Israel and the Apple of God’s Eye

One of the ways God’s people are described in the Hebrew Scriptures is “the apple of God’s eye.” This is an expression about one of the most sensitive and vulnerable parts of the body that refers to someone or something that is treasured above all else and must be guarded carefully (Ex. 19:6; Deut. 7:6). We find this idiom used to describe God’s tender care for Israel and her anointed king:

The LORD’s portion is his people, Jacob his allotted heritage. He found him in a desert land, and in the howling waste of the wilderness; he encircled him, he cared for him, he kept him as the apple of his eye. (Deut. 32:9-10)

Keep me as the apple of your eye; hide me in the shadow of your wings, from the wicked who do me violence, my deadly enemies who surround me. (Ps. 17:8-9).

Israel was God’s precious firstborn son (Ex. 4:22; Hos. 11:1; Jer. 31:9), loved with an everlasting love (Jer. 31:3). The exodus showed that God would move heaven and earth to rescue his beloved people and bring vengeance down on those who oppose and oppress them. In Zechariah’s night visions, about the restoration of God’s exiled people, this idiom is given as the reason for Gods’ judgment on the nations that plundered Israel: “For he who touches you touches the apple of his eye” (Zech. 2:8). When you mess with God’s people you mess with God himself, and God would protect them fiercely, like a mama bear protecting her cubs.

For many today, this understanding of Israel as the “apple of God’s eye” serves as important and irrefutable biblical proof for supporting the modern state of Israel. According to several groups (e.g., dispensationalists, Zionists, messianic Jews, etc.), Christians should be in favor of foreign policy that supports the modern state of Israel because it is the fulfillment of biblical prophecy, and God will bless or curse nations based on how they treat Israel.

I do not wish to venture into the veritable minefield of Middle East geopolitics, U.S. foreign policy, or launch an exhaustive biblical-theological treatment of “Israel” and eschatology, but as Christians we do need to think more carefully, biblically, and Christianly about the idea of “Israel” as the apple of God’s eye. In other words, we need to understand who or what “Israel” is, and how this intimate expression now relates to Christ and his church.

Jesus Is the Apple of God’s Eye

As the story of God and Israel unfolds across the pages of Scripture we come to Jesus, the one who moves Israel’s story forward and brings it to its conclusion (cf. John 5:39, 46-47; Luke 24:25-27; 44-49). Just as Israel was God’s “firstborn son”, so now Jesus is God’s true Son who was called out of Egypt and tempted in the wilderness (Matt. 2:13-15; 4:1-11). At his baptism and his transfiguration, God the Father declares that Jesus is his “beloved Son” (Matt. 3:17; 17:5; cf. Mark 12:6), the Son whom he loved before the foundation of the world (John 5:20; 15:9; 17:24, 26). And just as David was God’s anointed king who trusted in God for vindication from his enemies, so now Jesus Christ is the true anointed king of Israel and son of David (Matt. 21:9; 22:41-45; Acts 2:36).

Putting this together it becomes clear that Jesus Christ is the apple of God’s eye. He is the fulfillment of Israel. He is the Son treasured by the Father, the promised offspring of Abraham in whom all nations would be blessed, God’s chosen and faithful servant. In a tragic twist, however, it was the Jews who became like the nations and “touched the apple of [God’s] eye” when they rejected Jesus and handed him over to be crucified. Jesus was the beloved son of the vineyard owner who was killed by the tenants (Mark 12:1-12). Because God is faithful to his promises, he raised his Son in victory over death (Col. 2:13-15) and vindicated him when he brought judgment on the Jews by destroying their city and temple in 70 AD. When you mess with Jesus, you mess with God himself (Acts 3:14-15; Acts 20:28).

The Church Is the Apple of God’s Eye

If Jesus, as the fulfillment of Israel, is truly the apple of God’s eye, then all those united to him—who have been baptized into his name and adopted as children of God—have become the apple of God’s eye, the true Israel of God. Thus, when you mess with the church, you are messing with Jesus Christ himself. This is precisely what as the risen Lord told Saul on the road to Damascus (Acts 9:3-5) and what the book of Revelation is about. The nations that mess with God’s people and persecute his church are touching the apple of his eye and will face the judgment of God and the wrath of the Lamb (Matt. 23:34-38; Rev. 18:24). In the first century, this was the Jews themselves (cf. 1 Thess. 2:14-17), and over the centuries there have been many nations that have followed in the persecuting footsteps of the Jews, and God has cast them down.

