Berean Standard Bible
He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds.
King James Version
He healeth the broken in heart, and bindeth up their wounds.
About this verse
One short sentence, and the second verb is the one to notice: "He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds." Binding up is a medic's work — cleaning, wrapping, tending. It is gradual, hands-on, and repeated; nobody bandages a wound from across the room. Then look at the very next verse of the psalm: he counts the stars and calls them each by name. Star-counting and wound-dressing in consecutive breaths — the psalm wants you to hold the scale and the tenderness together, because the same hands do both.
Psalm 147 is a praise psalm from after the exile, almost certainly sung as Jerusalem was being rebuilt; the verse before this one says the LORD gathers the exiles of Israel. The brokenhearted here were not a metaphor. They were a returned, ruined people standing in the rubble of everything familiar, and the psalm names what God was doing among them.
People find this verse in grief, in heartbreak, in depression, and its shape is honest about how healing usually goes: not instant, but attended. If your mending feels slow, the verse never promised speed. It promised a healer who stays close enough to keep changing the dressing.
This verse speaks to
Related verses
A verse each morning
One verse, chosen with care, in your inbox at sunrise. Nothing else.
Free. No spam, ever. Unsubscribe any time.