What Does Psalm 147:3 Mean?
He mends the broken in heart, and binds up their wounds.
Key words are shown with the Hebrew or Greek and what each word meant.
Selah Decoded Version The Selah Decoded Version renders what the Hebrew and Greek words meant to the people who first heard them.
King James wording
King James Version
He healeth the broken in heart, and bindeth up their wounds.THE KEY
What the KJV calls wounds also carries the sense of pain and grief, so the verse treats heartache as an injury worthy of healing and care.
THE MEANING
The LORD sees the heart’s fracture and the grief beneath it as real wounds. He heals what is broken and binds what hurts; your pain is met with care rather than dismissal.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The lie that inward grief is too invisible to count as a real wound, or too deep to be tended.
THE ROOT
הָרֹפֵא
ha-rofe
GROWS FROM
רפא
r-p-ʾ
To heal or restore health.
“mends” in this verse is ha-rofe. The verse’s word names the LORD as healer, actively tending what is injured. The similar-sounding רָפָה (raphah, release or let the hands drop) has a different final letter, so it is a distinct root rather than a branch of רפא (rapha, heal).
ALSO GROWS
rofe: Healer or physician.
רֹפֵא
It makes healing a personal act of tending, not an abstract idea.
refu’ah: Healing or cure.
רְפוּאָה
It names the restoration that answers the heart’s injury.
לִשְׁבוּרֵי
lishvurei
GROWS FROM
שבר
sh-b-r
To break or shatter.
“broken in heart” in this verse is lishvurei. The heart is described as fractured, not merely discouraged. The verse places that break beside the act of binding, so the injury is met with care rather than left unnamed.
ALSO GROWS
shavar: To break or shatter.
שָׁבַר
It shows the force of the image behind “broken in heart.”
shever: A fracture, breaking, or ruin.
שֶׁבֶר
It carries the break from an action into the condition the verse says is healed.
לְעַצְּבוֹתָם
le-atsvotam
GROWS FROM
עצב
ʿ-ts-b
Pain, sorrow, or grief.
The word rendered “wounds” belongs to a family of words for pain and sorrow. Hebrew holds inner grief inside the image of an injury that can be bound.
ALSO GROWS
etsev: Pain or sorrow.
עֶצֶב
It shows that the wounds include the ache of grief, not only a visible injury.
atsev: Sorrowful or grieved.
עָצֵב
It connects the wound’s pain with the person who feels it.
THE PATTERN
The LORD meets inward fracture by drawing near and tending what hurts.
The LORD is near to those whose heart is broken, and delivers those crushed in breath.For I will bring up healing for you, and I will heal you of your wounds, declares the LORD, for they called you the driven away, saying, This is Zion, no one seeks her.The breath of the Lord LORD is upon me, for the LORD has anointed me to bring good news to the bowed ones; he has sent me to bind up the broken of heart, to proclaim flowing freedom to the captives, and the opening of the prison to those who are chained.THE THREAD
The breath of the Lord LORD is upon me, for the LORD has anointed me to bring good news to the bowed ones; he has sent me to bind up the broken of heart, to proclaim flowing freedom to the captives, and the opening of the prison to those who are chained.Isaiah repeats the roots שבר (shavar, break) and חבש (chabash, bind or bandage) from Psalm 147:3. The same break is met by the same act of binding.
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