The Lord Who Heals YouSýnishorn

THE LORD WHO HEALS YOU

Exodus 15:26 “If you diligently heed the voice of the Lord your God and do what is right in His sight, give ear to His commandments and keep all His statutes, I will put none of the diseases on you which I have brought on the Egyptians. For I am the Lord who heals you

“I am the Lord who heals you’ in the Hebrew is ‘Jehovah Rapha’. The names of the Lord starting with Jehovah, in the Old Testament, are called His redemptive names. Through them, God reveals to His people what He was going to restore to them, that had originally been lost in the Fall, in this case health.

The word ‘rapha’ means ‘to cure, heal, repair, mend, restore health’. It is used in the Bible for the healing of physical sickness.

In the context of the Exodus passage, the people are complaining which is a natural human response to tiredness. I can imagine that if we walked for days, were thirsty and came to these bitter pools the feeling we would have of weariness, disappointment, maybe even anger, but they are letting the situation dictate their response. Healing doesn’t come with God responding to our natural reactions but when we respond to God’s supernatural answer. 

God’s answer is for Moses to throw a tree into the water. The tree is a type or prophetic picture of the Cross (1 Peter 2:24). God’s answer is always to put Jesus and His finished work of the Cross into our situations and, in this case, the waters are healed. That this is an example of healing for us is seen in verse 26 when the Lord uses this situation to reveal Himself as the Healer to His people. 

God is not saying that we have to keep His word perfectly in order to be healed but rather when we respond to His truth, a truth that is revealed through Jesus, ‘give ear’ to what He says above that of others and when we respond to the prompting of the Holy Spirit ‘diligently heeding His voice’ we will find that He has made healing fully available to us.