Jehovah-Rapha: the Lord who heals (Exodus 15)

Jehovah-Rapha means “Jehovah who heals”. The phrase comes from Exodus 15:26, where, after the bitter water at Marah was made sweet, God said to Israel, “I am Jehovah that healeth thee.” Unlike Jehovah-Jireh or Jehovah-Nissi, it is not the name of a place or an altar in the text. It is a self-description spoken by God, and the two-word form “Jehovah-Rapha” is a later devotional shorthand for it. The Hebrew verb is rapha, to heal, mend or repair; the form in the verse is a participle, so English writers spell the phrase in several ways (Rapha, Rophe, Rophecha). In Scripture God’s healing reaches the body, but also the heart, the conscience and a whole people, and its full completion lies in the resurrection. Christians therefore pray to the Lord who heals and, with equal faith, make use of doctors and medicine, which are among the ordinary gifts of his care.

The bitter water at Marah

The setting is only three days after the crossing of the Red Sea. Israel has just sung the song of Moses, and now the people are in the wilderness of Shur without water. When they finally find some at a place they call Marah, “bitter”, it cannot be drunk. The people complain against Moses, and Moses does what the rest of the Bible commends: he prays.

And he cried unto Jehovah; and Jehovah showed him a tree, and he cast it into the waters, and the waters were made sweet. There he made for them a statute and an ordinance, and there he proved them;

— Exodus 15:25 (ASV)

The tree had no power of its own. It was the means God chose, and the sweetening of the water was his act. That pattern, God working through an ordinary means that he appoints, is worth keeping in mind for the practical questions below.

The promise that followed

Immediately after the sign, God gives Israel a word that interprets it:

and he said, If thou wilt diligently hearken to the voice of Jehovah thy God, and wilt do that which is right in his eyes, and wilt give ear to his commandments, and keep all his statutes, I will put none of the diseases upon thee, which I have put upon the Egyptians: for I am Jehovah that healeth thee.

— Exodus 15:26 (ASV)

Three features of the verse matter. First, it is covenant language, addressed to Israel as a people at the start of their life with God, and it is framed as a condition: hearken, do right, keep the statutes. Second, “the diseases of the Egyptians” recalls the plagues, which were judgments; God promises that his own people will not be treated as his enemies. Third, the closing clause is the heart of it. God does not merely do healing; he names himself the healer. Keil and Delitzsch note that the healing of the water was meant to teach Israel that the same God could heal them.

The phrase is not a guarantee that no believer will ever fall ill. Faithful people in Scripture were sick: Paul left Trophimus ill at Miletus, and Timothy had frequent stomach trouble. What the verse gives is a revelation of God’s character: healing is his work and his delight, and whatever healing comes, comes from him.

What the verb rapha covers

Brown, Driver and Briggs give the root meaning of rapha as “heal”, used of physicians and of God, and extend it to mending what is broken. In 1 Kings 18:30 the same verb is used when Elijah repairs the ruined altar. God promises to heal a land when his people repent, and through Hosea and Jeremiah he promises to heal their backsliding. Healing in the Old Testament is therefore wider than medicine: it is the repair of every kind of brokenness.

The Psalms put bodily and spiritual healing side by side, without separating them:

Bless Jehovah, O my soul, And forget not all his benefits: Who forgiveth all thine iniquities; Who healeth all thy diseases;

— Psalm 103:2-3 (ASV)

He healeth the broken in heart, And bindeth up their wounds.

— Psalm 147:3 (ASV)

Forgiveness comes first in Psalm 103, and that order is not accidental. The deepest disease the Bible describes is sin, and the deepest healing is reconciliation with God.

Healing and the cross

Isaiah’s portrait of the suffering servant uses the language of healing for what the servant achieves by his suffering:

But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities; the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed.

— Isaiah 53:5 (ASV)

Peter quotes that last line and applies it to the death of Christ:

He Himself bore our sins in His body on the tree, so that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. “By His stripes you are healed.”

— 1 Peter 2:24 (BSB)

In context Peter is speaking about sin and a changed life: the wound that Christ heals is our separation from God. The Gospels also show Jesus healing bodies in great numbers, as signs that the kingdom had come. The healing that the name promises is therefore found in Christ, begun now and completed when God raises his people and wipes every tear away.

Praying and seeing a doctor

Scripture holds prayer and ordinary means together. James tells the sick to call for the elders:

Is any one of you sick? He should call the elders of the church to pray over him and anoint him with oil in the name of the Lord.

— James 5:14 (BSB)

The same New Testament calls Luke “the beloved physician” and has Paul recommend a remedy to Timothy. The Lord who used a tree at Marah is free to use a surgeon, a prescription or a period of rest. A Christian who is unwell should therefore pray, ask others to pray, and also see a doctor and follow sound medical advice. Neither replaces the other, and choosing medicine is not a failure of faith. This site offers no medical guidance; for any health concern, speak to a qualified medical professional.

It is also honest to say that God does not always heal in the way we ask. Believers have lived long with illness and died trusting him. Their faith was not smaller than that of those who recovered. The name promises that God is the healer; it does not give us the timetable.

Where Christians differ

Christians agree that God heals and that he may do so in answer to prayer. They differ on how he ordinarily does it today. Pentecostal and charismatic churches expect gifts of healing to continue as in the apostles’ day and often teach that healing is provided in the atonement for now. Many Reformed and other Protestant churches hold that the apostolic sign-gifts were tied to the founding of the church, while still praying earnestly for the sick. Catholic and Orthodox churches practise the anointing of the sick as a sacrament drawn from James 5. This site gladly prays for healing, and holds that its fullness belongs to the resurrection.

For reflection

Read Exodus 15:22–27 and Psalm 103 slowly. Bring any sickness, your own or another’s, to God in prayer by name, and ask your church to pray with you. Keep the appointments your doctor gives you. Then give thanks, as the psalmist does, for every benefit already received, and read on to Jehovah-Shalom, the Lord who is peace, and Jehovah-Jireh, the Lord who provides. For the meaning of the name itself, see What does the name Jehovah mean?

References

Brown, Driver and Briggs, A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament (1906), entry rapha.
Keil and Delitzsch, Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament: The Pentateuch (English translation, 1866).
Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible (1708–1710), on Exodus 15.
The Book of Common Prayer (1662), “The Order for the Visitation of the Sick”.
The Preface to the American Standard Version (1901).