Keep Me as the Apple of Your Eye
1 A Prayer by David. Hear, Yahweh, my righteous plea. Give ear to my prayer that doesn’t go out of deceitful lips. 2 Let my sentence come out of your presence. Let your eyes look on equity. 3 You have proved my heart. You have visited me in the night. You have tried me, and found nothing. I have resolved that my mouth shall not disobey. 4 As for the deeds of men, by the word of your lips, I have kept myself from the ways of the violent. 5 My steps have held fast to your paths. My feet have not slipped. 6 I have called on you, for you will answer me, God. Turn your ear to me. Hear my speech. 7 Show your marvelous loving kindness, you who save those who take refuge by your right hand from their enemies. 8 Keep me as the apple of your eye. Hide me under the shadow of your wings, 9 from the wicked who oppress me, my deadly enemies, who surround me. 10 They close up their callous hearts. With their mouth they speak proudly. 11 They have now surrounded us in our steps. They set their eyes to cast us down to the earth. 12 He is like a lion that is greedy of his prey, as it were a young lion lurking in secret places. 13 Arise, Yahweh, confront him. Cast him down. Deliver my soul from the wicked by your sword, 14 from men by your hand, Yahweh, from men of the world, whose portion is in this life. You fill the belly of your cherished ones. Your sons have plenty, and they store up wealth for their children. 15 As for me, I shall see your face in righteousness. I shall be satisfied, when I awake, with seeing your form.
A plea from a man surrounded, using two images of protection so intimate that they are almost startling.
A Prayer by David. Hear, Yahweh, my righteous plea. Give ear to my prayer that doesn’t go out of deceitful lips.
The psalm is framed as a legal appeal. Let my sentence come out of your presence Psalms 17:2 asks for a verdict from the one court that cannot be bought, and the claim of innocence that follows is again narrow rather than absolute — it concerns the charge being made, not his life as a whole.
You have proved my heart. You have visited me in the night. You have tried me, and found nothing. I have resolved that my mouth shall not disobey.
Three tests, and the middle one is a night visit. The examination happens when nobody is watching and the defenses are down. That the psalmist offers this as evidence rather than dreading it says something about what he expects the examination to be for.
Keep me as the apple of your eye. Hide me under the shadow of your wings,
Two images in one verse, and both come from elsewhere in Scripture. The first is literally the little man of the eye — the pupil, in which a person sees his own reflection when standing close enough. It is the most reflexively protected part of the body, guarded before thought. The second is a bird covering its young, and the same phrase is used of God carrying Israel out of Egypt Deuteronomy 32:11. A man in mortal danger asks to be defended the way an eye is defended and covered the way a chick is covered.
He is like a lion that is greedy of his prey, as it were a young lion lurking in secret places.
The enemy is described in exactly the terms the tenth psalm used, and the psalm's assessment of him is not that he is powerful but that he is of the world, whose portion is in this life Psalms 17:14.
That verse is the psalm's real argument, and it is not bitter. These men are described as having received their inheritance — full bellies, children provided for, wealth stored up for grandchildren. The psalm does not deny that they have it, and it does not ask for it to be taken away. It simply observes what it is: a portion, complete, and confined to this life.
As for me, I shall see your face in righteousness. I shall be satisfied, when I awake, with seeing your form.
The contrast is between two inheritances rather than two levels of prosperity, and the psalmist's is set past a waking. In a book that repeatedly calls death a sleep, the choice of verb is deliberate, and what it looks forward to is not relief but a face.
settled What this mark means