Jesus and WomenНамуна

The Woman with the Issue of Blood

Read Malachi 4:2 and Matthew 9:20-22.

In Matthew 9 we see a woman with an ongoing issue of blood that had lasted twelve years. This condition would have rendered her unclean according to Jewish law. Being considered unclean according to Jewish law had some significant effects on her day-to-day life. She would not have been able to attend temple or synagogue; in this time and culture, that prohibition amounted to effectively being cut off from the religious community and teaching. In fact, the religious community had effectively turned its back on her and avoided association with her.

This woman, the one who had been dealing with years of pain—physical, emotional, and spiritual—reached for the “edge” of Jesus’ cloak (v. 20, NIV). The Greek word for “edge” used in this passage is kraspedon. 1 This same word appears in the Septuagint, the Greek translation of the Old Testament, in reference to the tassels that all Jews fixed on the “edges” or “corners/wings” of their outer garments. The Hebrew word for “edge” is kanafayim. The woman with the issue of blood reached for Jesus’ healing kanafayim/kraspedon—corner, edge, wing—of His tallit. 

Consider what it must have taken for this woman to reach out to Jesus—a woman who had been isolated from the community of God’s people and access to spiritual teaching. I believe this woman acted out of significant faith. I think that in reaching out to grab the wing of Jesus’ tallit, she was taking God at His Word in Malachi 4:2 and was asserting her belief in Jesus as the Son of God.

And don’t miss this. In this moment, Jesus rewarded her faith, healed her, and brought her back to life within her Jewish community. He provided physical and spiritual healing. By reaching out to her, He helped usher her back into society and stuck up for her in the eyes of the world. In her cultural context, the idea of someone unclean touching a holy rabbi like Jesus would have been scandalous and risky. According to the tradition of the day, Jesus would have had every right to react harshly toward her and dismiss her, maybe even kill her. 2 Pay close attention to Jesus’ reaction here. He didn’t condemn. He didn’t dismiss. Instead, the Bible says Jesus turned to her, He saw her, and He said, “Take heart, daughter … your faith has healed you” (Matt. 9:22). What a gospel-gorgeous truth. Praise the Living God.

1. Strong’s G2899, Blue Letter Bible, accessed Oct. 7, 2019, blueletterbible.org/lang/lexicon/lexicon.cfm?t=kjv&strongs=g2899. 
2. Kent Dobson, NIV First Century Study Bible (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2014), 1,208.