Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Psalms 147:3
He healeth the broken in heart, and bindeth up their wounds.
3. Cp. Isa 59:1; Hos 6:1. Israel, crushed with grief and despair, wounded with sorrow and shame in its exile, is meant. Nehemiah’s feelings (Psa 1:4; Psa 2:3) represent those of every true Israelite. Cp. Psalms 137. Possibly the further thought is implied that sorrow had wrought contrition (Psa 51:17) and made restoration possible.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
He healeth the broken in heart – Referrring primarily to the fact that he had healed those who were crushed and broken in their long captivity, and that he had given them comfort by returning them to their native land. At the same time, however, the language is made general, as describing a characteristic of God that he does this; that it is his character to do this. See the notes at Psa 34:18. See also Psa 51:17. Compare Isa 61:1; Luk 4:18.
And bindeth up their wounds – See the notes at Isa 1:6. Margin, griefs. The word refers to those who are afflicted with griefs and troubles. The reference is to mental sorrows; to a troubled spirit; to a heart made sad in any way. God has provided healing for such; on such he bestows peace.
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
Psa 147:3-4
He healeth the broken in heart.
Gods relation to sorrowing souls and to starry systems
I. His relation to sorrowing souls. He healeth the broken in heart. There are broken hearts and wounded souls in this world. The whole human creation is groaning. God works here to heal and restore. Christianity is the restorative element He applies–the Balm of Gilead–the tree whose fruit is for the healing of the nations.
II. His relation to starry systems. He telleth the number of the stars.
1. Those who deny Gods active relation to both souls and stars. These comprehend those who deny the existence of God altogether, and those who admit His existence, but deny His superintendence in the universe; the latter regard all the phenomena and changes of nature as taking place not by the agency of God, but by the principles or laws which He impressed upon it at first. The universe is to them like a plant,: all the vital forces of action are in itself, and it will go on until they exhaust and die.
2. Those who admit Gods active relation to stars, but, deny it to souls. They say that it is derogatory to Infinite Majesty to suppose His taking any notice of broken hearts. He has to do with the great, but not with the little. There are two or three thoughts which make this objection appear very childish.
(1) One is that mans great and small are but notions. When I say that a thing is great, all I mean is that it is great to me. To God there is nothing great nor small
(2) Another is that what we consider small are influential parts of the whole. Science proves that the motion of an atom must propagate an influence to remotest orbs; that all created being is but one great chain, of which the corpuscle is a link, which, if touched, will send its vibration to the ultimate points. In the moral system facts show that the solitary thought of an obscure man can shake empires, produce revolutions, and reform society.
(3) Another thought is that–even on the assumption of our conception of magnitudes being correct–we have as much evidence to believe that God is as truly at work in the Small as the great.
(4) Human souls, though in suffering, are greater than the stars in all their splendour.
(5) There is higher evidence to believe that God restores souls than that He takes care of stars. The highest proof is consciousness. I infer, from my understanding, that God governs the heavenly bodies, but I feel that He healeth the broken in heart, and bindeth up their wounds. This thought gives to its objection a contemptible insignificance.
3. Those who profess faith in Gods active relation to both, but who are destitute of the suitable spiritual feeling. Antecedently, we should infer that, wherever there could be found a thinking moral nature like mans fully believing in this twofold relation of God–His connection with the heavenly bodies, and with all pertaining to the history of itself–there would be developed in that nature, as the necessary consequence of that faith, life, humility, and devotion. It is said that an undevout astronomer is mad; but an undevout believer in Gods connection with the universe and man is impossible. Wherever, then, we find apathetic, proud, undevout men professing this belief, we find hypocrites.
4. To what class, in relation to this subject, dost thou belong? Thou wouldst probably revolt at the idea of belonging to either of the former two; but the latter, for many reasons, is worse than either: it is to play the hypocrite, and disgrace religion. Get, then, the true faith in the subject–the faith that will produce this true quickening, humbling, devotionalizing effect–and thou shalt catch the true meaning of life. (Homilist.)
