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The woman in Luke 8 had an issue of blood for twelve years. She had "spent all her living upon physicians, neither could be healed of any." Twelve years of seeking diagnosis and treatment — twelve years of medical expense, medical hope, medical failure. And then she touched the hem of Jesus' garment in a crowd. He felt power go from him and turned and asked who had touched him. When she fell before him trembling, he did not give her a diagnosis. He said: "Daughter, be of good comfort: thy faith hath made thee whole; go in peace." The woman who had been failed by every physician she had seen received the only complete healing she had ever been given. Her trust in the physicians had run out. Her trust in Jesus had not.
Get These Verses Daily — Free“And he said unto her, Daughter, be of good comfort: thy faith hath made thee whole; go in peace.”
The woman had been failed by every physician she had seen for twelve years. Jesus did not give her a diagnosis. He gave her wholeness and peace. The one who had spent everything on physicians and was no better received in one encounter what twelve years of medicine could not provide.
“O LORD, thou hast searched me, and known me.”
The Hebrew word 'searched' — chaqar — means to investigate completely, to explore thoroughly. What doctors miss is not missed by God. The wrong diagnosis is an error in human knowledge. It is not an error in the knowledge of the one who formed the body being examined.
“If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not; and it shall be given him.”
The Greek phrase 'upbraideth not' — mē oneidizountos — means without reproach, without making the asker feel foolish. The person who does not know what to trust after a wrong diagnosis can ask God for wisdom without being shamed for not knowing. It is given liberally.
“Heal me, O LORD, and I shall be healed; save me, and I shall be saved: for thou art my praise.”
The double construction — heal me and I shall be healed — claims God's healing as the only complete healing. What doctors do is real and valuable. What God heals holds regardless of what the human medical picture says or has said incorrectly.
“Trust in the LORD with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding.”
The Hebrew word 'lean' — shaan — means to support your weight on something. The person who has received a wrong diagnosis and does not know what to support their weight on next is exactly the person this verse was written for. Human understanding — including medical — has limits. God's does not.
Psalm 139:1–4 establishes the completeness of God's knowledge of a person: "O LORD, thou hast searched me, and known me. Thou knowest my downsitting and mine uprising, thou understandest my thought afar off." The Hebrew word for "searched" — chaqar — means to explore thoroughly, to investigate completely. What doctors miss, God has not missed. The wrong diagnosis is an error in human knowledge. It is not an error in divine knowledge.
James 1:5 offers a direct promise for the person who lacks understanding and does not know what to trust: "If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not; and it shall be given him." The Greek word for "upbraideth not" — mē oneidizountos — means without reproach, without making the asker feel foolish for not knowing. God does not shame the person who comes not knowing what to do next after a wrong diagnosis has reorganized their life.
Commentary is from a charismatic Protestant perspective, drawing on KJV text and public-domain sources including Spurgeon, Andrew Murray, and Matthew Henry.
Jeremiah 17:14 is the prayer of a man who had been told one thing about his situation that turned out to be wrong: "Heal me, O LORD, and I shall be healed; save me, and I shall be saved: for thou art my praise." The double construction — heal me and I shall be healed — is not redundancy. It is the claim that God's healing is the only complete healing, the one that holds regardless of what the human medical picture says. What God heals stays healed. What God saves stays saved.
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