Psalm 107:20

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He sent His word and healed them, and delivered them from their destructions.

Psalm 107:20 (NKJV)

He sent out his word and healed them; he rescued them from the grave.

Psalm 107:20 (NIV)

He sent his word, and healed them, and delivered them from their destructions.

Psalm 107:20 (KJV)

He sent out his word and healed them, snatching them from the door of death.

Psalm 107:20 (NLT)

He sent out his word and healed them, and delivered them from their destruction.

Psalm 107:20 (ESV)

He sent His word and healed them, and rescued them from their destruction.

Psalm 107:20 (AMP)

Scripture quotations taken from the Amplified® Bible (AMP), Copyright © 2015 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. www.lockman.org

Then he spoke the word that healed you, that pulled you back from the brink of death.

Psalm 107:20 (MSG)

Scripture quotations from The Message. Copyright © 1993, 2002, 2018 by Eugene H. Peterson. Used by permission of NavPress. All rights reserved. Represented by Tyndale House Publishers.

New Covenant Meaning

The Word Is God's Healing Agent

Psalm 107:20 is one of the clearest Old Testament statements about how God heals: He sends His word. Not a formula, not a ritual, not a religious performance. His word. The mechanism of divine healing in this psalm is the spoken, sent word of God. This points forward to the New Covenant where John 1:14 says "the Word became flesh." Jesus is the Word made incarnate. When Jesus healed the sick, He was doing what Psalm 107:20 describes: God sending His Word to heal. The Word that heals is both the Scripture God speaks and ultimately the person of Christ.

Deliverance from Destruction Is Included

The verse does not stop at healing. It adds "and delivered them from their destructions." The Hebrew word for destructions (shachath) means pits, corruption, destruction, the grave. God's Word does not just fix immediate symptoms. It delivers from the larger situation of ruin and death that threatens. This is the comprehensive scope of the Word's power: it heals what is broken and it delivers from what would destroy. Both are accomplished through the same mechanism: the word that God sends.

The context of Psalm 107 is a series of descriptions of people in desperate situations: wandering in the wilderness (vv. 4-9), sitting in darkness and chains (vv. 10-16), afflicted because of their sin (vv. 17-22), caught in storms at sea (vv. 23-32). In each case, they cried out to the Lord and He delivered them. Verses 17-20 specifically describe people who were sick and afflicted. Verse 19 says they cried to the Lord. Verse 20 says He responded by sending His word and healing them. The pattern is consistent: cry out in need, God responds with His Word, the Word heals.

Application for Your Life

The Word Is Your Medicine

Psalm 107:20 and Proverbs 4:22 together establish that God's Word has healing properties. This is not metaphor. The people in Psalm 107 who were sick at the point of death were healed when God sent His word. The practical application is to put yourself in the position to receive that word. Read it. Speak it over yourself. Hear it preached. Meditate on healing promises. Fill your inner man with what God says about health and redemption rather than filling it with anxiety and the medical worst-case scenarios. The word that heals is the word that is received.

Cry Out and Then Receive the Word

The pattern in Psalm 107 is: desperate need, cry out to God, receive His response. Verse 20 is God's response to those who cried out: He sent His Word and healed them. Do not sit in silence with your need. Cry out. And then position yourself to receive the Word He sends. That may come through Scripture you read at just the right moment, through a message that lands with unusual power, through a promise that suddenly becomes real to you. He sends His Word. Your job is to receive it with faith.

Prayer Based on This Verse

Father, Psalm 107:20 says You sent Your Word and healed them. I receive that same Word today. I open my heart to what You are saying. I position myself to receive the healing word You are sending. Whatever my body, my mind, or my circumstances need, Your Word is the answer. It does not return void. It accomplishes what You send it to accomplish. I receive the healing that is in Your Word. I receive the deliverance from destruction that comes through Your Word. Send Your Word now and heal me. In Jesus' name. Amen.