Chapter 11

Sickness and Disease

Years ago, when I was severely sick with a neurological disease and fibromyalgia, I attended a small assembly with a kind pastor. I noticed the pastor often looked at me with a peculiar expression. His eyes would shift to my cane and my wobbly legs, then gaze back up as if he were analyzing why I needed an instrument for balance at such a tender age. On one occasion, he prayed for me with a loud, boisterous voice. “Father, get to the root of this sickness, the very root!” I felt as if the root he may have been referring to was possibly unconfessed sins. The pastor had suggested more than once that sickness can be a spiritual issue. I wondered if he thought the origin was something unholy in my life, like pride, lust, or anger. I remembered the scripture in Timothy about laying hands on the sick and seeing them recover. It also said, “And if they have sinned it shall be forgiven them” (James 5:13-15, KJV).

Many well-known evangelists and pastors had prayed over me, but I was still suffering horribly. I pondered this and went over a list of people I had forgiven and the prayers I had prayed for the Father to search me and cleanse me. I cried out to the Holy One that I knew I had sinned and had things I needed to work on, like most of us do, but I still felt awkward in the presence of this pastor. It seemed every time he prayed for me it was suggested I might be responsible for this disease. I felt like Job’s friends surrounded me at my assembly. Of course, I was no Job; my past had its colorful moments. But I had returned to the Father with all my heart.

The following Thursday night Bible study was quite a shock for me. I waddled in on my cane, and there was the pastor with one shoe off. His right foot looked swollen, and he was using a cane. Gout had set in his foot. Had the Holy One allowed this to happen for a reason? I wasn’t sure, but I felt quite relieved that a minister I deemed righteous could also go through pain. It was confirmation that perhaps it happens to the best of us. He spoke about how his gout had caused him to be still before the Lord because he couldn’t go to work and how he had a wonderful time in prayer at home resting. Sickness can be an unusual friend at times.

Have you ever wondered who the first person to become sick was in the Bible? Job would be the first, and the next person written about was Jacob. After Jacob wrestled with an angel all night, his hip was out of the socket, and he walked with a limp afterward. Indeed, he walked with a limp until the day his sons buried him. Hosea says this about Jacob, “Yea, he had power over the angel and prevailed” (Hosea 12:4, KJV). The devil had nothing to do with maiming Jacob; it was an angel. We have been taught that angels only protect us; this one wrestled with Jacob and injured him.

Sickness and disease are mentioned in full detail in the Torah. In Deuteronomy 28, there is a short list of blessings due to obedience and a rather lengthy list of curses due to disobedience. These curses would fall upon the nations and the people who worshipped idols and did not keep Adonai’s commandments and statutes:

The Lord will send upon you curses, confusion, and rebuke, in all you undertake to do, until you are destroyed and until you perish quickly, on account of the evil of your deeds, because you have forsaken me. The Lord will make the pestilence cling to you until He has consumed you from the land where you are entering to possess it. The Lord will smite you with consumption and with fever and with inflammation and with fiery heat and with the sword and with blight and with mildew, and they will pursue you until you perish. The heaven which is over your head shall be bronze, and the earth which is under you, iron. The Lord will make the rain of your land powder and dust; from heaven it shall come down on you until you are destroyed. The Lord will smite thee with the botch of Egypt and with tumors, scabs and itch, sickness that cannot be healed.

–Deuteronomy 28:20-24, 27, ESV

Every sickness and plague, including all the diseases of Egypt, are promised to be sent by the Holy One on His people who fall into idolatry.

Many times, the children of Israel were sick or even died due to complaining and bitterness in the wilderness. Snakes sent from Adonai bit them, and the quail they requested came up through their nostrils. The earth even swallowed some:

The LORD sent fiery serpents among the people, and they bit the people; and much people of Israel died.

–Numbers 21:6, KJV

Miriam spoke against Moses, and the Lord struck her with leprosy. Afterward, Moses begged Adonai to restore her, and He did. Yes, repeatedly, sickness was caused by sin. However, we know this is not always the case. For instance, look at Job and all his troubles.

