"He said, 'If you will carefully obey the Lord your God, do what is right in his sight, pay attention to his commands, and keep all his statutes, I will not inflict any illnesses on you that I inflicted on the Egyptians. For I am the Lord who heals you.'"
~Exodus 15:26
That last phrase of verse 26 - "I am the Lord Who heals you" - is translated from the Hebrew phrase Jehovah Rapha, literally meaning "The Lord Who Heals", pointing to the truth that it is the Lord who brings us both physical as well as emotional, mental, and spiritual healing and restoration.
I don't know about you, but I feel that with all the events of the past 5 years, this is a name of God that we all can be incredibly thankful for! Whether it has been literal physical sickness due to Covid and other illnesses, or whether it is the fact that current events over the past several years have revealed our nation and our world both to be in desperate need of healing in a multitude of areas, we can be encouraged by the fact that we can know God is our Healer.
Beyond that, something I find to be incredibly beautiful about this passage in Exodus when God reveals this name to us is that, just one book after Genesis wherein mankind first experienced spiritual and physical death, we are already being given a promise as to the Lord's willingness and ability to make all things right, to restore what has been lost, and to heal what has been broken. Rich gospel implications are to be found all over this verse.
If this passage makes you think of the Suffering Servant passage of Isaiah 53 which is a foreshadowing of Jesus and His work on the cross on our behalf, it should! Consider verses 4-5:
"Yet he himself bore our sicknesses,
and he carried our pains;
but we in turn regarded him stricken,
struck down by God, and afflicted.
But he was pierced because of our rebellion,
crushed because of our iniquities;
punishment for our peace was on him,
and we are healed by his wounds."
~Isaiah 53:4-5
It is the Lord's joy and delight, in His extravagant love and grace, to provide us with physical, spiritual, mental, and emotional healing if not fully here in this life, then certainly in the next one and on throughout all of eternity. That, my friends, is what we are promised! That is what we have to look forward to, praise the Lord!
Reflection Questions:
1) What means the most to you about this name of God? Why?
2) How can you apply this truth from today's passage to whatever you are currently facing in our daily life?
3) How can you encourage someone else with this truth?
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