Properly, to mend (by stitching), i.e. (figuratively) to cure
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רָפָא is the Hebrew verb for healing — to heal, to cure, to make whole. The divine name יְהוָה רֹפְאֶךָ (the LORD who heals you, Exod 15:26) is built on this word: healing is not just something God does but part of who he declares himself to be.
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Full entry for רָפָא (H7495) · Open the biblical lexicon
רָפָא is the Hebrew verb for healing — to heal, to cure, to make whole. The divine name יְהוָה רֹפְאֶךָ (the LORD who heals you, Exod 15:26) is built on this word: healing is not just something God does but part of who he declares himself to be.
The BSB source-word alignment has 67 aligned rows for this entry. Common renderings include heal (4), to recover (3), . . . (2), and heal (2), and heals (2).
The source-word alignment first shows this entry at Genesis 20:17. Its strongest book concentrations include Jeremiah (13), Isaiah (7), Psalms (7), 2 Kings (6).
רָפָא is the Hebrew verb for healing — to heal, to cure, to make whole. The divine name יְהוָה רֹפְאֶךָ (the Lord who heals you, Exod 15:26) is built on this word: healing is not just something God does but part of who he declares himself to be. The local Hebrew artifact indexes the verb at about 69 OT occurrences and operates across a range that English often separates: physical healing, the healing of wounds and diseases; emotional healing, the healing of grief and broken hearts; and the prophetic use of רָפָא for the spiritual restoration of Israel from the condition of apostasy and exile.
All three are present in the OT's use of the word, and the prophets in particular hold them together without separating them. Isaiah 53:5 applies רָפָא to the effect of the Servant's wounds: 'by his wounds we are healed.' The Servant's stripes address not merely the physical suffering of Israel but the comprehensive brokenness — moral, spiritual, physical, national — that the Servant's bearing of sin addresses.
Psalm 147:3 applies רָפָא to the emotional dimension: 'he heals the broken-hearted and binds up their wounds.' Jeremiah 30:17 and Hosea 6:1-2 use רָפָא for the national healing that God promises after judgment: 'I will restore health to you and heal your wounds, declares the Lord.' The range from Naaman's skin to Israel's broken-hearted to the nation's apostasy-wounds is the full semantic field of רָפָא.
The preacher who holds this word without flattening it to one dimension has access to the OT's holistic vision of what healing means when the Healer is God: it addresses the person in all their dimensions, and its scope extends to the community and even the land (2 Chr 7:14, 'I will heal their land').
רָפָא is indexed in the local Hebrew artifact at about 69 OT occurrences across four primary registers: (1) God's identity as Healer in the Exodus covenant (Exod 15:26); (2) physical healing of diseases and wounds (2 Kgs 5:3, Ps 30:2); (3) the healing of broken hearts and grief (Ps 147:3); (4) the prophetic use for spiritual-national restoration from apostasy (Isa 53:5, Jer 30:17, Hos 6:1-2). All four registers share the logic that the damage — whatever its nature — is addressed by divine action that restores wholeness.
Saying, “If you will listen carefully to the voice of the Lord your God, and do what is right in His eyes, and pay attention to His commands, and keep all His statutes, then I will not bring on you any of the diseases I inflicted on the Egyptians. For I am the Lord who heals you.”
The covenant promise at Marah uses רָפָא as a divine self-designation: 'I am the Lord who heals you' (יְהוָה רֹפְאֶךָ). The context is the bitter water made sweet — a physical healing of water precedes the title. The covenant structure is: Israel's obedience is met with God's healing character. The exclusion of Egypt's diseases is the evidence: the God who brought plagues on Egypt to liberate Israel will not use those same plagues against his own people.
רָפָא here is the positive expression of the covenant relationship: what God is for Israel is the opposite of what he brought against Egypt. The divine name יְהוָה רֹפְאֶךָ establishes that healing is not an occasional divine activity but a constitutive divine attribute.
But He was pierced for our transgressions, He was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon Him, and by His stripes we are healed.
The Servant Song's most concentrated theological statement uses רָפָא for the effect of the Servant's wounds on the many. 'By his wounds we are healed' is the comprehensive statement: the Servant's physical suffering produces the healing of those for whom he suffers. The nature of what is healed is specified in the parallel lines: transgressions, iniquities, the punishment that produced enmity with God.
The healing is therefore not primarily physical (though 1 Peter 2:24 cites this verse with the context of moral restoration from sin) but the comprehensive reversal of what sin has done. The word 'healed' (נִרְפָּא) stands as the last word of the verse, summarizing the whole transaction: the Servant's brokenness produces the wholeness of the many.
He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds.
The communal hymn of Psalm 147 applies רָפָא to the broken-hearted (שְׁבוּרֵי לֵב) — the emotionally devastated, the grieving, those whose inner life has been shattered by loss. The parallel 'binds up their wounds' uses the image of the physician bandaging a wound. The healing of the heart uses the same verb and the same theological claim as the healing of the body: it is something God does, it is the exercise of his character as Healer, and it extends to the full range of human damage.
Psalm 147's context is the post-exilic restoration of Jerusalem — the broken hearts are those of the exiles returning; the healing is both national and personal.