Healing for the wounded
I. A great ill–a broken heart. The heart broken not by distress or disappointment, but on account of sin, is the heart which God peculiarly delights to heal. All other sufferings may find a fearful centre in one breast, and yet the subject of them may be unpardoned and unsaved; but if the heart be broken by the Holy Ghost for sin, salvation will be ire ultimate issue, and heaven its result. A broken heart implies–
1. A very deep and poignant sorrow on account of sin.
2. Utter inability to get rid of it.
II. A great mercy. He healeth The broken in heart.
1. He alone does it.
2. He alone can do it.
3. He alone may do it.
4. He will do it. Did Saul of Tarsus rejoice after three days of blindness?
Yes, and you shall be delivered also. Oh, it is a theme for eternal gratitude, that the same God who in His loftiness and omnipotence stooped down in olden times to soothe, cherish, relieve, and bless the mourner, is even now taking His journeys of mercy among the penitent sons of men. Oh, I beseech Him to come where thou art sitting, and put His hand inside thy soul, and, if He finds there a broken heart, to bind it up. (C. H. Spurgeon.)
Christs hospital
I. The patients and their sickness.
1. Those whose hearts are broken through sorrow. The text does not say the spiritually broken in heart, therefore I will not insert an adverb where there is none in the passage. Come hither, ye that are burdened, all ye that labour and are heavy laden; come hither, all ye that sorrow, be your sorrow what it may; come hither, all ye whose hearts are broken, be the heart-break what it may, for He healeth the broken in heart.
2. Those whose hearts are broken for sin.
3. Hearts that are broken from sin. When you and sin have quarrelled, never let the quarrel be made up again.
II. The Physician and His medicine.
1. Jesus was anointed of God for this work.
2. Jesus was sent of God on purpose to do this work.
3. He was educated for this work. He had a broken heart Himself.
4. He is experienced in this work.
5. His medicine is His own flesh and blood. There is no cure like it.
III. The testimonial to the Great Physician which is emblazoned in the text. I understand it to mean this.
1. He does it effectually.
2. He does it constantly.
3. He does it invariably.
4. He glories in doing it.
IV. What we ought to do.
1. Resort to Him.
2. Trust Him.
3. Praise Him. (C. H. Spurgeon.)
Power and tenderness
A great deal of what we call the scepticism of the present day is merely the protest of the human mind for unity. The spiritual world has so often been described as being so utterly unlike this, its laws have been so persistently spoken of as contradictory to the laws of this; warring continually against it, that you could almost think sometimes that if these two worlds are governed at all they must be governed by two different, contradictory, and even antagonistic deities. Man does not like this. It perplexes him. His allegiance becomes divided. He does not like to feel that he belongs to one world, and that he lives with one set of facts, whilst he is working and thinking and studying, and that he is in another world and with another set of facts when he worships and prays. Now, these words start from the fullest recognition of both. The reality of both is implied.
I. The same God holds sway in both worlds. He healeth the broken in heart. He telleth the number of the stars. The revelation of God is twofold. There is the revelation that He gives in the spirits of men–the revelation that comes to us of Gods handling of the souls of men; and there is the revelation which God gives in this material creation outside. Now, let me ask you, shall we not understand God better by keeping the two together? Is it not a loss to separate them? Let me say that the best commentary upon the Bible is science, and the best commentary upon science is the Bible. There are scientific questions being discussed in England at this present moment that never will be settled until people approach them from the spiritual standpoint. And, let me add, our religious conceptions would be strengthened, would rest upon a firmer foundation, and would be healthier and sweeter, if we always remembered the things that have come to us through the physiologist, through the biologist, through the geologist, and through all the men of science. The complete, true understanding of God comes through remembering that He who telleth the stars is also the same who healeth the broken in heart.
