Luke 8:43-48 meaning

The parallel Gospel accounts for Luke 8:43-48 are Matthew 9:20-22 and Mark 5:25-34.

The Capernaum crowds were pressing against Jesus as He worked His way through them on an urgent mission to heal Jairus’s dying daughter (Luke 8:41-42). But within this crowd was a woman of faith with a longstanding illness who had no one to heal her but Jesus.

Luke introduces us to this woman:

And a woman who had a hemorrhage for twelve years, and could not be healed by anyone (v 43).

This hemorrhage seems to have been a case of heavy and frequent menstrual bleeding. And this woman had suffered physically, financially, and socially from her hemorrhage for twelve years. She had suffered from her hemorrhage for about as long as Jairus’s daughter had been alive (Luke 8:42).

Physically, her hemorrhage would have been painful and exhausting. The perpetual loss of iron from the bleeding would doubtlessly have made her feel tired and weak. She sought the aid of doctors, but as Luke pointed out—her hemorrhage was beyond cure of ancient physicians—she could not be healed by anyone. Mark writes that she “had endured much at the hands of many physicians…and was not helped at all, but rather had grown worse” (Mark 5:26).

Financially, her quest for a cure had ruined her. Mark also writes that she “had spent all that she had” (Mark 5:26).

Socially, her hemorrhage would been caused her to remain in a constant state of ceremonial uncleanliness. The woman’s ritual impurity would have restricted her from participating in religious activities and from having close contact with others.

According to the Law of Moses, anyone who she touched or who touched her clothes also became ceremonially unclean until he bathed in water and then waited until the beginning of a new day (Leviticus 15:19-30). Because any physical contact with other people transferred her uncleanness to them, she was likely socially isolated and ostracized.

The woman’s perpetual uncleanliness prevented her from entering the temple and greatly reduced her participation in religious and/or community gatherings.

The Gospels do not say whether or not this woman was married, but it appears that she was alone. If this woman was alone, she may have been unable to marry because of her condition or perhaps divorced and abandoned because of it.

Beyond the physical and financial tolls, her social isolation would probably have affected her mental and emotional well-being during this ordeal of twelve years. Her situation seemed hopeless.

But this woman was not without hope. She had heard about Jesus and His miraculous power to heal (Mark 5:27a). “She was saying to herself, ‘If I only touch His garment, I will get well’” (Matthew 9:21). This woman believed Jesus had the power to heal her and that He would heal her if only she could touch His garment.

But touching the fringe of His garment meant getting close enough to Jesus for her to be able to touch His clothes.

The crowds that were pressing against Jesus as He went to Jairus’s house provided the opportunity for her to approach Him. And when Jesus came near her, the woman came up behind Him and touched the fringe of His cloak (v 44a).

The woman touched the fringe of Jesus’s cloak, because she believed His power would heal her through this action. She was right.

and immediately her hemorrhage stopped (v 44b).

By touching the fringe of His cloak, it is understood that she touched the tassels of the rabbinical shawl that Jesus wore. There are several likely reasons why the woman decided to touch the fringe of His cloak as she sought to be healed.

1. One possible reason for why she touched the tassels of Jesus’s rabbinic shawl may be because she believed that they had a special power.
   Tassels (and phylacteries) were worn by Jewish religious leaders, including Pharisees, Sadducees, and scribes, who often made a show of them to display their righteousness before others. The larger and more ostentatious the tassels, the more righteous the man who wore them was perceived to be (Matthew 23:5). Because of this, many people associated a leader’s tassels with his righteousness. This may explain why the woman was set on touching the fringe of Jesus’s cloak—she reached for the tassels, believing in the power and righteousness associated with them.
2. A second possible reason explaining why the woman touched the tassels of Jesus’s rabbinic shawl may be because she did not want to cause Him to become ceremonially unclean by touching His person.
   Of the first two reasons, possibility #2 seems to be the more likely because, as we will see, Jesus praises the woman’s faith in Him (v 48). Jesus would probably not have praised the woman’s faith if her faith was in something other than Himself—like a superstition concerning tassels as possibility #1 suggests.
3. A third reason for why the woman touched the fringe of Jesus’s cloak to be healed was because she was ashamed of her condition.
   If she had stopped Jesus, or grabbed Him, it would have caused a scene and potentially brought more shame upon her. By only touching the fringe of His cloak, she could be made well without attracting unwanted attention.

