Five-minute study · Day 281 · Psalms 147
Psalm 147:3
A word worth stopping on: broken שָׁבַר shavar
'He healeth the broken in heart, and bindeth up their wounds.' The word for 'broken' is shavar. Shattered. Smashed to pieces. In Jeremiah 19:11, God tells the prophet to take a clay jar and shavar it in front of the elders of Jerusalem. The jar is smashed so thoroughly that it cannot be reassembled. In Jonah 1:4, the ship in the storm is about to shavar, to break apart completely. When you drop a ceramic bowl on a tile floor and it scatters into fragments too small to count, that is shavar. The psalm uses this word for a human heart. Shavar lev. A heart that is not cracked or chipped. A heart smashed beyond repair. And then: he heals that. The God of Psalm 147 specializes in damage that everyone else has walked away from.
Word study: broken
- Hebrew
- שָׁבַר
- Pronounced
- shavar
- Strong's
- H7665
- Definition
- To break, to shatter, to smash in pieces. Used for the breaking of pottery, the smashing of ships, the shattering of bones, and the crushing of hearts. The word describes destruction so complete that reassembly is impossible without outside intervention.
Shavar appears approximately 148 times in the Hebrew Bible. BDB defines it as 'to break, break in pieces' and traces the word across a range of physical destructions: broken bones (Exodus 12:46), smashed tablets (Exodus 32:19, Moses shattering the Ten Commandments at Sinai), shattered pottery (Jeremiah 19:11), crushed ships (1 Kings 22:48), and destroyed walls (Nehemiah 2:13). The consistent image is total breakage. Shavar does not mean a hairline fracture. It means the object is in pieces.
Allen's commentary on Psalms 101-150 in the Word Biblical Commentary series places Psalm 147 in the postexilic period, a hymn celebrating the return from Babylonian exile and the rebuilding of Jerusalem. Verse 2: 'The LORD doth build up Jerusalem: he gathereth together the outcasts of Israel.' Verse 3 follows immediately: 'He healeth the broken in heart, and bindeth up their wounds.' The sequence matters. God rebuilds a city, and then God rebuilds the people who live in it. Allen notes that the shavar lev (brokenhearted) in this context refers to exiles whose national identity, religious practice, and personal stability had been shattered by the destruction of Jerusalem in 586 BCE.
The companion phrase in verse 3 is 'bindeth up their wounds.' The Hebrew is chabash, the same word used for binding a turban around the head (Ezekiel 24:17) or wrapping a bandage around an injury (Isaiah 1:6). Chabash is the work of a physician or a field medic: applying pressure, wrapping the wound, holding the broken pieces together while healing occurs. God performs both actions: shavar damage receives chabash treatment.
The word shavar appears in a striking range of contexts. In Psalm 34:18, 'The LORD is nigh unto them that are of a broken (shavar) heart; and saveth such as be of a contrite spirit.' In Isaiah 61:1, the messianic figure is sent 'to bind up the brokenhearted (shavar lev).' Jesus read this passage in the Nazareth synagogue (Luke 4:18-19) and declared it fulfilled. The word thread runs from Psalm 147 through Isaiah 61 to Luke 4: God specializes in shavar damage. The smashed jar. The ship coming apart at the seams. The heart in fragments on the floor. This is where he works.
Historical context · The return from Babylonian exile beginning approximately 538 BCE under Cyrus's decree; the rebuilding of Jerusalem's walls under Nehemiah approximately 445 BCE; the composition of postexilic psalms celebrating restoration
The Postexilic Community and the Rebuilding of Broken Lives
Psalm 147 belongs to the final collection of the Psalter (Psalms 146-150), a group of hymns that begin and end with 'Praise the LORD' (Hallelujah). Allen dates the composition to the postexilic period, likely after Nehemiah's rebuilding of the walls (Nehemiah 6:15, completed in 52 days around 445 BCE). The psalm celebrates God's restoration of Jerusalem and his care for the community that returned from Babylon.
The Babylonian exile lasted from 586 to 538 BCE. When Nebuchadnezzar destroyed Jerusalem, the destruction was total: the Temple was burned, the walls were torn down, the palace was destroyed, and the population was deported (2 Kings 25:8-21). The exiles lived in Babylon for nearly fifty years. Children were born in exile who had never seen Jerusalem. When Cyrus of Persia conquered Babylon in 539 BCE and issued his decree allowing the Jews to return (Ezra 1:1-4), the community that came back found ruins.
The emotional toll of the exile is recorded throughout the Hebrew Bible. Psalm 137: 'By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down, yea, we wept, when we remembered Zion.' Lamentations describes the aftermath of Jerusalem's destruction in graphic detail: starvation, violence, the collapse of all social structures. The returning exiles carried this collective trauma. They were rebuilding walls, but the walls inside them were still down.
Allen observes that Psalm 147:2-3 pairs the physical rebuilding of Jerusalem with the emotional healing of its residents. The same God who gathers the scattered stones gathers the scattered people. The same God who sets walls upright binds up interior wounds. The word shavar in verse 3 acknowledges the severity of the damage: these are not people who are slightly discouraged. These are people whose hearts were smashed when their city burned, their Temple fell, and their children grew up speaking Aramaic in a foreign land. Chabash, the binding up, is slow work. A medic does not rush a field dressing. The psalm does not promise instant recovery. It promises that the physician has arrived and the binding has begun.
For reflection
Shavar. Smashed pottery. A ship breaking apart in a storm. Moses hurling the tablets on the ground at Sinai. Shavar does not describe a crack that can be glued. It describes fragments. And Psalm 147 says God heals the shavar lev, the heart in pieces on the floor. The returning exiles had lost their city, their Temple, their sense of identity. God rebuilt the walls, and then he started on the people. The companion word is chabash: to bind up, to wrap, to hold the broken pieces together while healing occurs. If your heart is shavar today, the psalm is specific about what happens next. The physician arrives. The binding begins. It is not instant. A field medic takes time with the wrapping. Name the break. That is the first step toward the bandage.
Shavar: to break, shatter, smash in pieces. BDB traces it across broken pottery, ships, bones, and hearts. Allen places Psalm 147 in the postexilic period, linking the rebuilding of Jerusalem's walls with the healing of its residents' interior damage. Chabash (bind up) is slow, deliberate medical work.
Sources: BDB; Allen, 'Psalms 101-150' (WBC)