II. There are certain great principles that prevail in both worlds. Oh, there is a difference! There is plenty of difference. Why, I have only to read my text again. Broken hearts belong only to one sphere. The shadow of a great disaster is upon our souls. There is nothing like it elsewhere. The sunshine has a heart of care, said the great English novelist who tried to write poetry and failed; but the care was in her own heart. The whole creation groaneth and travaileth together in pain until now, said the Apostle Paul. The song of creation is set in the minor key. There is a little bit of something there besides poetry. Suffering is everywhere. Ask the doctor, and he will tell you that pathology is as broad as physiology. One is the shadow of the other. But let us steady our hearts. The same hand that keeps and helps and soothes the poor, bewildered, sorrowing creature, is the Hand that keeps the stars. If we could impress upon ourselves that the soul is as much under law as the body, that the well-being of the soul is determined by conditions as fixed and inexorable as the conditions that determine the well-being of the body, we could command spiritual influences with the same absolute certainty that we could command physical influences. There is a law of gravitation, you say; there is a law of the combination of chemical elements. Do not talk nonsense in a church. There is a law of pardon, there is a law of prayer, there is a law of spiritual health and sanctification. In an instant this morning you can, if you like, bring yourself into the current of help which will carry you up to the feet of God. Oh, if we but believed that all spiritual felicity is as much within our reach as the nearest law of nature! Wilt thou be made whole? I saw a young boy, the other day, making experiments with an electric battery. The place was full of electricity; but the connection was not established. Just one thing, and the current was complete. Wilt thou be made whole? Yes. Then the current is complete. Cast yourself on the promises of God like a strong man casting himself into the tide. As truly as God leads the stars, can He, will He, heal the brokenhearted. (J. Morlais Jones.)
Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell
Verse 3. He healeth the broken in heart] , the shivered in heart. From the root shabar, to break in pieces, we have our word shiver, to break into splinters, into shivers. The heart broken in pieces by a sense of God’s displeasure.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
The broken in heart, either with the sense of their sins, or with their sorrows and grievous calamities. He seems to speak peculiarly of the captive Israelites now returned.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
3. Though applicable to thecaptive Israelites, this is a general and precious truth.
wounds(CompareMargin).
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
He healeth the broken in heart,…. Christ is a physician; many are the diseases of his people; he heals them all by his blood, stripes, wounds; and among the rest their broken hearts, which none can cure but himself; hearts broken by the word, as a hammer, accompanied with a divine power; which have a true sense of sin, and godly sorrow for it; are truly contrite, such as the Lord has a respect unto, dwells with, and accepts of; and these he heals, and only he, by pouring in oil and wine, as the good Samaritan; or by applying pardoning grace and mercy to them, streaming through his blood;
and bindeth up their wounds; or “griefs” n; and so gives them ease, health, and peace, for which they have abundant reason to call upon their souls to bless his name and sing his praise; see Ps 103:1; compare with this Isa 61:1.
n “dolores eorum”, Pagninus, Montanus, Cocceius, Gejerus.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
(3) Broken in heart.As in Psa. 34:18. (Comp. Isa. 61:1.)
Wounds.See margin, and comp. Job. 9:28; Pro. 15:13.
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
3. Broken in heart This was their sad state in exile, but now they are comforted.
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
Psa 147:3 He healeth the broken in heart, and bindeth up their wounds.
Ver. 3. He healeth the broken in heart ] Pouring the oil of his grace into none but those broken vessels.
And bindeth up their wounds
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
Tenderness and Power
He healeth the broken in heart,
And bindeth up their wounds.
He telleth the number of the stars;
He giveth them all their names.Psa 147:3-4
The old Hebrew Psalmist, by placing in striking contrast the infinitely great and the infinitely little, brings out, in the most effective way possible, the providence of God as at once comprehensive enough to superintend the interests of the collective universe, and kindly and careful enough not to neglect the smallest individual. While His omniscient eye numbers the innumerable stars, His gentle touch heals the broken heart. While His spoken word holds the glistening planets to their spheres, His tender hand binds up our bleeding wounds. These are old, very old thoughts, the imaginings of ancient Hebrew men, who little dreamed of the strange secrets hidden in the earth beneath their feet, or in the heaven above their heads; but, though between their day and ours lie centuries crowded with the most splendid discoveries man has made, yet neither science nor philosophy has ever proclaimed a truth that can match in sublimity, equal in beauty, or rival in its wealth of eternal human interest, this old Hebrew faithHe healeth the broken in heart, and bindeth up their wounds. He telleth the number of the stars; he giveth them all their names.
I
Broken Hearts and Countless Stars
1. The Psalmist brings together here countless stars and broken hearts. It is not easy for us to get these two thoughts into our minds at the same time. Still harder is it for us to think them as one thought. It seems such a far cry from all the stars of heaven to one poor bleeding heart, from those myriad points of fire to a few human tears. We see the sweep of the stars, and we walk in the shadow of pain; but in the bitter things we suffer, how little use we make of the great things we see! One idea excludes another that really belongs to it. We have not a large enough mental grasp. We look up at the stars and we forget our little world; we look out upon our little world and we forget the stars. We lose the years in the thought of the hour, and the hour in the thought of the ages. We seem unable to hold on to a great thought when we are in one of lifes narrow places; yet it is just in that narrow place that the great thought can do most for us. We live by hours, and so we count by hours. We are pilgrims, so our standard of measurement is a step. In our fragmentary thinking we draw dividing lines across the undivided, and fail to see that the limited and the illimitable are not two things but one. But the Psalmist brought stars and broken hearts together.
