Psalms 147:3

We are furnished with matter for praise, for God is to be glorified, 1. As the God of nature, and so he is very great,

He healeth the broken in heart, and bindeth up their wounds. This the Holy Spirit mentions as a part of the glory of God, and a reason for our declaring his praise: the Lord is not only a Builder, but a Healer; he restores broken hearts as well as broken walls. The kings of the earth think to be great through their loftiness; but Jehovah becomes really so by his condescension. Behold, the Most High has to do with the sick and the sorry, with the wretched and the wounded! He walks the hospitals as the good Physician!

Though applicable to the captive Israelites, this is a general and precious truth. wounds--(Compare Margin). God's power in nature (Isa 40:26-28, and often) is presented as a pledge of His power to help His people. telleth . . . stars--what no man can do (Ge 15:5).

He healeth the broken in heart, and bindeth up their wounds. This the Holy Spirit mentions as a part of the glory of God, and a reason for our declaring his praise: the Lord is not only a Builder, but a Healer; he restores broken hearts as well as broken walls. The kings of the earth think to be great through their loftiness; but Jehovah becomes really so by his condescension. Behold, the Most High has to do with the sick and the sorry, with the wretched and the wounded! He walks the hospitals as the good Physician! His deep sympathy with mourners is a special mark of his goodness. Few will associate with the despondent, but Jehovah chooses their company, and abides with them till he has healed them by his comforts. He deigns to handle and heal broken hearts: he himself lays on the ointment of grace, and the soft bandages of love, and thus binds up the bleeding wounds of those convinced of sin. This is compassion like a God. Well may those praise him to whom he has acted o gracious a part. The Lord is always healing and binding: this is no new work to him, he has done it of old; and it is not a thing of the past of which he is now weary, for he is still healing and still binding, as the original hath it. Come, broken hearts, come to the Physician who never fails to heal: uncover your wounds to him who so tenderly binds them up!

The next verse finely declares the power of God. “He telleth the number of the stars; he calleth them by their names.” Perhaps there is nothing which gives us a nobler view of the greatness of God than a contemplation of the starry heavens.

The next verse finely declares the power of God. “He telleth the number of the stars; he calleth them by their names.” Perhaps there is nothing which gives us a nobler view of the greatness of God than a contemplation of the starry heavens. When by night we lift up our eyes and behold him who hath created all these things; when we remember that he bringeth out their host by number, calleth them all by their names, and that by the greatness of his power not one falleth, then indeed we adore a mighty God, and our soul naturally falls prostrate in reverential awe before the throne of him who leads the host of heaven, and marshals the stars in their armies. But the Psalmist has here placed another fact side by side with this wondrous act of God; he declares that the same God who leadeth the stars, who telleth the number of them, and calleth them by their names, healeth the broken in heart and bindeth up their wounds. The next time you rise to some idea of God, by viewing the starry floor of his magnificent temple above, strive to compel your contemplation to this thought, that the same mighty hand which rolls the stars along, puts liniments around the wounded heart; that the same being who spoke worlds into existence, and now impels those ponderous globes through their orbits, does in his mercy cheer the wounded, and heal the broken in heart. We will not delay you by a preface, but will come at once to the two thoughts: first, here is a great ill—a broken heart; and secondly, a great mercy—“he healeth the broken in heart, and bindeth up their wounds.” Man is a double being: he is composed of body and soul, and each of the portions of man may receive injury and hurt. The wounds of the body are extremely painful, and if they amount to a breaking of the frame the torture is singularly exquisite.

OFTEN as we have read this Psalm, we can never fail to be struck with the connection in which this verse stands, especially its connection with the verse that follows. Read the two together—"He heals the broken in heart, and binds up their wounds. He counts the number of the stars; He calls them all by their names." What condescension and grandeur! What pity and Omnipotence! He who leads out yonder ponderous orbs in almost immeasurable orbits, nevertheless, is the Surgeon of men's souls and stoops over broken hearts! And with His own tender fingers closes up the gaping wound and binds it with the liniment of love. Think of it and if I should not speak as well as I could desire upon the wonderful theme of His condescension, yet help me by your own thoughts to do reverence to the Maker of the stars, who is, at the same time, the Physician for broken hearts and wounded spirits! I am equally interested in the connection of my text with the verse that goes before it—"The Lord does build up Jerusalem: He gathers together the outcasts of Israel." The Church of God is never so well built up as when it is built up with men of broken hearts. I have prayed to God in secret many a time, of late, that He would be pleased to gather out from among us a people who have a deep experience, who should know the guilt of sin, who should be broken and ground to powder under a sense of their own inability and unworthiness, for I am persuaded that without a deep experience of sin, there is seldom much belief in the Doctrines of Grace and not much enthusiasm in praising the Savior's name. The Church needs to be built up with men who have been pulled down! Unless we know in our hearts our need of a Savior, we shall never be worth much in preaching Him.

OFTEN as we have read this Psalm, we can never fail to be struck with the connection in which this verse stands, especially its connection with the verse that follows. Read the two together—"He heals the broken in heart, and binds up their wounds. He counts the number of the stars; He calls them all by their names." What condescension and grandeur! What pity and Omnipotence! He who leads out yonder ponderous orbs in almost immeasurable orbits, nevertheless, is the Surgeon of men's souls and stoops over broken hearts!

He healeth the broken in heart - שבורי, the shivered in heart. From the root שבר 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.

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.