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Metaphors
apple of the eye, noun According to the Oxford English Dictionary, at least since the ninth century, English-speaking people have referred to the black dot in the middle of the iris at the center of the eye as the apple. Apple was a generic term for many fruits of similar shape, in much the same way that corn was the generic term for many types of edible grain. Apparently people thought that what we now call the pupil was a globular solid, like an apple. From a very early period, the apple of the eye also served as a metaphor identifying the person on whom the eye gazed with pleasure.
At about the time that people in England realized that the black center of the eye was not a solid but an opening, they began using the word pupil, from the Latin pupilla, meaning a little girl. (The word pupil indicating a student comes from the same Latin root, pupillus in the masculine, which could be used for an orphan who was a minor and consequently a ward.)
The roots of the Latin word for pupil are curiously similar to two of the Hebrew words for the pupil of the eye, ishown meaning little man and bat meaning daughter. These expressions probably came into the language as a result of people seeing a tiny mirror image of themselves when staring into the eyes of another person. A third Hebrew word for the pupil is babah, a hollowed out place. Perhaps the ancient Hebrew-speaking people understood that the pupil was actually an opening in the iris.
All three Hebrew words could be used in the same metaphorical sense as the English expression, apple of the eye.
ishown
The Lord's own portion was his people, Jacob his allotted share. He sustained him in a desert land, in a howling wilderness waste; he shielded him, cared for him, guarded him as the apple of his eye. [Deuteronomy 32:9-10]
your wings. [Psalm 17:8]
bat
babah
Although the metaphor, apple of the eye, is familiar and understood to mean a cherished something or someone, many people have no idea that apple was once the common name for the black spot in the middle of the blue or brown iris. In most instances, pupil would be a more accurate translation of the Hebrew equivalent, but “pupil of the eye” somehow does not work as a metaphor.