I think I am not far wrong in saying that, whatever science or revelation may have to tell us about Gods relation to the sun and to the stars, there are many points in mens and womens lives when such things lose all their interest in the presence of personal anxieties that will take no denial. There are momentswe all, or most of us, know them too wellwhen even one slight physical pain obtrudes itself upon our attention and succeeds in spoiling our work, as a grain of sand might stop some delicate machine, or a little rift spoil the music of a lute. How much more, then, when the frame of a strong man is bowed down with utter and uncontrollable grief, or the womans heart stands still at news of loss that so long as sun shall roll or stars give forth their shining shall never, never be forgotten! The heart does not measure things by algebra, or weigh such things in the balance of a cool and reasonable computation. The affections live, as it were, outside of time, and dwell in eternity alone with God. You may tell me, therefore, the number of the stars; but under bereavement I am not comforted. You may catalogue them all by their names; but my bitter pain refuses to be assuaged thereby, my broken heart refuses to be interested.1 [Note: Canon Curteis.]
2. But the Psalmist brings stars and broken hearts together, because to him heart-break is not to be regarded as a rare and tragic episode in the human story. This world knows sorrow only as an incident. It is, for it, a cloud upon the sun, sometimes darkening all the after day. It is a voice of weeping or a choked silence in the shadow dusk of the rivers edge. But, the last true sorrow of life is not on this wise. It is not dealt out to one here and another there as a bitter judgment or a wholesome discipline. It is inwoven into life. To miss it is to miss life. It is the price of the best. It is the law of the highest. When, after what we sometimes call the long farewell, you have seen a sorrow-stricken man bearing a bleeding heart out to the verge of the world, beyond the last outpost of earthly sympathy and beyond the kindly kingdom of human help, you have seen something for which earth has no healing, but you have not learned anything approaching the whole truth concerning heart-break. There is the broken and the contrite heart, the heart that is seeking sainthood, and fainting and falling and aching in the quest. There is the broken and the yearning heart, that strains and throbs with lofty longings and the burden of the valley of vision. And to find healing for such sorrow a man must find God. And He must be the God who counts the stars.
Perhaps no man ever stood in the presence of a great trouble without being driven by his own deepest instincts to seek strength and comfort from a Being mightier than himself. Many a hitherto godless mariner, battling with the wild waves, has called with simple and fervid faith on the God whose name the child had loved to reverence before the man had learned to profane. Many a poor burdened woman, whose heart was well-nigh breaking in the presence of a sorrow she could not bear alone, has grown calm and strong as her agony rose into a great cry after God. Instincts like these, characteristic of man the wide world over, tell that the Creator has planted within the human spirit the faculty to which, when danger from within or without threatens, the faith is native that He who healeth the broken in heart, and bindeth up their wounds, also delighteth to hear and answer the prayer of His afflicted creatures.1 [Note: A. M. Fairbairn, Christ in the Centuries, 209.]
An astronomer, known to me, divides his heart between the stars and his homein the latter a dying boy; both know that the God of the stars has knit their hearts together and binds them up. The spiritual man is apt to come among scientists as into an ice-house, the scientist into church as into a tropical house. The recognition of Gods presence and work in both is necessary to worthy thought of Him.1 [Note: Morlais Jones.]
3. Broken hearts appeal to God in a way that the most brilliant stars cannot do. The planets whirl through space, but do not know it. They are safe but blind, deaf, inert masses. They respond to the will of their Creator, but they are not conscious of a Fathers love. Amid those vast glories our Father can find no room for His pity, no response to His love, nothing that He can bend over to heal and to bless. The stars are not the true sphere of God, but the heart. The heart is the sphere of His love, the realm of His pity. What God does is seen among the stars, but what God is, that only the broken heart can know.
