MASONIC EYE - The Eye of God

Masonic All Seeing Eye

The Masonic Eye is symbolic of the Eye of God. It is the symbol of His Divine watchfulness and His ever present care of the universe.

The All Seeing Eye, like many other Masonic symbols, has been borrowed from the past from the nations of antiquity.

Hebrews and Egyptians

Both the Hebrews and Egyptians appear to have derived the use of the Masonic Eye from the natural inclination of figurative minds to select a human organ as the symbol of its closest matching function...much as the foot denotes swiftness, the arm, strength and the hand, fidelity.

Psalm 34:15: "The eyes of the Lord are upon the righteous, and his ears are open unto their cry."

Psalm 121:4: "Behold, he that keepeth Israel shall neither slumber nor sleep."

From the Book of Conversation of God with Moses on Mount Sinai, translated by the Reverend W. Cureton, taken from an Arabic manuscript of the 15th century and published by the Philobiblon Society of London:

"Then Moses said to the Lord, O' Lord, dost thou sleep or not?

The Lord said unto Moses:

"I never sleep: but take a cup and fill it with water."

Then, Moses took a cup and filled it with water, as the Lord commanded him.

Then, the Lord cast into the heart of Moses the breath of slumber; so he slept, and the cup fell from his hand and the water which was therein was spilled.

Then Moses awoke from his sleep.

Then God said to Moses:

"I declare by my power, and by my glory, that if I were to withdraw my providence from the heavens and the earth, for no longer a space of time that thou hast slept, they would at once fall to ruin and confusion, like as the cup fell from thy hand."

The Egyptian God, Osiris

The Egyptians represented Osiris, their chief deity, by the symbol of an open eye and placed this hieroglyphic of him in all their temples.

His symbolic name, on the monuments was represented by the eye accompanying a throne to which was sometimes added an abbreviated figure of the god and sometimes what has been called a hatchet, but which may as correctly be supposed to be a representation of a square.

Solomon in Proverbs 15:3

Solomon alludes to this when he says: "The eyes of the Lord are in every place, beholding (keeping watch upon) the evil and the good."

The Creator is without beginning and without end because He always is and has always been. He is both Omnipotent (having unlimited universal power) and Omnipresent (the quality of being everywhere at the same time).

The Masonic Eye of God watches over each of us.

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The information on this page is credited to Mackey's Revised Encyclopedia of Freemasonry, Volume 1, page 52, 1929.

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