(167) – THE WOUND

167 – THE WOUND

 

A wound is an open sore. The nails produced the wounds in the hands and feet of Jesus. In the poetic literature, a wound is a moral pain. To put your finger in the wound is to hurt the pride of someone, or their weak spot. Every teaser keeps putting their finger in the wounds of the people, and so they become obnoxious and unwelcome.

In the figurative language of the sacred Scriptures, a wound is a moral flaw (Luke 16:19-20). “Alas, sinful nation, people weighed down with iniquity, offspring of evildoers, sons who act corruptly! They have abandoned Jehovah, they have despised the Holy One of Israel, they have turned away from Him. Where will you be stricken again, as you continue in your rebellion? The whole head is sick, and the whole heart is faint. From the sole of the foot even to the head there is nothing sound in it, only bruises, welts, and raw wounds, not pressed out or bandaged, nor softened with oil” (Is. 1:4-6).

Scriptures apply the word wound also to moral pain: “Woe is me, because of my injury! My wound is incurable. But I said, ‘Truly this is a sickness, and I must bear it” (Jer. 10:19). The prophet Jeremiah, nevertheless, uses the word wound in a more acute way, for the sin of Israel: “And you will say this word to them, ‘Let my eyes flow down with tears night and day, and let them not cease; For the virgin daughter of my people has been crushed with a mighty blow, with a sorely infected wound” (Jer. 14:17). “For thus says Jehovah, ‘Your wound is incurable, and your injury is serious’” (Jer. 30:12). King David, after he committed adultery and a knavish homicide, for he killed the husband to be able to marry the adulterous woman, expressed himself in this way: “For my iniquities are gone over my head; as a heavy burden they weigh too much for me. My wounds grow foul and fester. Because of my folly, I am bent over” (Ps. 38:4-5).

Christians are absolutely convinced that the Scriptures, both the Old and New Testaments, are infallible, that is: the whole Scripture, from beginning to end, is the word of God, without errors or contradiction—it is all truth that cannot be touched by man’s finger. Based on this theological and universal conviction, we transcribe the following texts: “Come, let us return to Jehovah, for He has torn us, but He will heal us; He has wounded us, but He will bandage us” (Hos. 6:1). “Behold, how happy is the man whom God reproves; so do not despise the discipline of the Almighty. For He inflicts pain and gives relief; He wounds and His hands also heal” (Job 5:17-18). Every wound, be it of any kind, are produced by Jehovah, with a prophylactic goal in mind. The method that Jehovah used to extirpate the evil from his people was to produce painful wounds. As unbelievable as it may seem, and as powerful as Jehovah declares that he is, the wounds were many, but without ever a cure. The people refrained from committing reprovable acts for fear or dread, not because they were healed. Repression does not cure criminals.

It is the very Jehovah who confesses the failure of his method: “For her wound is incurable, for it has come to Judah; it has reached the gate of my people, even to Jerusalem” (Mic. 1:9). “There is no relief for your breakdown, your wound is incurable. All who hear about you will clap their hands about you, for on whom has not your evil passed continually?” (Nah. 3:19).

The problem is not Israel’s, but Jehovah’s, who affirmed that he caused the wounds with the purpose of, by doing it, to heal the evil from his people. “FOR I WILL RESTORE YOU TO HEALTH AND I WILL HEAL YOU OF YOUR WOUNDS, DECLARES JEHOVAH” (Jer. 30:17).

Let us see how Jehovah produced the wounds. Joseph, son of Jacob, says that Jehovah was the one responsible for everything that happened in his life: “And God sent me before you to preserve for you a remnant in the earth, and to keep you alive by a great deliverance. Now, therefore, it was not you who sent me here, but God; and He has made me a father to Pharaoh and lord of all his household and ruler over all the land of Egypt” (Gen. 45:7-8). Now, Joseph’s ten brothers wished to kill him, because they were envious of him, but by Reuben’s interference, they sold him as a slave to some Ishmaelite, who took him to Egypt, and sold him to Potiphar, Pharaoh’s eunuch and captain of his bodyguard (Gen. 37:11; 20-21; 37:26-27; 39:1). So, the envy and hatred of Joseph’s brothers were a work of Jehovah. Joseph, as lord of Egypt, sent for his father Jacob and his entire family, a number of seventy souls (Gen. 46:26-27). Jacob’s family multiplied in Egypt, and learned the vices and sins of Egypt, that is, the people were corrupted. The wound was thus formed. There was another wound: the pain of slavery. Jehovah proposed, then, to heal both wounds. With their deliverance he would heal the pain of the soul and with the law he would heal their corruption. And so, he sent Moses to accomplish this great work. Moses was able to deliver the people with the power of producing plagues and pestilences given him by Jehovah, but he also made the Egyptians enemies of god forever. Moses led the people to the foot of Mount Sinai, and there Jehovah said to him: “Speak to the sons of Israel and say to them, ‘I am Jehovah your God. You shall not do what is done in the land of Egypt where you lived, nor are you to do what is done in the land of Canaan where I am bringing you; you shall not walk in their statutes. You are to perform My judgments and keep My statutes, to live according with them” (Lev. 18:2-4). Well, Israel did not leave the ways of the land of Egypt, and got further corrupted in Canaan, for the Canaanites left there by Jehovah were all sodomites, according to Jude 5 and Is. 1:10, which says, “Hear the word of Jehovah, you rulers of Sodom; give ear to the instruction of our God, you people of Gomorrah.” Ezekiel writes in detail what Israel learned in Egypt:“Son of man, there were two women, the daughters of one mother; and they played the harlot in Egypt. They played the harlot in their youth; there their breasts were pressed, and there their virgin bosom was handled. And their names were Oholah the elder and Oholibah her sister. And they became Mine, and they bore sons and daughters. And as for their names, Samaria is Oholah, and Jerusalem is Oholibah” (Ezek. 23:2-8).

Jehovah wounded and was not able to heal. The only solution he found was to deliver his people to their sins and in the hands of their lovers. Israel prostituted themselves with the sons of Assyria, and for this he was delivered into the hands of the Assyrians forever (Ezek. 16:28,39; 2 Kings 17:20-23; Ezek. 23:7-9).

Judah, that is, Oholibah, fell in love with the Chaldeans, and uncovered her harlotries to them (Ezek. 23:15-18). Then Jehovah delivered Judah to the Babylonians (Ezek. 23:28). The apostle Paul refers to the fact, saying: “For this reason God gave them over to degrading passions” (Rom. 1:26). In Psalm 81 we read: “But My people did not listen to My voice; and Israel did not obey Me. So I gave them over to the stubbornness of their heart” (Ps. 81:11-12).

Jehovah made the wounds, but could not heal as he promised his people, and he had no way out of this situation but to abandon them to their vice and to their lovers, all of this with hatred and vengeance.

If Jehovah would form another people without the wounds, there would not have been healing, for it would be another people. The wounded ones were destroyed and corrupted.

The one who has the power to heal wounds is called Jesus Christ. Paul, who was healed, said:“Therefore, if any man is in Christ, he is a new creature; the old things passed away; behold, new things have come” (2 Cor. 5:17).

 

 

By Pastor Olavo Silveira Pereira

 

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