Bind Up the Brokenhearted

I was praying recently for the Lord to break through a severe level of pain for someone, feeling that something had to ease it somehow. As I continued to ask how to pray, I heard the word: swaddling. I had a mental image (above) of how that happens with infants, wrapping them tightly for security, safety, peace, warmth, and it has always seemed to me to be a particularly treasuring gesture.

Then I had the sense that He was talking about more than the infant version of swaddling and heard: to swaddle her soul.

That hit so powerfully that I sensed the Lord swaddling my soul—indescribably wonderful!

Then He brought to mind Is 61:1. Most versions say “to heal the broken hearted,” but the King James Version says “to bind up the brokenhearted.” In fact if you try to look up the meaning of the word heal in Strong’s Concordance, you won’t find it. You will have to look up bind, the Hebrew word used in that verse. Bind means to “wrap tightly,” to swaddle. And heart is defined as the center of our being.

I realized, because of my own experience when I heard this, that He was giving me a much deeper awareness of something He has said all along. Is. 61 is the prophetic announcement of the ministry of Jesus. It is read by Jesus in Luke 4:18,19. One aspect of that declared ministry is to swaddle the souls of His people. Is there anyone who doesn’t need that!

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