Among the Bible’s shocking figures of speech is God’s claim (in Isaiah 49:16) to His despairing people that He has “engraved” them on the palm of His hands. Israel had sinned, and felt the stinging rebuke of God’s chastisement. God’s people thought all was lost.
But the prophet assures them that God does not and can not forget them, since they are engraved on his hands, a sort of mystic or spiritual tattoo. Imagine it! How can God forget what is forever written “on His hands.”
The Bible overflows with such expressions because God seeks to make His love known to all mankind. He is not a faraway God who has no concern, nor a deity whose ways are unknown. Rather, He is a personal God whose relentless love caused Him to send His Son to save His people by dying in their place.
The Bible speaks of God as our Bridegroom, our Head, our Shepherd, and our Father, all of which symbols burst with implications of His love and tokens of our future joy. By these He shows us not only that He has loved us with an everlasting love, but also that He desires us to be fully confident in His love so that we can enjoy Him now.
“See what kind of love the Father has given to us,
that we should be called children of God. . .”
1 John 3:1