Luke 8:43-48

The Interruption.

The preposition πρός, in προσαναλώσασα, expresses the fact that, in addition to these long sufferings, she now found herself destitute of resources. Mark expresses with a little more force the injury which the physicians had done her. Hitzig and Holtzmann maintain that Luke, being a physician himself, intentionally tones down these details from the proto-Mark. We find nothing here but Mark's characteristic amplification.

The malady from which this woman suffered rendered her Levitically unclean; it was even, according to the law, a sufficient justification for a divorce (Leviticus 15:25; Deu 24:1). Hence, no doubt, her desire to get cured as it were by stealth, without being obliged to make a public avowal of her disorder. The faith which actuated her was not altogether free from superstition, for she conceived of the miraculous power of Jesus as acting in a purely physical manner. The word κράσπεδον, which we translate by the hem (of the garment), denotes one of the four tassels or tufts of scarlet woollen cord attached to the four corners of the outer robe, which were intended to remind the Israelites of their law. Their name was zitzit (Num 15:38). As this robe, which was of a rectangular form, was worn like a woman's shawl, two of the corners being allowed to hang down close together on the back, we see the force of the expression came behind. Had it been, as is ordinarily understood, the lower hem of the garment which she attempted to touch, she could not have succeeded, on account of the crowd which surrounded Jesus. This word κράσπεδον, according to Passow, comes from κέρας and πέδον, the forward part of a plain; or better, according to Schleusner, from κεκραμένον εἰς πέδον, that which hangs down towards the ground.

Both Mark and Luke date the cure from the moment that she touched. Matthew speaks of it as taking place a little later, and as the effect of Jesus' word. But this difference belongs, as we shall see, to Matthew's omission of the following details, and not to any difference of view as to the efficient cause of the cure.

The difficulty about this miracle is, that it seems to have been wrought outside the consciousness and will of Jesus, and thus appears to be of a magical character.

In each of Jesus' miracles there are, as it were, two poles: the receptivity of the person who is the subject of it, and the activity of Him by whom it is wrought. The maximum of action in one of these factors may correspond with the minimum of action in the other. In the case of the impotent man at the pool of Bethesda, in whom it was necessary to excite even the desire to be cured, as well as in the raising of the dead, the human receptivity was reduced to its minimum. The activity of the Lord in these cases reached its highest degree of initiation and intensity. In the present instance it is the reverse. The receptivity of the woman reaches such a degree of energy, that it snatches, as it were, the cure from Jesus. The action of Jesus is here confined to that willingness to bless and save which always animated Him in His relations with men.

He did not, however, remain unconscious of the virtue which He had just put forth; but He perceives that there is a tincture of superstition in the faith which had acted in this way towards Him; and, as Riggenbach admirably shows (Leben Jesu, p. 442), His design in what follows is to purify this incipient faith. But in order to do this, it is necessary to discover the author of the deed. There is no reason for not attributing to Jesus the ignorance implied in the question, “Who touched me?” Anything like feigning ignorance ill comports with the candour of His character.

Peter shows his usual forwardness, and ventures to remonstrate with Jesus. But, so far from this detail implying any ill-will towards this apostle, Luke attributes the same fault to the other apostles, and equally without any sinister design, since Mark does the same thing (Luke 8:31). Jesus does not stop to rebuke His disciple; He pursues His inquiry; only He now substitutes the assertion, Somebody hath touched me, for the question, Who touched me? Further, He no longer lays stress upon the person, but upon the act, in reply to the observation of Peter, which tended to deny it. The verb ἅψασθαι, to feel about, denotes a voluntary, deliberate touch, and not merely an accidental contact. Mark adds that, while putting this question, He cast around Him a scrutinizing glance. The reading ἐξεληλυθυῖαν (Alex.) signifies properly: “I feel myself in the condition of a man from whom a force has been withdrawn.” This is somewhat artificial. The received reading, ἐξελθοῦσαν, merely denotes the outgoing of a miraculous power, which is more simple. Jesus had been inwardly apprised of the influence which He had just exerted.

The joy of success gives the woman courage to acknowledge both her act and her malady; but the words, before all the people, are designed to show how much this avowal cost her. Luke says trembling, to which Mark adds fearing; she feels afraid of having sinned against the Lord by acting without His knowledge. He reassures her (Luke 8:48), and confirms her in the possession of the blessing which she had in some measure taken by stealth. This last incident is also brought out by Mark (ver. 34). The intention of Jesus, in the inquiry He had just instituted, appears more especially in the words, Thy faith hath saved thee; thy faith, and not, as thou wast thinking, the material touch. Jesus thus assigns to the moral sphere (in Luke and Mark as well as in Matthew) the virtue which she referred solely to the physical sphere. The word θάρσει, take courage, which is wanting in several Alex., is probably taken from Matthew. The term saved implies more than the healing of the body. Her recovered health is a link which henceforth will attach her to Jesus as the personification of salvation; and this link is to her the beginning of salvation in the full sense of the term.

The words in Matthew, “And the woman was healed from that same hour,” refer to the time occupied by the incident, taken altogether.

Eusebius says (H. E. 7.18, ed. Loemmer) that this woman was a heathen and dwelt at Paneas, near the source of the Jordan, and that in his time her house was still shown, having at its entrance two brass statues on a stone pedestal. One represented a woman on her knees, with her hands held out before her, in the attitude of a suppliant; the other, a man standing with his cloak thrown over his shoulder, and his hand extended towards the woman. Eusebius had been into the house himself, and had seen this statue, which represented, it was said, the features of Jesus.