Proverbs 7:1-5
“My son, keep my words, and treasure my commands within you. Keep my commands and live, and My law as the apple of your eye. Bind them on your fingers,; write them on the tablet of your heart. "
The phrase “apple of your eye” is an idiom in Hebrew that means “the little man of the eye.” It is like there is a little guy in there telling you what to look at and what not to look at. The idiom also means “in the middle of the darkness.” This really helps to explain Matthew 6:23-
23 "But if your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If therefore the light that is in you is darkness, how great [is] that darkness!”
We can take this a bit further to give us a good, solid understanding. Matthew 6:22 says:
“The lamp of the body is the eye. If therefore your eye is single {KJV}, your whole body will be full of light.”
Therefore if we allow the Bible to define the Bible, then we understand that Jesus was very clearly indicating to us that the lamp of the body is the eye- meaning that what lights up, what examines and exposes what is inside a person is their eye. If we keep the Word of God as “the apple of the eye” or more literally, as a light in the middle of the darkness as expressed in the Hebrew idiom then we see that our body, our inward parts-more accurately our minds, wills, and emotions will become illuminated for the purpose of exposure and cleaning. The KJV says that they eye has to be single. In other words, it has to only have one focus and that focus must be the Word of God!!
Next we are told to bind His words on our fingers. This is so that whatever our hands find to do, we can look down at them and see the reminders of what the Lord has said and make adjustments accordingly.
Then we are told to write His word on the tablets of our hearts. This is outstanding because God actually took care of this for us… In Jeremiah 31:33 God said that He would write His word on our hearts after He removed our hearts of stone. This of course happened after the ascension with the giving of the Holy Spirit on all flesh. We don’t have to be concerned with constantly attempting to memorize the Word of God with its concepts and precepts of what is right or wrong. The main issue we see today is that those who do not have a personal relationship with the Lord Jesus still have the Word of God on their hearts because He poured out His Spirit on ALL flesh… so they tend to think that they have an understanding of right and wrong based on their own “brilliant” deductions. This of course is not the case and they become arrogant, hard hearted, and of a seared conscience if they maintain their positions of failing to give God the credit long enough!
All of these idioms delivered to us in Proverbs 7:1-5 give us the same filter in different ways and for different purposes in our lives. We are to use the Word of God as the filter through which we see the world, the filter through which we receive what the world is presenting to us and the filter through which we complete anything in our lives.
The end of the matter is this; in John 9:5, Jesus states that He is the light of the world. It follows then that Jesus=the Word of God=the light of the World=the apple of the eye=the single focus of the human=the filter through which all visual information is processed.
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