A meditation which began with seeking a verse on health and ended elsewhere


This all began when I was looking for a verse or for verses which pertained to health situations.
Through the use of a concordance, I found myself reading the first three verses of Psalm 41.


Blessed is the one who considers the poor!
In the day of trouble the LORD delivers him;
the LORD protects him and keeps him alive;
he is called blessed in the land;
you do not give him up to the will of his enemies.
The LORD sustains him on his sickbed;
in his illness you restore him to full health.
[Psalm 41:1-3; ESV]


This section of the psalm begins and ends with blessing, which the LORD himself gives:
delivers, protects, keeps alive, sustains, and restores.


I am sure "consider the poor" is more than a fleeting intellectual recognition of "the poor" as a discrete category or even of a poor person [individual].


The NASB version reads "considers the helpless"


This brought to my mind the following questions and ruminations:

• To what extent are "the poor" also "the helpless"?
• Persons may be poor because they are helpless or poor because they can work but do not [including lack of opportunity, not just lack of the will to work].
• Are the helpless equal only to the [physically] disabled, or can people be helpless in some other way [disregarding infants, et al]?
• Are the helpless always included in the poor?
• Someone may be helpless in some way, yet not necessarily poor; someone may be poor, yet not necessarily helpless.

Here, in the opening verses of Psalm 41, we have a group which includes both the poor and the helpless, or God would not bless anyone who considers them.


It would seem that they don't include idle, able-bodied believers because of what Paul wrote in 2 Thessalonians 3:6, 10-12.