lord's words to Israel, "he who touches you touches the apple of His eye" (Zech. 2:8).

"Hide me under the shadow of Your wings, from the wicked who oppress me, from my deadly enemies who surround me." How wonderfully true this was in the Lord's history on earth! Nothing in His surroundings was a protection for Him: His protection came from God, whose wings overshadowed Him continually. Peter wanted to protect Him from the soldiers of the Pharisees by using his sword. But the Lord Jesus refused such protection, saying, "Put your sword into the sheath. Shall I not drink the cup which My father has given Me?" (John 18:11). Even when He was taken to be crucified, He was still under the shadow of the Father's wings, and His deadly enemies could do nothing but what God permitted in His sovereign wisdom.

He applies it then as the ground of looking for the intervention of God's power to protect Him — as He does those that trust in Him - from the wicked that oppressed Him. Prosperous and lifted up as they were, Jehovah was His refuge when He did not yet interfere. But He looked to His openly doing so. Remark that the perfectness of moral character gives nearness of confidence and sense of preciousness to Jehovah. Even in us God would have this. We are of more value than many sparrows — the very hairs of our head counted. Here it is perfect, and He looks to be kept as the apple of the eye — that which is most preciously guarded by him whose it is.

Looked at as the intercession of Christ for His own, — the saints in whom all His delight is, — how tenderly does He speak of them! "Keep Me as the reflection in the eye," — which is literally, "the little man," the human figure, "the daughter" or product "of the eye." It is the image of Himself which God sees, as it were in the eyes of His beloved Son, ever having Himself before them! will He not preserve that?

But the wilderness lay before them now. One phase of God's dealings with His people was ended: they were "left of the sword"; they were "saved" (Ex. 14:30); but what about their future? Would He leave them to their own resources now that He had delivered them from judgment and from the power of the enemy? Alas, for Israel, if He had done so! No, praised be His name! "The people that were left of the sword found grace in the wilderness." Moses tells us that "He (Jehovah) found him (Jacob) in a desert land, and in the waste howling wilderness" (Deut. 32:10). What was to become of poor Jacob there (for it is by the name of weak and erring Jacob that he is called in this connection, not by the princely name of Israel)? Jehovah had planted Jacob on the resurrection side of death and judgment, but He had not forgotten that he had the wilderness to go through with its trials and its needs; and accordingly "He found him there." As the blessed Saviour in a later day "found" the man whom He had healed of his blindness, and revealed Himself to him, thus meeting his spiritual as well as his bodily need, so Jehovah "found" the people whom He had delivered, and proved Himself to be sufficient for their every need till they reached the promised rest. We read that, having found Jacob in the desert land, "He led (or, compassed) him about, He instructed him, He kept him as the apple of His eye."