Heal

To heal, as Mark depicts it in a Galilean crowd, is to be restored from a wasting affliction to soundness of body and, in the same encounter, a reintegration into God’s covenant community. A woman who for twelve years “had suffered many things of many physicians, and had spent all that she had,” touched the Savior’s garment from behind, expecting to be made “whole.” Mark’s verb is sōzō, which also means “to save.” Straightway “she felt in her body that she was healed,” and here the verb is iaomai, from which the Greek word for physician, iatros, derives.

The narrative runs past the moment “the fountain of her blood was dried up.” Knowing that virtue had gone out of him, the Savior turned in the press to find her, and when she fell trembling before him, he addressed her as kin: “Daughter, thy faith hath made thee whole; go in peace, and be whole of thy plague” (Mark 5:25-34). Under the Mosaic law, her issue had made her unclean, so that twelve years of illness had also been twelve years of separation. Her restoration to health was immediate, yet her ultimate healing was finalized only when the Savior publicly restored her to covenantal kinship.

The Lord That Healeth Thee

Following the sweetening of the bitter waters at Marah, the Lord established a statute for Israel, revealing a profound divine title: “I am the LORD that healeth thee” (Exodus 15:26). The Hebrew root rapha is illuminating here; lexical evidence links it with cognates denoting mending, darning, and stitching together. Elijah utilized this same verb when he “repaired the altar of the LORD,” as did Elisha in declaring, “I have healed these waters.” The Chronicler similarly invokes the promise that God will “heal their land.” In the ancient Hebrew mindset, healing is the mending of bodies, altars, waters, and nations⁠—a comprehensive restoration of that which has been torn from holistic unity.

Isaiah’s servant song firmly anchors this mending within the Healer’s own physical trauma: “he was wounded for our transgressions... and with his stripes we are healed” (Isaiah 53:5). The noun for “stripes,” chabburah, specifies the welt raised by a lash, yielding a literal reading of “there is healing for us.” Mark arguably echoes this exact prophetic motif. The “plague” from which the woman was delivered is mastix⁠—literally a whip or scourge⁠—and Mark purposefully employs the cognate verb later when the Savior prophesies of His own scourging.

Healing in His Wings

The prophet Malachi anticipates the emergence of “the Sun of righteousness… with healing in his wings” (Malachi 4:2; 3 Nephi 25:2). The Hebrew term kanaph (“wing”) importantly designates the corner of a garment. The Law explicitly mandated Israel to affix “fringes in the borders of their garments,” identifying those “borders” as kanaph. Both Matthew and Luke describe the object of the woman’s touch as the “hem” or “border,” deliberately employing kraspedon, the Greek equivalent for those ritual tassels. Consequently, early Christian exegetes astutely linked the healings at the tassel with Malachi’s prophesied healing wings. The Nephite iteration notably renders it “the Son of Righteousness,” explicitly personifying the emergent light.

Furthermore, the Nephites experienced this prophecy ritually enacted before it was recited. After the multitude individually examined the nail prints, He invited the sick forward, stating, “my bowels are filled with mercy,” and proceeded to heal them “every one” (3 Nephi 17:7-10). This fulfills Alma’s earlier discourse that Christ would assume His people’s infirmities “according to the flesh” (Alma 7:11-12). Healing culminated directly in worship, uniting both the healed and the whole in prostration at His feet.

Remedies and the Inn

When early Saints sought a priesthood blessing, Brigham Young characteristically inquired, “Have you used any remedies?” To petition for divine healing while neglecting practical action, he argued, was akin to asking the Lord for an agricultural harvest without the prerequisite plowing and sowing. His paradigm involved applying every accessible remedy, subsequently pleading with the Father to sanctify the effort. While Young heavily favored herbal treatments and distrusted the frequently rudimentary physicians of his era⁠—a skepticism documented by Linda P. Wilcox⁠—Dallin H. Oaks provides the modern continuity of this principle, noting that the utilization of medical science perfectly aligns with prayers of faith.

In a uniquely Lukan parable, the Good Samaritan “bound up his wounds, pouring in oil and wine,” secured lodging, and instructed the host, “Take care of him; and whatsoever thou spendest more, when I come again, I will repay thee” (Luke 10:34-35). As meticulously traced by John W. Welch, premodern Christians thoroughly understood the Samaritan as an allegorical type of Christ. Through this typological lens, the parable perfectly inverts the Galilean woman’s tragedy: whereas she exhausted her resources on physicians only to regress, the traveler’s Healer pre-funds his complete restoration. Luke applies the verb therapeuō (fundamentally meaning to attend upon) to her failed medical treatments; the Samaritan perfectly embodies that requisite divine attendance.

Mending the Broken Connection

Modern neurological research, such as the 2023 report by Grégoire Courtine and Jocelyne Bloch regarding Gert-Jan Oskam’s brain-spine interface, demonstrates that digital bridges can restore mobility lost to paralysis. Courtine’s stated intent to “re-establish this communication” functions as a remarkable modern analog to rapha⁠—mending what trauma has severed. Oskam’s own metric for success was profoundly communal: the ability to stand alongside his friends. Caleb Jones accurately notes that ancient observers would classify such interventions as undeniably miraculous. Nevertheless, if such technological engineering merely halts a physical flow while leaving the recipient impoverished or isolated, its restorative scope remains incomplete.

In that ancient Galilean crowd, the woman grasped the kanaph of the Son of Righteousness, physically accessing the healing in His wings. The virtue that transferred to her emanated from the One designated to bear the mending stripes, yet her restoration was ultimately finalized only when He turned and ritually reintegrated her as a daughter of the covenant. Those who labor in regenerative medicine and neural engineering conceptually inherit both Brigham Young’s requisite plowing and the Samaritan’s consecrating oil. Such endeavors truly heal in the Marcan sense when they faithfully mend the severed, absorb the deficit for the destitute, and reintegrate the whole individual into the broader covenantal community.

See also: Healing, Health, Immortality, Longevity, Penal Substitution, Reconciliation, Redemption, Resurrection, Salvation, Sickness, Suffering