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 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.
Significance
The woman with a twelve-year hemorrhage (Luke 8:43) was in a state of chronic ritual impurity under Leviticus 15:25-27, which classified any woman with an ongoing flow of blood as unclean and rendered unclean anyone or anything she touched. This makes her approach to Jesus — touching the fringe of his garment — a bold transgression of purity boundaries. Rather than rendering Jesus unclean, her touch results in immediate healing: power flows from him to her, reversing the normal direction of contagion. The miracle demonstrates that Jesus does not absorb impurity; he overcomes it. This is a key Christological point: the one who fulfills the Levitical purity system is not contaminated by contact with uncleanness but instead cleanses what he touches. The miracle functions as an enacted parable of the new covenant's reversal of the curse, where holiness is now more contagious than impurity.