From a purely speculative and intellectual point of view, I defy any man to preach a gospel of comfort from the text, He telleth the number of the stars. Many a man has felt his helplessness and his loneliness beneath the stars. He has said, God is immeasurably remote from my little life down here among the shadows. Is it likely that amid the vast and intricate calculations of the universe He will take account of an insignificant fraction like my life? How should He think upon me when He has all the stars to count? How should He miss me from the fold when He is shepherding all the heavenly hosts? Thus for some the greatness of God has been made to spell the loneliness of man. That is the shivering logic of an intellectual conception of the Deity. The Psalmist who spoke of star-counting and heart-healing in the same breath had got beyond that. The deep, persistent needs of his life had brought him there. It was not by a mere chance that he chose to speak of heart-break when he sought to link earth with heaven and to lift the fretful mind of man up to the thought of Gods eternal presence and power. Heart-break is not an idea; it is an experience. Yes, and it is an experience that only the stars can explain and only Divinity can account for.2 [Note: P. C. Ainsworth, The Pilgrim Church, 30.]
In Luke Fildes well-known picture of The Doctor, we see the physician in the cottage seated by the bedside of a sick child, watching with a tender and painful solicitude. All his experience, all his skill, and all his patience are concentrated upon that little child. His whole heart, mind, and soul are drawn out to it. God is more at home with the broken heart than with the stars.3 [Note: H. Ford, Sermons with Analyses, 63.]
II
Heart-healing and Star-counting
The singer of this song linked together the healing of mans broken heart with a profound and transcendent conception of God. There was a time when the preacher used to give out for his text, Behold, the nations are counted as the small dust of the balance: behold, he taketh up the isles as a very little thing. He preached the glory and the wisdom and the power of God until men saw the universe as but one ray of all that glory, one word of all that wisdom, one deed of all that power. And with that tremendous background he preached the effectual comfort of the everlasting Father. Some are getting afraid of that background. And we require to remind ourselves that the human heart needs it and demands it, and will never be truly satisfied with anything else. There is nothing else large enough for us to write upon it the meanings and the sanctions and the purposes of Gods healing mercy. But to look at it from mans side, the gospel that is to bring availing and abiding comfort to a world like ours needs a tremendous background: it needs a transcendent sweep. If we have a doctrine of the Divine immanence that veils the stars, that seems to make the truth of God a more familiar and compassable thing, that silences the challenge of Gods lonely sovereignty and His transcendent and mysterious glory, we have not the doctrine that will meet your deepest needs or win a response from the depths of other hearts. This shame-stricken, yearning world needs the glory of God as much as it needs His mercy.
You know quite well that the greater the power, the more arresting does gentleness become. As might advances and energy increases, so always the more notable is gentleness. It is far more striking in a mailed warrior than in a mother with her womans heart; far more impressive in the lord of armies than in some retired and ineffectual dreamer. The mightier the power a man commands, the more compelling is his trait of gentleness. If he be tyrant of a million subjects, a touch of tenderness is thrilling. And it is when we think of the infinite might of God, who is King of kings and Lord of lords, that we realize the wonder of our text. It is He who calleth out the stars by number, and maketh the pillars of the heaven to shake. And when He worketh, no man can stay His hand or say to Him, What doest Thou? And it is this Ruler, infinite in power, before whom the princes of the earth are vanity, who is exquisitely and for ever gentle.1 [Note: G. H. Morrison, The Weaving of Glory, 181.]
1. He telleth the number of the stars, he giveth them all their names. One would think that if He were busy building, and gathering together, and healing the broken in heart, and binding up their wounds, He would have no time to attend to the framework of the universe. Yet here is the distinct declaration that the universe is taken care of at every point. There is not one little wicket-gate that opens into the meadow of the stars that is not angel-guarded. God has no postern gates by which the thief can enter undiscovered. The word telleth is a singular word; what is it when reduced to the level of our mother tongue? He telleth is equal to He numbereth; He looketh night after night to see that every one is there.
