📖 Biblical Definition
The Woman with the Issue of Blood was an unnamed woman who had suffered a 12-year hemorrhage, spent all her money on physicians, and grown worse. Hearing of Jesus, she approached in the crowd, touched the hem of His garment, and was healed instantly. Christ asked who had touched Him; she came forward trembling, told the truth; He commended her faith and dismissed her in peace. The story interlocks with Jairus's daughter (Mark 5).
📜 Webster 1828 Definition
Unnamed woman with 12-year hemorrhage; healed by touching the hem of Christ's garment (Mk 5:25-34).
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Three Synoptic accounts: Mt 9:20-22, Mk 5:25-34, Lk 8:43-48. Mark's is most detailed: which had suffered many things of many physicians, and had spent all that she had, and was nothing bettered, but rather grew worse.
Levitical law (Lev 15:25-30) made her chronically unclean; her reaching for Christ's hem was a violation of social-ritual barriers. Christ's response was not rebuke but commendation. The healing reversed both her condition and her isolation.
📖 Key Scripture
Mark 5:25 — "And a certain woman, which had an issue of blood twelve years."
Mark 5:28 — "For she said, If I may touch but his clothes, I shall be whole."
Mark 5:29 — "And straightway the fountain of her blood was dried up."
Mark 5:34 — "Daughter, thy faith hath made thee whole; go in peace, and be whole of thy plague."
⚠️ Modern Corruption
Modern Christianity often misses the Levitical context: the woman's touch ritually defiled Christ; instead, Christ's purity flowed outward and made her clean.
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Levitical law would have transferred her uncleanness to anyone she touched. She reached for the hem in fear, expecting nothing but transmission. The opposite happened: Christ's holiness was contagious. Cleanness flowed from Him to her.
Christ called her daughter (Mk 5:34) — the only person in the Gospels He addresses with that term. The 12-year outcast was, in His sight, daughter. Restoration was not just physical; it was familial.
🔗 Greek & Hebrew Roots
Greek haimorroousa (one having a flow of blood).
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Greek haima (blood) plus rheo (to flow); behind English hemorrhage.
Note: the woman is unnamed in all three Synoptic accounts.
Usage
"Christ's holiness was contagious."
"Cleanness flowed from Him to her."
"The 12-year outcast was, in His sight, daughter."