He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds.
Psalm 147 is a song of praise that moves from rebuilding a ruined city to counting the stars — and, in between, to the mending of one broken heart. Does the God who runs a whole universe really stoop that low, and how does He do it?
What only the Lord can repair
The psalm sets God's work against the wreckage people leave behind. Each thing He does answers something we do.
Hamilton SmithPeople can break things down. Only the Lord can "build up Jerusalem." In our folly we can scatter the people of God. Only the Lord "gathers together" His outcast people. We can break hearts. Only the Lord "heals the broken in heart." We can open old wounds. Only the Lord "binds up" our wounds.
The God of the stars and one heart
The next verse turns from a wounded heart to the night sky. Both are past our reach, and neither is past His.
Hamilton SmithThe God who "counts the number of the stars" and "calls them by their names" is the God who "heals the broken in heart." The stars are too high for us to reach. The sorrows of a broken heart are too deep for us to reach. But the God who can count the countless stars of heaven can stoop to heal one broken heart on earth.
The order is not an accident. One writer draws a lesson from it.
A J PollockNotice the order in our psalm. It tells us first that God heals the broken in heart and binds up their wounds. Only then does it tell us that the same God counts the stars and calls them by their names. What do we learn from this order? We learn how deeply God cares for the sorrows and sadness of people.
His nature, not His mood
The verse does not say He healed once or will heal one day. The tense matters, and it settles a question many sufferers keep asking.
The Christian's FriendIn each of these passages the verb is in the present tense. So the action shows what God is like. It is not something God will do now and then if we wait for Him. It is what He always does, because it is His character and His delight to do it. So we never need to ask, Is He willing to comfort? The question is this: are we ready to receive this blessed ministry from Him?
What the healing cost the Healer
The verse states the fact. One writer points to what the healing cost the Healer.
Hamilton SmithTo heal the broken-hearted He became flesh. He shed His tears to dry ours, and broke His heart to bind up our hearts.
Two kinds of broken heart
Not every heart is broken by trouble. One writer describes a woman whose heart grace itself broke.
Hamilton SmithHis grace broke her heart. Now He binds it up with His words of love, saying, "Your sins are forgiven … your faith has saved you; go in peace."
Another heart broke another way — over wandering from the Lord. The cure was the same.
Hamilton SmithWe know, too, on the resurrection day, the tender way love took to heal this brokenhearted man and drive away his tears. So in all our backslidings, He restores our souls, by breaking our hearts and winning our hearts with His unchanging love.
Nearness before rescue
A mother had lost her son, and Jesus met her while she wept. The order of what He did shows how this verse works in practice.
Hamilton SmithIf we had the power, we would probably have raised the dead first, and then said to the woman, "Do not weep." But Jesus takes another way — a better way. It makes the story full of comfort for us all. He first says to the brokenhearted mother, "Do not weep," and then He raises the dead. So the woman could say, "In my great sorrow He came so near to me, that He wiped away my tears. He not only took me out of my sorrowful circumstances, but He walked beside me in them."
Summary
- Broken by us. People scatter, wound and break; building up, gathering and healing belong to the Lord alone.
- Healed by Him. The heart's sorrow is as far beyond our reach as the stars — and the God who names every star stoops to one heart on earth.
- Always, not sometimes. The present tense makes healing His character. The question is never whether He is willing, but whether we are ready to receive.
- At His own cost. He became flesh, shed tears to dry ours, and broke His heart to bind up ours.
- Near first, then new. He dried the mother's tears before He raised the dead, so she learned that He walks beside us in sorrow, not only lifts us out of it.