And the LORD hearkened to Hezekiah, and healed the people.
2 Chronicles 30:20 (KJV)
Healed – Healings are among the most magnificent of all miracles. To witness someone in sickness and pain receive a healing will surely reinvigorate hope and faith in our Living God. A Healing can strengthen the people, not just the individual. And in an environment such as ours, full of pain and suffering, healings are a sigh of relief.
But for what purpose are healings given from the Creator? Is there a purpose, or are they simply a part of His mercy?
The word rapha’ is purely a Hebrew root appearing over 60 times in the Old Testament. It is always used in the same manner, which is indicatively inline with our understanding of ‘to heal’. Although I believe we find the best definition in The Complete Word Study Dictionary of the Old Testament:
A verb meaning to heal, to make fresh. It describes the process of healing, being restored to health, made healthy, usable, fertile:
Notice the definitions of ‘to make usable’ or ‘to make fresh’. Healings have an intended purpose, and that purpose is to make the individual usable for God, or restore the individual back to a fresh, and usable state. We are the tools of YHWH, and when we are broken, we’re not necessarily useful. Yet He uses us to perform His will. So from time to time, YHWH restores a broken tool with the intention of fulfilling His will. While healings are definitely an act of His mercy, they are also for a desired use.
We see this message in 2 Chronicles, chapter 30, when King Hezekiah desires to keep the Passover for the first time in a long span of disobedience from other Kings. He orders the sanctification of the Temple and the Levites purify themselves in preparation. He sends a notice to all 12 tribes requesting them to join the Passover at the Temple. But since the priests were not completely sanctified in time for Passover to happen in the first month as directed by God, Hezekiah chooses to have it on the second month.
During the second month, the Passover begins with sacrifices unto God. But many of the people from the house of Israel were not cleansed to partake. Hezekiah, seeing their desire to worship YHWH, chose to let them contribute to the Passover anyways, and he beseeched God to have mercy on them, and thus, we come to verse 20. God hearkened to Hezekiah and healed the people.
God saw the hearts of the people and their action to come to Him in obedience, and He chose to heal them. YHWH made them useful so that they would partake of Passover in purity. And in this healing they fulfilled God’s will – His Torah.
Another reinforcement of this is found in the paleo-Hebrew letters of ‘heal’. The letters Resh, Pey, and Aleph form an interesting combination. It is the head of a man calling out with his mouth to the Almighty. We learn that the word rapha’ requires the action of an individual to vocally beseech God. In Hezekiah’s time, we see the people submitted to YHWH and came willingly to be His tools – and YHWH healed them.
Are you looking for a healing? If so, for what purpose?
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