It is possible that the woman had more than one of these motives for acting as she did.

In any case, immediately after the woman touched the fringe of Jesus’s cloak in faith, her hemorrhage stopped.

And Jesus said, “Who is the one who touched Me?” (v 45a).

Jesus’s question may have seemed like a strange thing for Him to ask as He made His way through crowds of people pressing against Him. In a most obvious sense, many people had touched Him. But Jesus was aware of the power proceeding from Him (Mark 5:30).

Meanwhile, no one in the crowds immediately admitted to touching Him.

And while they were all denying it, Peter said, “Master, the people are crowding and pressing in on You” (v 45).

All the people among the crowds pressing against Jesus were denying that they were the one who touched Him.

Jesus’s disciple Peter pointed out to Jesus the impossibility of answering this question when he said: “Master, the people are crowding and pressing in on You.” The clear implication of Peter’s statement of the obvious to his Master was, “You are asking a question with an unknowable answer.”

In Mark’s Gospel account, which was in part based off Peter’s testimonies, the disciples also say:

“You see the crowd pressing in on You, and You say, ‘Who touched Me?’”
(Mark 5:31b)

Peter and the disciples may have been frustrated or bothered by the apparent absurdity of Jesus’s question at this time.

But Jesus knew exactly what had happened and who had touched Him. Jesus was not asking this question for His own sake. Neither does it seem that His question was primarily directed to His disciples’. Rather it seems that He asked this question for the sake of the one who desperately came to Him for healing. Jesus was giving her an opportunity to come out of the shadows of shame she felt because of her hemorrhage.

But Jesus said, “Someone did touch Me, for I was aware that power had gone out of Me” (v 46).

Jesus clarified to Peter that His question was not about the people crowding and pressing in on Him. Jesus told Peter the reason He stopped and asked this question of the crowd was because He was aware that someone had touched Him and that He was aware that power had gone out of Him to heal that person.

With all the people denying that they had touched Jesus in this manner, Mark writes what happened next:

“And He looked around to see the woman who had done this. But the woman fearing and trembling, aware of what had happened to her, came and fell down before Him and told Him the whole truth.”
(Mark 5:32-33)

Luke writes:

When the woman saw that she had not escaped notice, she came trembling and fell down before Him, and declared in the presence of all the people the reason why she had touched Him, and how she had been immediately healed (v 47).

The woman knew Jesus was speaking about her. Jesus’s declaration in front of the crowd that power had left Him because someone touched Him convinced the woman that her discreet act was not secret after all. She saw that Jesus knew what had happened and that she had not escaped His notice. The fact that she tried to escape any notice indicates that she likely felt an element of embarrassment or shame from her hemorrhage and/or the ceremonial uncleanness that it cast upon her.

She approached Jesus a second time, now with the attention and presence of all the people watching her.

Trembling, she revealed herself and she fell down before Jesus.

The woman’s trembling indicates how she was overcome with intense emotion. Her emotions were perhaps mixed with shame over her condition, joy over her being healed, and fear over how Jesus would react to her touching Him.

The fact that the woman fell down before Him was a humble display of her own sense of unworthiness in the presence of Jesus’s complete worthiness. Falling down before Him like this was a public act of worship.

Next, the woman publicly confessed her story. Mark reports “she told Him the whole truth” (Mark 5:33b).

She declared in the presence of all the people about her hemorrhage and suffering and about how her desperate but failed attempts to be healed were the reason for why she had touched Jesus. He was her only hope.

She also confessed how when she touched Jesus, she had been immediately healed.

And He said to her, “Daughter, your faith has made you well; go in peace” (v 48).

Jesus demonstrated His care and affection for this woman by calling her “Daughter.” He emphasized that it was her faith that has made her well.

While Christ's power healed her, she received His healing because of her faith in His power, even though it was timid. Matthew adds that Jesus reassured her by saying “take courage” (Matthew 9:22).

With her body healed and her faith affirmed, Jesus encouraged this woman to go in peace. This was a joyful occasion for the woman. But as this miracle was taking place, dreadful news was on its way to Jairus, the deathly sick girl’s father (Luke 8:41-42, 49).