Come, let us return to the Lord. For He has torn us to pieces, but He will heal us; He has wounded us, but He will bind up our wounds.
Hosea's call to repentance uses רָפָא as the promise that follows judgment. God has torn (the judgment of exile and disease) and he will heal (the restoration of the covenant relationship and its blessings). The structure 'torn/healed, injured/bound up' establishes the divine reversal as the logic of Israel's hope: the same God who judged will heal. The verb שׁוּב (to return) precedes the רָפָא promise — repentance and healing are connected.
The prophetic healing is the restoration of the whole covenantal relationship, not merely physical well-being.
BSB source-word alignment connects this entry to exact verse rows, English rendering, source form, transliteration, and parsing.
How English Renders ItA compact distribution from source-word alignment before the full evidence tables.
Hebrew word. Physical restoration through binding or stitching extends metaphorically to spiritual and covenantal healing of broken relationship.
Physical restoration through binding or stitching extends metaphorically to spiritual and covenantal healing of broken relationship.
properly, to mend (by stitching), i.e. (figuratively) to cure BDB: heal Usage: cure, (cause to) heal, physician, repair, × thoroughly, make whole. See 7503.
How the stem changes the meaning of this verb across the biblical text.
This verb appears through different tense, voice, mood, or stem patterns. Those forms help readers see how the action is presented in context.
Selected passage-level study witnesses for this word. This section is not the full occurrence list.
Showing 5 selected witnesses from 69 lexical occurrence verses.
רָפָא is a primitive root - no further derivation.
Healing reveals God’s restorative purpose beyond judgment. Hosea 14:4-8
Describes God’s restorative intervention. Hosea 6:1-3
Describes divine restoration of apostasy. Hosea 7:1-7
Reveals restorative purpose of discipline. Isaiah 19:18-22
Divine mercy precedes exposure of sin. Isaiah 38:1-8
Compound and idiomatic phrases that include this word. Follow a link to study the phrase and how its parts work together.
רָפָא is one of the names of God — not a description of an activity but a title: 'I am the Lord who heals you' (Exod 15:26). The preacher who holds this word is not talking about what God does on certain occasions but about who God is. The Healer is his name. That means every encounter with damage — physical disease, broken hearts, national catastrophe, the wound of sin — is an encounter at which God's name is the question: will the Healer heal?
The prophets used רָפָא for the widest possible scope of what needed healing: Hosea calls Israel to return because God will heal what he himself has torn. Isaiah says the Servant's wounds produce the healing of the many. Jeremiah says God will heal the wounds that Babylon inflicted. The preacher who holds רָפָא in its full range can address the congregation without reducing healing to a single category.
The person with a diseased body and the person with a shattered heart and the person whose nation has been torn apart by apostasy are all in the same theological space: facing the one whose name is Healer, calling on what his name promises. The Isaiah 53:5 use carries the sharpest pastoral edge: the healing that comes through the Servant's wounds is not healing despite the brokenness but healing through it.
The pattern established there is the pattern that runs through the NT: the broken body of Christ is the instrument of the healing of the world. What was torn becomes the means of binding up.
Isa.53.5
רָפָא (qal: to heal; niphal: to be healed; piel: to heal thoroughly) appears with God as subject far more often than with a human physician as subject. The word's range in BDB includes: to heal (physical wounds and diseases), to heal of moral and spiritual wounds, and to repair or make whole in a general sense. The divine name יְהוָה רֹפְאֶךָ (the Lord who heals you, Exod 15:26) is the participial form — the Lord as the one who heals, as the Healer by nature.
The noun רֹפֵא (physician, healer) derives from the same root. The LXX translates רָפָא with ἰάομαι (to heal), which is the primary NT healing verb in the Gospels (Matt 8:8, 13, Luke 4:18, John 4:47). The NT's σῴζω (to save) also carries healing dimensions in many uses — the semantic overlap between save/heal in the NT is the continuation of the OT's holistic understanding of what God's רָפָא accomplishes.
The NT inherits רָפָא through ἰάομαι (to heal) and the Isaianic Servant citations. Luke 4:18, citing Isaiah 61:1, identifies Jesus as anointed 'to heal the broken-hearted' — the emotional dimension of רָפָא is explicitly claimed by Jesus as his mission. The Gospel healing narratives frequently use ἰάομαι for the physical healings while also invoking the Servant-healing of Isaiah 53:5.
Matthew 8:17 cites Isaiah 53:4 ('he took our weaknesses and bore our diseases') immediately after a healing narrative, establishing that Jesus's healings are the fulfillment of the Servant's bearing of suffering. 1 Peter 2:24 cites Isaiah 53:5 directly: 'by his wounds you were healed.' The application is not to physical healing but to moral restoration: 'you were straying like sheep, but have now returned to the Shepherd and Overseer of your souls.'
The שׁוּב/רָפָא connection in Hosea (return and healing) is present in 1 Peter's application: the healing of Isaiah 53:5 is realized in returning to the Shepherd. James 5:14-16 brings the physical and spiritual registers together in the practice of prayer-with-anointing: 'the prayer of faith will save the sick person, and the Lord will raise him up. And if he has committed sins, he will be forgiven.'
Healing and forgiveness are joined in the same pastoral act.
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