08/02/2026
Earnest Hems and Rays
Bennett Briles, Weirton Church of the Nazarene
My two-year-old daughter has been going through a phase lately. If I am standing somewhere in the house, she might come up to me, grab the edges of my shirt and tug on it saying, “Hold you! Hold you!”
She wants me to pick her up. And maybe I will do that. But that’s not enough. She then might say “Walk around. Don’t stand. Walk around.”
My daughter does have the benefit of two legs that are able to walk around the house just fine. But there is something about being carried around by a big, tall parent that is a prized experience. A new perspective. Is it like flying? I’m not sure I can remember these experiences from my own toddlerhood.
It isn’t just any adult that she would approach in this fashion. It is the adults she knows and trusts. This child sees the one she knows will be good to her but also will give her an experience somehow better than what she could obtain on her own. At the mercy of this significant person in her midst, she tugs at the hem of his garment pleading to be lifted up.
There is a Hebrew word found in scripture that we might pronounce “kanaph.” Kanaph literally means “wing,” or “extremity." A prominent instance of the word kanaph is found in the very last chapter of the very last book of the Old Testament:
“But for you who revere my name, the sun of righteousness will rise with healing in its [kanaph]. And you will go out and frolic like well- fed calves” (Malachi 4:2 NIV).
The kanaph here is represented differently depending on which translation you are reading.
The New International Version (NIV) uses the word “rays” because that’s what we call sunbeams, though that doesn’t seem limited to the edge of the sun.
More common in popular translations is the word “wings,” which makes sense because kanaph is used to describe birds frequently in scripture. We don’t often think of a sun having wings, though depictions of the sun with wings have been found in some ancient Near Eastern contexts.
There are numerous cases in the Old Testament where kanaph is clearly used to mean “hem” or the edge or corner of one’s garment. Personally I like to humbly suggest reading Malachi 4:2 as “the sun of righteousness will rise with healing its hem.” While the most precise translation would likely be “wings,” there is a literary connection here with the hem that I think is worth
embracing. There is a moment in the gospels that invites readers familiar with the Scriptures to notice a connection.
In Luke 8:40-56 we read the account of the woman who had a chronic bleeding issue for twelve years, a condition which perpetually restricted her participation in Israel's worshiping community. She reaches through the crowd behind Jesus, touches the fringe of his garment, and immediately her bleeding stops. Jesus Christ gives a beautiful echo of Malachi’s promise. Is he not the Sun of Righteousness with healing in his hem?
It is this image that God demonstrates through Jesus, but there is a similar image intended for all of Israel. Which is fitting, as Christ perfectly embodies Israel’s calling to obedience and trust in God. As we approach him and are healed, then we embody Christ, imitating his obedience and trust and also sharing his healing and salvation with all people.
Another Old Testament prophet shared what God said of a future reality: “Many peoples and the inhabitants of many cities will yet come, and the inhabitants of one city will go to another and say, ‘Let us go at once to entreat the Lord and seek the Lord Almighty. I myself am going.’ And many peoples and powerful nations will come to Jerusalem to seek the Lord Almighty and to entreat him…In those days ten people from all languages and nations will take firm hold of one Jew by the hem of his robe [kanaph] and say, ‘Let us go with you, because we have heard that God is with you’ “(Zechariah 8:20-23 NIV).
Zechariah spoke of God’s restored people, and the church is called to embody that same compelling witness. I believe that God’s people, if they are truly a people of healing and salvation, could be so attractive that people hungering for hope might seek them out and find what it is they cannot find anywhere else. For every one person abiding in Christ, there could be ten people that would say, “Let me go with you! For I have heard that God is with you!”
For us to be that attractive of a people, with that kind of appeal, we ourselves must have a childlike faith. Where we are constantly before our Father like a toddler, tugging on the hem of his
shirt…“Pick me up! Carry me with you! Let me see things from your perspective! Take me where I cannot go on my own!”
(Originally published in Weirton Daily Times/Steubenville Herald Star; Photo by Kelli McClintock on https://unsplash.com.