We have sometimes heard the shepherd muttering to himself as the sheep came home in the gloamingone, two, three, four. Why this enumeration? Because he has so many, and he must know whether every one is at home or not. What does one matter in fifty? Everything. It is the missing one that makes the heart ache; it is the one thing wanting that reduces wealth to poverty; it is the one anxiety that drives our sleep away. I have a thousand blessings; on that recollection I will fall to slumber. Yet I cannot. Why not? Because of the one anxiety, the one pain, the one trouble, the one child lacking, the one friend grieved, the one life in danger, the one legitimate aspiration imperilled and threatened with disappointment. But I have a thousand blessings; why not pillow my head upon these and rest? I cannot: nature is against me; reason may have a long argument, but the one anxiety arises and sneers it down. So the Lord telleth, counteth, goeth over the number, as it were one by one, to see that every little light is kindled, every asteroid at home. The very hairs of your head are all numbered. He makes pets of the starsHe calls them by their names. He treats them as if they were intelligent; He speaks to them as if they could answer Him.2 [Note: J. Parker, Studies in Texts, vi. 84.]
2. The God of the multitude is also the God of the individual soul. He attends to the innumerable host and to the single unit. Where we hear but a distant murmuring He hears the separate beating of every heart. This is one great distinction between natural and revealed religion, for the one thing that natural religion cannot do is to assure us of the individual care of God. The god of natural religion is like the driver of some eastern caravan; and he drives his caravan with skill unerring over the desert to the gleaming city. But he never halts for any bruised mortal, or waits to minister to any dying woman, or even for a moment checks his team to ease the agonies of any child. That is the god of natural religionthe mighty tendency that makes for righteousness. Imperially careful of the whole, he is sovereignly careless of the one. And over against that god, so dark and terrible, there stands for ever the God of revelation, saying in infinite and individual mercy, I am the God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob. He, too, is making for a city which hath foundations, and whose streets are golden. But He has an ear for every feeble cry, a great compassion for every bruised heart, and a watchful pity, like a mothers pity, for lips that are craving for a little water. It was a great thought which St. Peter uttered when he said to all who read, He careth for you. But St. Paul was nearer the heart of the Eternal when he said, He loved me, and gave himself for me.
This thought of God is countersigned in the clearest way by Christ. The God of Christ, in communistic ages, is the asylum of individuality. It is true that there was something in a crowd that stirred our Saviour to His depths. He was moved with compassion when He saw the multitude, as a flock of sheep without a shepherd. And when He came over against the city of Jerusalem, where the murmur of life was, and where the streets were thronged, looking, He was intensely moved, and wept. There was a place for the all within that heart of His. He saw life steadily, and saw it whole. There was not a problem of these teeming multitudes but had its last solution in His blood. Yet He who thus encompassed the totality in a love that was majestic to redeem, had a heart that never for an instant faltered in its passionate devotion to the one. Living for mankind, He spoke His deepest when His whole audience was one listener. Dying for mankind, His heart was thrilled with the agonized entreaty of one thief. For one coin the woman swept the house; for one sheep the shepherd faced the midnight; for one son, and him a sorry prodigal, the father in the home was broken-hearted. That is complete assurance that our God is the God of individuals. Thou art as much His care, as if beside, nor man nor angel moved in heaven or earth. He is Almighty, and takes the whole wide universe into the covering hollow of His hand, yet He is the God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob.
3. The God who counts the stars is the only sufficient healer of broken hearts. Only He, in virtue of His Deity, can read the secret sorrows of the heart, to whom all hearts are open, all desires known, and from whom no secrets are hid. This is the prerogative of God, and of God alone. And none but He, in virtue of His Humanity, can lay His hand upon the broken heart to mollify and heal its wounds. How often there are deep down in the heart feelings too sad and too sacred for utterance to mortal ears, when we crave for a higher sympathy than that which man can give, and the soul finds relief only in reaching out in prayer to God. And there is no limit to Gods sympathy. It is bound only by the horizon of human need and human suffering. The heart broken with contrition for sin, the heart bruised with the sorrows of life, the heart bleeding with the anguish of bereavementthese all find a response in the heart of God, for this is the sphere of His pity, of His compassion, and of His love. There is no human sorrow but appeals to Him.
