Psalms 6:2

6:2 Have mercy on me, ¹  Lord, for I am frail!

Heal me, Lord, for my bones are shaking! ² 

Psalms 41:4

41:4 As for me, I said: ³ 

“O Lord, have mercy on me!

Heal me, for I have sinned against you!

Psalms 147:3

147:3 He heals ⁴  the brokenhearted,

and bandages their wounds.

Isaiah 53:5

53:5 He was wounded because of ⁵  our rebellious deeds,

crushed because of our sins;

he endured punishment that made us well; ⁶ 

because of his wounds we have been healed. ⁷ 

Isaiah 57:18-19

57:18 I have seen their behavior, ⁸ 

but I will heal them and give them rest,

and I will once again console those who mourn. ⁹ 

57:19 I am the one who gives them reason to celebrate. ¹⁰ 

Complete prosperity ¹¹  is available both to those who are far away and those who are nearby,”

says the Lord, “and I will heal them.

Jeremiah 3:22

3:22 Come back to me, you wayward people.

I want to cure your waywardness. ¹² 

Say, ¹³  ‘Here we are. We come to you

because you are the Lord our God.

Hosea 6:1

Superficial Repentance Breeds False Assurance of God’s Forgiveness

6:1 “Come on! Let’s return to the Lord!

He himself has torn us to pieces,

but he will heal us!

He has injured ¹⁴  us,

but he will bandage our wounds!

Hosea 14:4

Divine Promise to Relent from Judgment and to Restore Blessings

14:4 “I will heal their waywardness ¹⁵ 

and love them freely, ¹⁶ 

for my anger will turn ¹⁷  away from them.

Luke 4:18

4:18 “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,

because he has anointed ¹⁸  me to proclaim good news ¹⁹  to the poor. ²⁰ 

He has sent me ²¹  to proclaim release ²²  to the captives

and the regaining of sight ²³  to the blind,

to set free ²⁴  those who are oppressed, ²⁵ 

[6:2]  ¹ tn Or “show me favor.”

[6:2]  ² tn Normally the verb בָּהַל (bahal) refers to an emotional response and means “tremble with fear, be terrified” (see vv. 3, 10). Perhaps here the “bones” are viewed as the seat of the psalmist’s emotions. However, the verb may describe one of the effects of his physical ailment, perhaps a fever. In Ezek 7:27 the verb describes how the hands of the people will shake with fear when they experience the horrors of divine judgment.

[41:4]  ³ sn In vv. 4-10 the psalmist recites the prayer of petition and lament he offered to the Lord.

[147:3]  ⁴ tn Heb “the one who heals.”

[53:5]  ⁵ tn The preposition מִן (min) has a causal sense (translated “because of”) here and in the following clause.

[53:5]  ⁶ tn Heb “the punishment of our peace [was] on him.” שָׁלוֹם (shalom, “peace”) is here a genitive of result, i.e., “punishment that resulted in our peace.”

[53:5]  ⁷ sn Continuing to utilize the imagery of physical illness, the group acknowledges that the servant’s willingness to carry their illnesses (v. 4) resulted in their being healed. Healing is a metaphor for forgiveness here.

[57:18]  ⁸ tn Heb “his ways” (so KJV, NASB, NIV); TEV “how they acted.”

[57:18]  ⁹ tn Heb “and I will restore consolation to him, to his mourners.”

[57:19]  ¹⁰ tc The Hebrew text has literally, “one who creates fruit of lips.” Perhaps the pronoun אֲנִי (’ani) should be inserted after the participle; it may have been accidentally omitted by haplography: נוּב שְׂפָתָיִם[אֲנִי] בּוֹרֵא (bore’ [’ani] nuv sÿfatayim). “Fruit of the lips” is often understood as a metonymy for praise; perhaps it refers more generally to joyful shouts (see v. 18).

[57:19]  ¹¹ tn Heb “Peace, peace.” The repetition of the noun emphasizes degree.

[3:22]  ¹² tn Or “I will forgive your apostasies.” Heb “I will [or want to] heal your apostasies.” For the use of the verb “heal” (רָפָא, rafa’) to refer to spiritual healing and forgiveness see Hos 14:4.