Calvinism teaches that man is born totally depraved and separated from God. In Hebrew thought we are born sinless, but all are imperfect, being inclined to fall into sin. Many different denominations in Christianity suggests when Adam and Eve fell, sickness came into existence, and Adam and Eve (Chavvah) were cursed.  The Word says something different:

Cursed is the ground for thy sake; in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life; thorns and thistles shall it bring forth.

–Genesis 3:17-18, KJV 

This curse on the soil is followed by Adam’s son Cain after he killed his brother:

And the LORD said, “What have you done? The voice of your brother’s blood is crying to me from the ground. And now you are cursed from the ground, which has opened its mouth to receive your brother’s blood from your hand. When you work the ground, it shall no longer yield to you its strength.”

–Genesis 4:10-12, ESV

After the flood, Noah came out of the ark and built an altar to the Holy One and the curse on the ground and upon the earth was broken:

Then Noah built an altar to the LORD and took some of every clean animal and some of every clean bird and offered burnt offerings on the altar. And when the LORD smelled the pleasing aroma, the LORD said in his heart, “I will never again curse the ground because of man, for the intention of man’s heart is evil from his youth. Neither will I ever again strike down every living creature as I have done. While the earth remains, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night, shall not cease.”

–Genesis 8:20-22, ESV

Although Adam was disobedient and ate from the tree of knowledge, of good and evil, Adam lived to be nine hundred and thirty years old. That is a ripe old age. The Bible says Moses lived to be a hundred and twenty years old. We are told Moses’s eyes were not dim, and his natural force was undiminished. Moses still had the strength of a young man. There was no sickness in his death. Sickness wasn’t something we hear Adam or Eve dying from. Nor was it something Abraham or Isaac had, but Elisha, one of the mightiest prophets, died of a disease. “Now Elisha was fallen sick of his sickness whereof he died” (II Kings 13:14, KJV). Elisha raised the dead, made an ax head float, and caused Naaman to dip seven times, which cured him of leprosy, yet he died of his sickness. Years later, a dead man was thrown into Elisha’s tomb, landed on his bones, and was revived. The dead man came back to life and stood upon his feet. Elisha may have died of sickness and disease, but Adonai’s Word was still shut up in his bones, and his bones brought life:

So Elisha died, and they buried him. Now bands of Moabites used to invade the land in the spring of the year. And as a man was being buried, behold, a marauding band was seen and the man was thrown into the grave of Elisha, and as soon as the man touched the bones of Elisha, he revived and stood on his feet.

–II Kings 13:20-21, ESV

Sickness and death are not something that happened only during the days preceding Messiah Yeshua. It happened after Yeshua’s ascension. Several missionaries who were with Paul became sick, and Paul could not heal them. He told the people that these men had risked their lives for the sake of the gospel, Epaphroditus, and a man named Trophimus: “Erastus abode at Corinth; but Trophimus have I left at Miletum sick” (II Timothy 4:20, KJV). Both men were doing work for the Father, and both men were with Paul. Paul was the apostle who could heal the sick with his apron (tallit katan/ prayer shawl). Why would Paul leave a man sick if he could heal him? Why then were they not healed?

  Sickness can be challenging to grasp. Paul told Timothy, “Be no longer a drinker of water, but use a little wine for thy stomach’s sake and thine often infirmities” (I Timothy 5:23, KJV). The water in ancient times was not always fit to drink, and the wine helped kill parasites and bacteria. Paul doesn’t say, “Timothy, don’t speak your stomach troubles, don’t even claim them. Life and death are in the power of the tongue. Tell the devil where to go!” No, that does not happen. When meditating on sickness and disease, we must consider the earth is getting old. We have polluted it badly with factories, chemicals, landfills, oil spills, and water no longer fit to drink in many areas. New concern over the years has caused many people to start homesteading. They are raising their own food and caring for poultry and livestock. Not only are people starting to garden, but they are also growing herbs and using oils as medicine.

