Psalms 147:3 Meaning and Explanation
“He healeth the broken in heart, and bindeth up their wounds.”
King James Version (KJV)
Read this verse in context with translation switching:
Read Full Chapter →Grief tends to make people feel invisible, especially when the world keeps running on schedule around them. Psalm 147 sets a claim about heartbreak directly beside a claim about the number of the stars, and the placement is deliberate. Reading verse 3 in that company answers a question grief asks constantly: does the God who runs everything have any attention left for me?
Set among descriptions of God naming stars and building cities, this line reports smaller work. God attends to crushed hearts personally, treating their injuries the way a physician dresses an open wound.
The Context of Psalms 147:3
Psalm 147 is one of the closing praise psalms, opening and ending with Praise ye the LORD. Verse 2 speaks of God building up Jerusalem and gathering the outcasts of Israel, language that fits a community returning from exile and rebuilding. Verse 3 follows immediately, and verse 4 moves to the stars, which God counts and names. The psalm then alternates between the vast and the particular: rain and grass, food for beasts and young ravens, snow and frost and ice, and God's word given to Jacob. Verse 11 says the LORD takes pleasure in those who hope in his mercy.
What Does Psalms 147:3 Mean?
Two verbs describe two different actions. Healeth speaks of a cure that reaches the injury itself. Bindeth up is what hands do afterward, wrapping a wound so it can close. The order runs from the deep work to the visible care, and both are attributed to God with no intermediary named. Broken in heart translates a phrase about the heart being shattered, and the KJV keeps the possessive their in the second clause, so the wounds belong to the same people. Nothing here is generalized. A physician treating one patient at a time stands behind the picture, and the psalm reports that God does this work himself.
The neighbouring verses give the line its force. God gathers scattered outcasts (v. 2), heals broken hearts (v. 3), then counts and names every star (v. 4). Verse 5 states the principle holding these together: great is our Lord, of great power, and his understanding is infinite. Scale is exactly the point. The same capacity that keeps track of the stars keeps track of a person in pieces. Verse 6 continues the pattern, lifting up the meek. Israel's praise regularly links God's power over creation to his attention toward the small and afflicted, and Psalm 147 makes that link in the space of four verses.
Jesus opened his public ministry in the Nazareth synagogue by reading Isaiah's words about being sent to heal the brokenhearted and to preach deliverance to captives, then telling the room that the scripture was fulfilled in their hearing (Luke 4:18). The Gospels then show the work being done at close range: a widow at Nain, a father whose daughter had died, women weeping outside a tomb. Psalm 147:3 describes something God had always been doing, and Christians read the ministry of Jesus as that same healing arriving in person, with hands that touched the people they mended.
Psalms 147:3 in the Original Language
rapha (רָפָא), 'healeth' -- the standard Hebrew verb for curing or making whole, used of physicians treating bodies and of God restoring people and nations. Its presence here places heartbreak in the category of a genuine injury needing genuine repair.
Bible Verses Related to Psalms 147:3
“The LORD is nigh unto them that are of a broken heart; and saveth such as be of a contrite spirit.”
- Psalm 34:18
“The Spirit of the Lord GOD is upon me; because the LORD hath anointed me to preach good tidings unto the meek; he hath sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to them that are bound;”
- Isaiah 61:1
“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor; he hath sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised,”
- Luke 4:18
“Great is our Lord, and of great power: his understanding is infinite.”
- Psalm 147:5
Where Psalms 147:3 Echoes in Scripture
Psalm 34:18 says the LORD is near to those of a broken heart and saves such as have a contrite spirit. Where Psalm 147:3 describes treatment, Psalm 34:18 describes proximity, and the two together give a fuller picture of how God relates to the crushed. Nearness comes first in experience for most people, and the healing follows over time. Israel's songbook returns to this subject often enough that a grieving person can find company almost anywhere in it.
How to Apply Psalms 147:3 Today
Binding a wound takes time, and so does this. Expecting heartbreak to close overnight adds guilt to grief. What the verse offers is a direction to face while healing happens slowly. Naming the specific break helps, saying the loss out loud rather than describing it vaguely. God commonly does this work through ordinary means: a friend who keeps calling, an honest counselor, sleep, the psalms read at whatever pace we can manage. Where we are near someone else's broken heart, the second verb gives the assignment. Bandaging is unglamorous, close-up, repeated work, and it is the work God is described as doing.
Reflection & Prayer
What break have we been carrying without ever bringing it to God in plain words? A prayer to borrow: LORD, you count the stars and you notice what happened to me. I bring you the part of my heart I have kept quiet. Do the healing I cannot do for myself, and give me patience while the wound closes.