[3:22]  ¹³ tn Or “They say.” There is an obvious ellipsis of a verb of saying here since the preceding words are those of the Lord and the following are those of the people. However, there is debate about whether these are the response of the people to the Lord’s invitation, a response which is said to be inadequate according to the continuation in 4:1-4, or whether these are the Lord’s model for Israel’s confession of repentance to which he adds further instructions about the proper heart attitude that should accompany it in 4:1-4. The former implies a dialogue with an unmarked twofold shift in speaker between 3:22b-25 and 4:1-4:4 while the latter assumes the same main speaker throughout with an unmarked instruction only in 3:22b-25. This disrupts the flow of the passage less and appears more likely.

[6:1]  ¹⁴ tn “has struck”; NRSV “struck down.”

[14:4]  ¹⁵ sn The noun מְשׁוּבָתָה (mÿshuvatah, “waywardness”; cf. KJV “backsliding”) is from the same root as שׁוּבָה (shuvah, “return!”) in 14:1[2]. This repetition of שׁוּב (shuv) creates a wordplay which emphasizes reciprocity: if Israel will return (שׁוּבָה, shuvah) to the Lord, he will cure her of the tendency to turn away (מְשׁוּבָתָה) from him.

[14:4]  ¹⁶ tn The noun נְדָבָה (nÿdavah, “voluntariness; free-will offering”) is an adverbial accusative of manner: “freely, voluntarily” (BDB 621 s.v. נְדָבָה 1). Cf. CEV “without limit”; TEV “with all my heart”; NLT “my love will know no bounds.”

[14:4]  ¹⁷ sn The verb שָׁב, shav, “will turn” (Qal perfect 3rd person masculine singular from שׁוּב, shuv, “to turn”) continues the wordplay on שׁוּב in 14:1-4[2-5]. If Israel will “return” (שׁוּב) to the Lord, he will heal Israel’s tendency to “turn away” (מְשׁוּבָתָה, mÿshuvatah) and “turn” (שָׁב) from his anger.

[4:18]  ¹⁸ sn The phrase he has anointed me is an allusion back to Jesus’ baptism in Luke 3:21-22.

[4:18]  ¹⁹ tn Grk “to evangelize,” “to preach the gospel.”

[4:18]  ²⁰ sn The poor is a key term in Luke. It refers to the pious poor and indicates Jesus’ desire to reach out to those the world tends to forget or mistreat. It is like 1:52 in force and also will be echoed in 6:20 (also 1 Pet 2:11-25). Jesus is commissioned to do this.

[4:18]  ²¹ tc The majority of mss, especially the later Byzantines, include the phrase “to heal the brokenhearted” at this point (A Θ Ψ 0102 ˹ Ï). The phrase is lacking in several weighty mss (א B D L W Ξ Ë¹³ 33 579 700 892* pc lat sy^s co), including representatives from both the Alexandrian and Western texttypes. From the standpoint of external evidence, the omission of the phrase is more likely original. When internal evidence is considered, the shorter reading becomes almost certain. Scribes would be much more prone to add the phrase here to align the text with Isa 61:1, the source of the quotation, than to remove it from the original.

[4:18]  ²² sn The release in view here is comprehensive, both at a physical level and a spiritual one, as the entire ministry of Jesus makes clear (Luke 1:77-79; 7:47; 24:47; Acts 2:38; 5:31; 10:43).

[4:18]  ²³ sn Again, as with the previous phrase, regaining of sight may well mean more than simply miraculously restoring physical sight, which itself pictures a deeper reality (Luke 1:77-79; 18:35-43).

[4:18]  ²⁴ sn The essence of Jesus’ messianic work is expressed in the phrase to set free. This line from Isa 58 says that Jesus will do what the nation had failed to do. It makes the proclamation messianic, not merely prophetic, because Jesus doesn’t just proclaim the message – he brings the deliverance. The word translated set free is the same Greek word (ἄφεσις, afesi") translated release earlier in the verse.

[4:18]  ²⁵ sn Again, as with the previous phrases, oppressed may well mean more than simply political or economic oppression, but a deeper reality of oppression by sin (Luke 1:77-79; 18:35-43).