In II Kings 20, a king named Hezekiah will be given a cake of figs as medicine. Hezekiah is given a death sentence by the Holy One. The prophet Isaiah is told to visit this king and tell him to get his house in order because the Lord is going to take his life:

In those days Hezekiah became mortally ill. So Isaiah the prophet son of Amoz came to him and said to him, “Thus says Adonai: Put your house in order. For you are dying, and will not live.””

–II Kings 20:1, TLV

Can you imagine being greeted with this type of Word from the Father? Hezekiah was around forty years old. Hezekiah began to weep before Adonai. He reminded the Holy One how he had served Him with a perfect heart. Before Isaiah the prophet left, the Holy One told him to go back and speak to Hezekiah:

Return, and say to Hezekiah the leader of My people, thus says Adonai, the God of your father David: ‘I have heard your prayer and I have seen your tears. Behold, I am going to heal you. On the third day you will go up to the House of Adonai.  Then I will add 15 years to your life. I will deliver you and this city from the hand of the king of Assyria; I will defend this city for My own sake, and for My servant David’s sake.’”

 Then Isaiah said, “Take a cake of figs.” So they took one and laid it on the boil, and he recovered.

–II Kings 20:5-7, ESV

Yes, weeping and crying out to the Holy One can bring restoration, but notice good reliable figs are brought to lay on the boil. Hezekiah gained fifteen years of his life.

When studying sickness and healing in the Bible, the process in which countless miracles occur is quite fascinating. In II Kings 4, Elijah laid his body upon the Shunammite’s son who had died, and then the boy sneezed seven times and came back to life. In II Kings 5, Naaman had to dip seven times in water far from clean to receive his healing. Blind Barnabas cried out to Yeshua for his healing. The people tried to quiet him, but he would not give in. One blind man was healed after Yeshua took some clay or mud, spat on it, and placed it on his eyeball. Then the man was instructed to wash his eyes in a pool of water.

In Matthew 15, a woman’s daughter is vexed with a demon. Yeshua never met her daughter in person, but the demon left her.  In several of the Gospels, Yeshua told the person healed that their sins had been forgiven, but what exactly did he mean by this statement? In Matthew 9, Yeshua got into a boat and came to his hometown. “Then behold, they brought to Him a paralytic lying on a bed. When Jesus saw their faith, He said to the paralytic, “Son, be of good cheer; your sins are forgiven you.” (Matthew 9:2, NKJ). This passage has been translated in error. Dr. Skip Moen unravels this peculiar passage at Hebrew Word Study blog in his article Rooftop Faith:

Now the Greek, the Aramaic and the Delitzsch Hebrew gospels all have the phrase “Take heart” as an imperative. Another English version says, “Be comforted, my son” (although the Greek apparently omits the possessive pronoun and says simply, “son”). Howard’s Hebrew text, however, says something quite different. The phrase translated from Greek as “take heart” is not imperative – it is reflexive; the word titchazzek literally means “You have strengthened yourself.’”[1]

The passage in its original context would have read, “And Yeshua saw their faith and he said, ‘You have strengthened yourself, my son; by the faithfulness of God, your iniquities are taken from you.’” This sounds very different than,  ‘Take heart, my son; your sins are forgiven.”

Yeshua felt virtue go out of Him when He healed the woman with the issue of blood (Luke 8:43-48). Other times, Yeshua did not heal them; he waited until they were dead like Martha’s brother, Lazarus (John 11:43).  Martha lacked faith, but it did not stop her brother from coming forth from the tomb. Stubborn sickness that stays is often blamed on lack of faith, wrong confessions, and hidden sin or Satan. How can a miracle or healing occur without sickness and suffering?

As he passed by, he saw a man blind from birth. And his disciples asked him, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” Jesus answered, “It was not that this man sinned, or his parents, but that the works of God might be displayed in him.”’