Unfortunately, the moment the “church” gets brought into the discussion about “Israel” the accusations of supersessionism, “replacement theology,” and anti-Semitism start flying. But the apple of God’s eye is not, and has never been, defined by physical descent from Abraham or geographical boundaries. John Carpenter helpfully points out that, “The church did not replace Israel because Israel was always and already the church, the promised ‘assembly of peoples.’ The fundamental assumption that Israel was primarily an ethnic people led to slight theological error of supersessionism and the more serious, pernicious error of dispensationalism.”

The assembly of YHWH’s people, known as “Israel,” had always been comprised of a “mixed multitude” since the exodus from Egypt (Ex. 12:38). Think of Rahab the Canaanite, Ruth the Moabite, and those in Persia who “declared themselves Jews (Esther 8:17; 9:27). These were all “true Jews” because their faith was in the one true and living God of Israel and his promises. This is what the apostle Paul writes in his epistles:

“For no one is a Jew who is merely one outwardly, nor is circumcision outward and physical. But a Jew is one inwardly, and circumcision is a matter of the heart, by the Spirit, not by the letter (Rom. 2:28–29).

“For in Christ Jesus you are all sons of God, through faith…If you are Christ’s, then you are Abraham’s offspring, heirs according to promise (Gal. 3:26, 29).

This was the plan from beginning, that all the nations of the earth would be blessed through Abraham and his offspring, which ultimately was Jesus Christ (Gal. 3:16). Shem’s tent would be expanded to included Japheth and even Canaan (Gen. 9:26-27). Jews and Gentiles who have been united to Christ by grace through faith belong as citizens to the commonwealth of Israel. They are the beneficiaries of the covenants of promise (Eph. 2:11-22) and are now treasured, cherished, and protected by God. Jason Staples concludes, “Any suggestion of the church superseding or replacing Israel is therefore nonsense. In Paul’s idiom, ekklesia [the church] is not a separate entity but rather a shorthand reference to the eschatologically restored Israel, the assembly of YHWH, including (as Israel always had) both Jews and non-Jews.”

The Modern State of Israel and Biblical Prophecy

If we want to think Christianly about Israel and who the “apple of God’s eye” is today, we must read Zechariah’s vision and the rest of the OT Scriptures in light of the New Testament (2 Cor. 1:20). Zechariah 2:8 is not about who shoots missiles at Israel today because the modern state of Israel is simply not the fulfillment of biblical prophecy. The warnings for those who touch the apple of God’s eye now apply to the nations who oppose and persecute the Israel of God—the church made up of Jews and Gentiles who believe in the risen Jesus as Messiah and Lord, who have come to Mt. Zion (Heb. 12:22), and who have the heavenly Jerusalem as their mother (Gal. 4:21-31). NT Wright puts it rather strongly:

To suggest, therefore, that as Christians we should support the state of Israel because it is the fulfilment of prophecy…is a way of saying that in the cross and resurrection God did not actually fulfil his whole saving purpose; that Jesus did not in fact achieve the fulfilment of Old Testament prophecy; that his resurrection was not the start of God’s new age; that Acts is wrong, Romans is wrong, Galatians is wrong, the letter to the Hebrews is wrong, Revelation is wrong. Say that if you like, but don’t claim to be Christian in doing so.

Christians should support the existence and flourishing of a modern Jewish state, but such support should not be based on Old Testament prophecy about Israel, which has been fulfilled in Christ and his church, the Israel of God (Gal. 6:16; cf. Ps. 127). As Jerry and Charles Bowyer put it: “On the contrary, we as Christians should be fierce defenders of the principles of Israeli nationalism, because we follow the Biblical attitude towards nationhood. Our support for the Jewish state need not be dependent on dual-covenant-esque exegesis, nor dispensational end times speculative systems, but instead on an understanding of nationhood that is thoroughly based in Scripture.”

Recommended Resources

Here are some outstanding resources that will help you further explore the relationship between Israel, Christ, the church, and the fulfillment of biblical prophecy.