Tool Beta
Hebrew and Greek Without Learning Either
A walk through Genesis, the Psalms, and John, plus the key Hebrew and Greek words worth knowing. Each card is a place the English Bibles part company, and what in the Hebrew or Greek made them.
Psalm 17:8
Keep me as the apple of the eye. Literally, the little man, or the daughter of the eye: the pupil.
Psalm 17:8, in every translation this tool compares.
Look closely into someone's eye and you will see a tiny reflection of yourself in the dark center. Hebrew names that reflection ishon, a little man, and calls the pupil itself bat ayin, daughter of the eye. English apple has nothing to do with either image; it entered the phrase only because Old English speakers happened to also call the pupil an apple, for its round shape.
Because apple of the eye is not what the Hebrew says at all; the phrase literally names the pupil, called the little man of the daughter of the eye, a vivid image of the tiny reflected figure you see when you look closely into someone's eye, an image English apple replaced centuries ago and everyone has used ever since without knowing why.
Every version reads apple of the eye, correctly preserving the sense, precious and closely guarded, but the actual images behind the Hebrew words, a tiny reflected person, a daughter, are entirely absent from apple, which has no connection to eyes in ordinary English at all.
אִישׁוֹן בַּת־עַיִן ishon bat-ayin · H380 + H1323 + H5869
Ishon, commonly translated pupil here, more literally means little man, describing the miniature reflected image visible in someone's eye when you look closely into it; bat ayin, daughter of the eye, is a separate Hebrew idiom for the same part of the eye. English apple entered this specific phrase from Old English, itself a separate, unrelated tradition of calling the pupil an apple for its round shape, coincidentally landing near enough in sense to survive translation even though it shares no image with the Hebrew at all.
English apple of the eye is now a fixed idiom meaning precious and beloved, entirely detached from any eye-related image for most speakers; it happens to preserve roughly the right sentiment while completely replacing the Hebrew's actual pictures, a tiny reflected person, a daughter, with a fruit that has nothing to do with either.
A translated idiom that still works can hide the fact that its underlying image has been entirely swapped out. Check what the original words are actually picturing, not just whether the resulting English phrase still makes emotional sense.
No translation dispute over the sentiment, precious and closely guarded. The entry exists because apple of the eye survives as a working English idiom purely by coincidence of separate traditions, not because it translates the Hebrew's actual images of a little reflected man or a daughter of the eye.
- ishon, little man, as the pupil-reflection image: standard Hebrew lexicons
- bat ayin, daughter of the eye, as a separate Hebrew idiom for the pupil
- English apple entering the phrase via a separate Old English tradition