–John 9:1-3, ESV

Moses told Adonai that he was not eloquent or good at making speeches, but Adonai answered him curiously: “Who has made man’s mouth? Or who makes the dumb or deaf, or the seeing, or the blind? Have not I the Father?” (Exodus 4:11, KJV).  Some in leadership would call blindness, deafness, and paralysis a curse from Satan. Multiple formulas for how to be cured have come about over time. Some of these instructions are harmful to sheep. Numerous Bible stories show that after significant sickness and years of suffering, the person’s healing caused many to turn to the Father, like Aeneas:

Peter went here and there among them all. He came down as well to the kedoshim living in Lydda. There he found a man named Aeneas, who had been bedridden for eight years—he was paralyzed.  Peter said to him, “Aeneas, Messiah Yeshua heals you. Get up and pack up your bed.” Immediately, he got up! All who lived in Lydda and the Plain of Sharon saw him, and they turned to the Lord.

–Acts 9:32-35, TLV

Peter did not ask the Father to get to the root of Aeneas’s sickness. He did not plead the blood over Aeneas or break generational curses. Peter did not bind anything. Peter did not say, “Aeneas, I’m sorry, but you just don’t have enough faith right now. Study the chapter on faith in Hebrews 11 for a few more years, and I will be back to lay hands on you.” The Body of Messiah must stop inflicting this sort of shame and guilt on those who are suffering. I have seen countless people go off their medication and become severely sick, especially the mentally ill. One person instructed to go off her medications ended up killing her pets and was placed in a facility. Of course, one touch from the Holy One can heal anyone, but this does not always come, not even to those servants as humble as Job.

King David gives wisdom and describes how suffering changes us on the inside:

Before I was afflicted I went astray, but now I keep Your word.

–Psalm 119: 67, TLV

David continues in verse 71:

It is good for me that I have been afflicted; that I might learn thy statutes. I know, O Lord, that thy judgments are right, and that thou in faithfulness hast afflicted me.

A Psalm of Asaph showcases the wealthy and healthy to a frightening degree:

For I was envious of the arrogant when I saw the prosperity of the wicked. For they have no pangs until death; their bodies are fat and sleek. They are not in trouble as others are; they are not stricken like the rest of humankind. Therefore pride is their necklace; violence covers them as a garment. Their eyes swell out through fatness; their hearts overflow with follies. They scoff and speak with malice; loftily they threaten oppression. They set their mouths against the heavens, and their tongue struts through the earth.

–Psalm 73:3-9, ESV

 Job makes a comment to his wife after she tells him to curse the Holy One and die due to his sickness and great loss. He tells her she speaks as a foolish woman would speak. “What? Shall we receive good at the hand of God and not receive evil?” (Job 2:10, KJV). In Luke 14, a parable told by Messiah Yeshua highlights healthy people and sick, blind, lame people. Surprisingly it was the healthy and wealthy who had no time for the King of Kings:

But Yeshua said to him, “A certain man was hosting a large banquet, and he invited many.  At the time for the banquet, he sent his slave to tell those who had been invited, ‘Come, everything is already prepared.’

 “But every one of them began to beg off. The first said to him, ‘I bought a farm, and I’m obligated to go out to see it. I’m asking you to have me excused.’  Then another one said, ‘I’ve purchased five teams of oxen, and I’m going to check them out. I’m asking you to have me excused.’  Still another said, ‘I’ve married a wife, so I cannot come.’

“The slave came and reported these things to his master. Then the master of the house got angry and said to his slave, ‘Quickly go out into the squares and alleys of the city and bring here the poor, the maimed, the blind, and the lame.’

 “And the slave said, ‘Master, I have done as you instructed, and still there is room.’

 “So the master said to the slave, ‘Go out into the thoroughfares and fenced areas, and press them to come in so my home may be filled. For I tell you, none of those men who were invited will taste my banquet.’”

–Luke 14:16-24, TLV

The wealthy, busy people of the world rejected his invitation, but not the sick and the poor. Why were they so willing to come? Sickness and poverty can humble a person significantly and cause them to realize that they need a Savior in more ways than one. Spiritually blind people long to see.

