including a woman who had suffered from bleeding for twelve years. She had spent all her money on physicians, but no one was able to heal her. She came up behind Jesus and touched the fringe of His cloak, and immediately her bleeding stopped. “Who touched Me?” Jesus asked. But they all denied it. “Master,” said Peter, “the people are crowding and pressing against You.” But Jesus declared, “Someone touched Me, for I know that power has gone out from Me.” Then the woman, seeing that she could not escape notice, came trembling and fell down before Him. In the presence of all the people, she explained why she had touched Him and how she had immediately been healed. “Daughter,” said Jesus, “your faith has healed you. Go in peace.”
When a woman has a discharge consisting of blood from her body, she will be unclean due to her menstruation for seven days, and anyone who touches her will be unclean until evening. Anything on which she lies or sits during her menstruation will be unclean, and anyone who touches her bed must wash his clothes and bathe with water, and he will be unclean until evening. Whoever touches any furniture on which she was sitting must wash his clothes and bathe with water, and he will be unclean until evening. And whether it is a bed or furniture on which she was sitting, whoever touches it will be unclean until evening.
When a woman has a discharge of her blood for many days at a time other than her menstrual period, or if it continues beyond her period, she will be unclean all the days of her unclean discharge, just as she is during the days of her menstruation. Any bed on which she lies or any furniture on which she sits during the days of her discharge will be unclean, like her bed during her menstrual period. Anyone who touches these things will be unclean; he must wash his clothes and bathe with water, and he will be unclean until evening.
“Speak to the Israelites and tell them that throughout the generations to come they are to make for themselves tassels for the corners of their garments, with a blue cord on each tassel. These will serve as tassels for you to look at, so that you may remember all the commandments of the LORD, that you may obey them and not prostitute yourselves by following your own heart and your own eyes.
Walk the Square · a single-voice walk of this pair around the Clowney square13:30
Significance
This pair is the transmission half of a connection whose diagnostic half is carried by the companion file on Leviticus 15:25. Leviticus 15:25-27 is the verse that classifies the woman's condition — a discharge of blood "for many days at a time other than her menstrual period," which leaves her unclean for as long as it lasts, twelve years in her case. Leviticus 15:19-23 is the verse that makes her approach to Jesus a public transgression: it establishes that uncleanness travels outward by touch, so that whoever touches her, and whatever she sits on, and whoever touches that, becomes unclean until evening. Read together, the two passages explain why she came from behind, why she hoped to escape notice, and why she "came trembling and fell down before Him" when Jesus asked who had touched him. Under the Levitical rule she had just defiled a rabbi in front of a crowd.
Found via
Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
Reference Type
Allusion
Connection Method(s)
Contrast + Longitudinal Theme
One further detail is worth recording precisely because it is often asserted loosely. What she touches is the κράσπεδον of his cloak (Luke 8:44) — the same word the Septuagint uses in Numbers 15:38-39 for the tassel God commanded on the corners of Israelite garments as a memory-aid for the commandments. She reaches for the most conspicuously Torah-observant thing on his body. The connection to Leviticus 15 is a matter of legal situation rather than shared vocabulary; the connection to Numbers 15 is lexical.
The method is Contrast, and this follows the vault's ruling on the ceremonial-uncleanness trajectory: where the New Testament reverses rather than amplifies the Old Testament pattern, the method is Contrast rather than typology. Leviticus 15:19 states a rule of contagion — impurity moves from the unclean to the clean, and the clean party bears the cost. In Luke 8:44 the current runs the other way. She touches him and her flow stops; he is not defiled, and what leaves him is not purity lost but power gone out. The categorical claim of the transmission rule is negated, not heightened. The earlier assignment of Typology here is withdrawn: Leviticus 15:19 is a case law making no pattern-claim, and no New Testament text reads it as a type. The Longitudinal Theme is the canon-wide movement from cleanness maintained by separation toward holiness that cleanses by contact.
What Jesus does with the moment is the point of it. He could have let her slip away healed and anonymous, which is all she asked for. Instead he stops a crowd, refuses Peter's sensible protest, and waits until she has told the whole story "in the presence of all the people" — and then gives her a word she had not dared hope for: "Daughter." A woman who had been legally untouchable for twelve years is publicly named as family, told her faith has healed her, and sent away in peace. He was not willing to heal her body and leave her in the shadows. That is the kind of Savior worth wanting: the holiness that runs toward the unclean, and the tenderness that will not let the healed stay hidden.
