HEALING IN HIS WINGS:

HEALING IN HIS WINGS: This is one of those places where the English translation hides a connection that jumps out once you look at the Hebrew. Malachi closes the Prophets with this promise about the coming Messiah. “But unto you that fear my name shall the Sun of righteousness arise with healing in his wings...” Malachi 4:2 KJV The Hebrew word translated “wings” is כָּנָף, kanaph. Kanaph can mean a literal wing, but it can also mean the edge, extremity, or corner of a garment. Now go back to the Law. God commanded Israel to put fringes, tzitzit, on the corners of their garments. Numbers 15:38 uses the same Hebrew root, kanaph, for those garment corners. Deuteronomy 22:12 does the same thing when it speaks of the four corners of the covering. Now read the woman with the issue of blood again. “And, behold, a woman, which was diseased with an issue of blood twelve years, came behind him, and touched the hem of his garment.” Matthew 9:20 KJV The Greek word translated “hem” is κράσπεδον, kraspedon, referring to the fringe or border of the garment. So she was not necessarily reaching for some random piece of fabric at the bottom of Jesus’ robe. She reached for the fringe attached to the kanaph, the corner of the garment. Now put Malachi back beside it. “Healing in his kanaph.” She had been bleeding for twelve years. According to Leviticus 15, that condition left her ceremonially unclean. Mark tells us she had suffered under physicians, spent everything she had, and only became worse. Then Jesus came through the crowd. A Jewish woman who knew the Scriptures could have heard Malachi’s promise very differently than we usually do in English. The promised One would arise with healing in His kanaph, and standing right in front of her was the One she believed to be able to make her whole. She reached for the fringe. Jesus turned around and said, “Daughter, be of good comfort; thy faith hath made thee whole.” Matthew 9:22 KJV The cloth was not magic. Jesus made that clear. Her faith was in Him. Malachi had spoken of healing in the wings. Torah used that same Hebrew word for the corner of the garment. Centuries later, a bleeding woman reached through a crowd and took hold of the fringe of Jesus’ garment believing she would be healed. And she was. #MoreJoyMinistries