Enayim, The Eyes

Give Now!

The first creation action in the scriptures was the creation by God of light. 

“In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was without form, and void; and darkness was on the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters. Then God said, "Let there be light"; and there was light. And God saw the light, that it was good; and God divided the light from the darkness. God called the light Day, and the darkness He called Night. So, the evening and the morning were the first day.” (Gen 1:1-5, NKJV)

From this account, we see that darkness preceded light. Pre-light also was described as beingwithout form and void. Into this chaos God speaks light, “or” which He defines as being good, “tov”. He then separates or divides the light from the darkness calling the light “day” and the darkness, “night”. What is interesting to me about this account is the act of separation. Normally light dispels darkness. You don’t have to get rid of darkness, you only have to turn on the light.

At this point in creation, there is no sun to define the day or moon to rule the night. There is just a purity of light and darkness which includes formlessness and emptiness or void. Why does God have to separate the light from the dark? I think it is the creation of time marked by cycles of light and cycles of darkness, distinguished by the terms, “day” and “night”.

Yeshua gave us a key to this when He said:

“I must work the works of Him who sent Me while it is day; the night is coming when no one can work. As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world."” (Joh 9:4-5, NKJV)

So, before there was a sun to defines the borders of the day there was the light of God’s word to define and separate the day from the night, a period of purposelessness and chaos.

 Now, let’s turn to the beginning of the Gospel of John and see how he describes this reality:

 “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made. In Him was life, and the life was the light of men. And the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it.” (Joh 1:1-5, NKJV)

Light is incomprehensible to darkness. Hold that thought for a moment. In order for darkness to have the choice of comprehension it must be conscious. Another way to think of that is to say there is a thinking whose nature is darkness, chaotic and empty of life. The solution to that is the light of God, which is also defined as the source of life, eternal life.

OK. Now we have set a stage for what I believe is a powerful life-changing conversation about the children of light who we are called to be.

“While you have the light, believe in the light, that you may become sons of light." These things Jesus spoke, and departed, and was hidden from them.” (Joh 12:36, NKJV)

And Paul said: “You are all sons of light and sons of the day. We are not of the night nor of darkness.” (1Th 5:5, NKJV)

Pretty clear? Yes? OK. Then if the key is the light, then what organ in our body becomes activated by the light? Our eyes. 

Our eyes, in Hebrew enayim are the transmitters of the light. The root or singular form is “ayin” which also means well or fountain, or an opening.

The eyes, The pictograph  is a picture of the eye, the  is a picture of a seed representing continuance. Combined these mean "eye of continuance". The nomadic agriculturist carefully watches over his livestock and crops by keeping a close eye on them. This word picture tells us that where our eyes are focused reveals what is in our hearts and its true desires. 

Yeshua said: “Your eye is the lamp of your body; when your eye is clear, your whole body also is full of light; but when it is bad, your body also is full of darkness. “So, watch out that the light in you is not darkness. “Therefore, if your whole body is full of light, without any dark part, it will be wholly illuminated, as when the lamp illuminates you with its light.” (Luke 11:34-36, NASB)

I think He is warning us about what we “see” with our eyes in terms of our desires. The eye is a gate of desire or of love.

The Hebrew term for “favor” is “motzeh chen b’enayim”. It literally means that the eyes of a greater power are opened with grace and favor towards a lesser being in stature or position. Look with me at Ruth 2:10:

 “Then she fell on her face, bowing to the ground and said to him, "Why have I found favor in your sight that you should take notice of me, since I am a foreigner?"” (Rth 2:10, NAS95)

We say beauty is in the eye of the beholder. This is how a gate of light is opened.

Revisiting Genesis 1, when light is spoken into reality, defining time, it says God separated it from the darkness. I think this is why in the Hebrew reckoning of time, the day begins at sunset. When the sun has set then the candles of night are lit honoring the light that has come into the world. Think by contrast how we count day and night, using midday as the height of day and midnight as the height or low point of the sun. This is because our culture is patterned after Rome who worshipped the sun. By contrast we worship the Light who is Yeshua.

Ok. Now we can see how we really need to work of our eyes, spiritually and also physically. When I was a teenager, my brother Maurice who some of you have met was afflicted with severe astigmatism and nearsightedness. He was 20-400 in his eyes. My parents found an eye dr. in Miami who did vision training and correction exercises. Most of these involved using different colored lights to activate different parts of the brain and physical exercises to repattern the parts of the brain that were not developed properly when Maurice was an infant. Unknow to my parents, at the time of Maurice’s infant years a common practice was to put small children in small rolling seats to keep them from crawling around and getting into things. What they didn’t know was that the crawling motion was essential to developing the brain section specifically connected with seeing.

Dr. Liberman set up a ball in a room in our house and Maurice has to crawl around the room and visually track the ball first in one direction and then reverse it. He did this for months every day reactivating the part of his brain responsible for seeing. That and the use of different colored lights activated his brain and today Maurice is one of the top attorneys in the country which as you know inv

Why am I telling you this story? Well, I believe there is a powerful connection between how we think and how we see things. 

When we get born again, we see things differently changing our thinking and how we live:

“Jesus responded and said to him, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless someone is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.”” (Joh 3:3, NASB)

The Spirit of God enters our heart but also activates our eyes and our brain. Our desires are changed. 

This is why Paul tells us: “Set your minds on the things that are above, not on the things that are on earth.” (Col 3:2, NASB)

We do that through our eyes, what we see and what we allow to have favor in our sight.

The eyes are the gateway to our soul. Not only do they impact our soul by what we see but they in turn are impacted by what our soul allows them to see. I think it is so important to realize that the windows open both ways. 

 God separated light from dark. Yeshua as the light of God could not be apprehended by the dark.Light has no fellowship with darkness.

 “Do not be unequally yoked together with unbelievers. For what fellowship has righteousness with lawlessness? And what communion has light with darkness?” (2Co 6:14, NKJV)

 You see we live in an hour where there is a tide of darkness invading the territory of the light. It is our mandate to be sons and daughters of light and represent the kingdom of life which is the kingdom of order and goodness. As Yeshua admonished us, we are to let our light shine before men.

“Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works and glorify your Father in heaven.” (Mat 5:16, NKJV)

How do we do that by putting on the armor of light which is activated by our seeing.

“The night is far spent; the day is at hand. Therefore, let us cast off the works of darkness, and let us put on the armor of light. Let us walk properly, as in the day, not in revelry and drunkenness, not in lewdness and lust, not in strife and envy. But put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to fulfill its lusts.” (Rom 13:12-14, NKJV)

Activation: The armor of light. Open face. Why did the Lord give us the moon? To show us an example of how to be the light. We become the light when we reflect Him who is light. We have no light of our own. We are inherently like the moon. We need to gaze upon Him to reflect His light. Numbers 6:24:

“"The LORD bless you and keep you; The LORD make His face shine upon you and be gracious to you; The LORD lift up His countenance upon you, And give you peace." '” (Num 6:24-26, NKJV)

He is our peace and our light!