Eyes of the heart……..

“As water reflects the face,
so the heart reflects
one person to another.
 The grave and the underworld are never satisfied;
and people’s eyes are never satisfied”.   Prov. 27:19-20  CEB

Eyes and sight are frequently used in figures of speech throughout the Bible and in our everyday lives, indicating how we perceive God.   When our attention is attracted to something remarkable, we call it an “eye-opener”.   We are said to “keep our eyes peeled” for the object we are seeking.    When a person is skilled at a task, he is said to “have an eye for it”.  

In the Bible the eye is the organ of perception, and perception involves more than physical sight.

Eyes are often used figuratively to indicate understanding or ignorance.   When we understand a point that a teacher makes, we say, “Oh, I see now…”.  When we do not plan ahead, we are said to be “short-sighted”.   When we ignore an action, we “turn a blind eye” toward it and when we disapprove of an action, we “take a dim view of it”.  

Eyes and mental understanding are also frequently associated in the Bible and in secular literatures----along with light as “knowledge” and darkness as “ignorance”.

The prophet Isaiah speaks of the time when the Lord will reveal the Messiah to them, he writes, “The people walking in darkness have seen a great light” (Isa. 9:2).   In most instances in the Bible, knowledge and wisdom are associated with sight, ignorance and sin with darkness.

Eyes find their way into our descriptions as objects and natural phenomena as well.   When we track a hurricane, it is talked about the “eye of the storm”, the calm center around which the winds swirl.

When we thread a needle to sew, we thread it through the “eye of the needle”.   Potatoes have “eyes” which can be planted.

We “see” eyes everywhere, as it were, and that is not surprising, for the physical eye is arguably one of the two most important sense organs, along with the ears, we possess.  

In the Scriptures it is often in the eyes that the character is expressed.  Included in these uses are personality traits, as well as, their moral condition.  As we might expect, the book of Proverbs comments frequently on the character of godly and ungodly people alike.

“Follow my advice, my son;
always treasure my commands.
 Obey my commands and live!
Guard my instructions as you guard your own eyes.
 Tie them on your fingers as a reminder.
Write them deep within your heart”.  Prov. 7:1-3 NLT