The apostle Paul (Greek name) or Saul (Sha’ul), Hebrew, had a spiritual awakening after being struck with blindness for three days. Paul started as one of the primary persecutors of the followers of Yeshua. One day Paul was on his way to Damascus he saw a bright light shining down from heaven, and he heard a voice, and he fell on the ground:

Who are You, Lord?” Saul said.

“I am Yeshua—whom you are persecuting. But get up and go into the city, and you will be told what you must do.”

 The men travelling with him stood speechless, hearing the voice but seeing no one.  Saul got up from the ground—but opening his eyes, he could see nothing. They led him by the hand and brought him into Damascus.  For three days he could not see, and he did not eat or drink.

–Acts 9:6-9, TLV

The Holy One got Paul’s attention by striking him with blindness. He humbled Paul. Paul fasted and prayed during those three days. The Father proclaims that He will show Paul how greatly he must suffer for His name’s sake. And boy did he. Paul was stoned to death and saw the third heaven– imprisoned, beaten, and shipwrecked at sea. Paul wrote at least seven books in the New Testament. Through his suffering, he became a humble apostle. He also said he was given a thorn in his flesh, a messenger from Satan to buffet him. He asked the Lord three times to take it away:

So that I would not exalt myself, a thorn in the flesh was given to me—a a messenger of satan to torment me, so I would not exalt myself.  I pleaded with the Lord three times about this, that it might leave me.  But He said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly in my weaknesses, so that the power of Messiah may dwell in me.  For Messiah’s sake, then, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in distresses, in persecutions, in calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong.

–II Corinthians 12:7-10, TLV

Some believe the thorn Paul was given was bad eyesight—blindness. He must write with large handwriting due to his vision: “Notice the large letters—I am writing to you with my own hand” (Galatians 6:11, TLV). Our bodies are supposed to get old. Paul said we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. I hear people say, “Yeshua healed all.” However, Yeshua clearly did not heal every infirmity. Yeshua had trouble in His hometown:

“A prophet is not without honor except in his own country, among his own relatives, and in his own house.” He could do no mighty work there, except that He laid His hands on a few sick people and healed them. And He marveled because of their unbelief.

–Mark 6:4-6, KJV

There was unbelief in Mark 6, this resulted in a lack of healing. In John 5, one man at the pool of Bethesda was healed, but we don’t read anywhere in that story that the many others lying there were healed also. There is the story, long after Yeshua’s resurrection and ascension, about a man who was laid at the Temple gate for years: 

And a man lame from birth was being carried, whom they laid daily at the gate of the temple that is called the Beautiful Gate to ask alms of those entering the temple. Now a man who was lame from birth was being carried to the Temple gate called Beautiful, where he was put every day to beg from those going into the Temple courts.

–Acts 3:2, ESV

Now we know Yeshua walked into the Temple often and on every Sabbath and the hour of prayer. The man is made whole as Peter and John pray for him. Yeshua must have passed this man who was laid there daily.

The Bible contains many layers concerning sickness and disease, blessings, and curses. And some of the most righteous people in the Bible suffered more than anyone else. How can we forget righteous Job or the mighty prophet Elisha who died of his disease? The New Testament deals with sickness as well. Missionaries with Paul are sent home carefully.

One day when the Messiah returns, the many questions concerning the topic of sickness, suffering, and pain will be answered. In the meantime, may we be compassionate to the sick and those suffering, remembering that when the disciples asked Yeshua who had sinned, the blind man or his parents, that he was born blind, the Master said neither this man nor his parents sinned. He was born blind so that the Holy One may be revealed. The Holy One always opens the eyes of the spiritually blind when they humbly ask. Following Yeshua’s brother’s instructions, the Body of Messiah must lay hands on the sick, anoint them with oil, and pray that they recover.

Is any sick among you? let him call for the elders of the church; and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord:  And the prayer of faith shall save the sick, and the Lord shall raise him up; and if he have committed sins, they shall be forgiven him.

James 5:14-15, KJV

James expresses that sin is a sickness, and the Holy One is a loving Father whose mercies are made new each morning.

[1] Rooftop Faith – Hebrew Word Study | Skip Moen