Think you He cannot sympathize with our worst sorrows, who shielded from scorn the broken-hearted who could only smite upon his breast; who stood like a God between their victim and the hell-hounds who were baying for their prey, till they cowered at His feet and slunk away; who could forgive a coward, and select the alien and heretic as a type of the neighbour who is to be loved; who was peculiarly sensitive to the charm of womans society and its soothing gentleness; who wept for temporary grief; who was considerate for the tired disciples and the hungry multitude; whose chosen home was the house of the publican and sinner; who bore contempt with majestic dignityis that a trifle?who felt keenly, as His own touching words witness, the pain of homelessness? Oh, can you say that He could not enter into our worst sorrows, or that His trials were in show? Comprehend that heart, containing all that was manliest and all that was most womanly. Think what you will, but do not mistake Him, or else you will lose the one great certainty to which, in the midst of the darkest doubt, I never ceased to clingthe entire symmetry and loveliness, and the unequalled nobleness of the humanity of the Son of Man 1:1 [Note: Life and Letters of the Rev. F. W. Robertson, 233.]
4. What is this wonderful ligament with which Christ binds the wounds of the once broken heart? It is the sympathy with anothers pain; it is the remembrance that I suffer not alone. The sympathy with my brother restrains my personal outflow. It takes away the egotism of my grief. I no longer feel that a strange thing has befallen me. I no longer resent the raincloud as a special wrong. I feel that it is not specialthat it is universal. It is the thought of this that stops the outward bleeding of my heart. It makes me refuse to show my wound. It forbids me to cry out in the streets as if I were a solitary sufferer. It says, Think what your brother must feel; he has the same pains as you! It bids me count the burdens of the passers-by; and, as I count, I forget to remember my own.
The actual conditions of our life being as they are, and the capacity for suffering so large a principle in things, and the only principle always safe, a sympathy with the pain one actually sees, it follows that the constituent practical difference between men will be their capacity for a trained insight into those conditions, their capacity for sympathy; and the future with those who have most of it. And for the present, those who have much of it have (I tell myself) something to hold by, even in the dissolution of a world, or in that dissolution of self, which is for everyone no less than the dissolution of the world it represents for him. Nearly all of us, I suppose, have had our moments in which any effective sympathy for us has seemed impossible, and our pain in life a mere stupid outrage upon us, like some overwhelming physical violence; and we could seek refuge from it at best, only in a mere general sense of goodwill, somewhere perhaps. And then, to ones surprise, the discovery of that goodwill, if it were only in a not unfriendly animal, may seem to have explained, and actually justified, the existence of our pain at all.
There have been occasions when I have felt that if others cared for me as I did for them, it would be not so much a solace of loss as an equivalent for ita certain real thing in itselfa touching of that absolute ground among all the changes of phenomena, such as our philosophers of late have professed themselves quite unable to find. In the mere clinging of human creatures to each other, nay! in ones own solitary self-pity, even amidst what might seem absolute loss, I seem to touch the eternal.1 [Note: Walter Pater.]
Literature
Ainsworth (P. C.), The Pilgrim Church, 28.
Blackley (T.), Practical Sermons, ii. 82.
Fairbairn (A. M.), Christ in the Centuries, 205.
Ford (H.), Sermons with Analyses, 61.
Harper (F.), A Year with Christ, 47.
Holden (J. S.), Lifes Flood-Tide, 106.
Matheson (G.), Times of Retirement, 206.
Parker (J.), Studies in Texts, vi. 79.
Parker (J.), The City Temple, iii. 217.
Wilmot-Buxton (H. J.), Day by Day Duty, 36.
Christian World Pulpit, xxvii. 338 (Canon Curteis).
Sunday Magazine, 1895, p. 353 (W. J. Foxell).
Fuente: The Great Texts of the Bible
healeth: Psa 51:17, Job 5:18, Isa 57:15, Isa 61:1, Jer 33:6, Hos 6:1, Hos 6:2, Mal 4:2, Luk 4:18
wounds: Heb. griefs, Isa 1:5, Isa 1:6
Reciprocal: Exo 15:26 – for I am 2Ki 20:5 – I will heal Psa 30:2 – and Psa 34:18 – unto them Psa 41:4 – heal Psa 103:3 – healeth Psa 107:20 – healed Pro 3:8 – shall Pro 18:14 – spirit Isa 38:5 – I have seen Isa 42:3 – bruised Mat 9:12 – They that be whole Mat 12:20 – bruised Mar 5:29 – straightway Luk 10:34 – bound Joh 12:40 – heal 1Pe 2:24 – healed Rev 22:2 – healing
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
147:3 He healeth the {c} broken in heart, and bindeth up their wounds.
(c) With affliction, or sorrow for sin.