The Greek verb haimorrhoeo (αἱμορροέω) means to suffer from a flow of blood or hemorrhage. It is formed from haima (blood) + rheō (to flow). The word appears only once in the New Testament — in Matthew 9:20, describing the woman who had been suffering from bleeding for twelve years and who was healed when she touched the fringe of Jesus' garment.
The condition she suffered rendered her perpetually ceremonially unclean under Mosaic law (Leviticus 15:25–27), which meant social isolation, inability to participate in worship, and untouchability — for twelve years.
The healing of the woman with the hemorrhage is one of the most tender accounts in the Gospels. She had spent twelve years in a state of perpetual uncleanness — excluded from the community, unable to be touched, financially ruined by doctors. She approached Jesus not in public confidence but in desperate anonymity, reasoning, 'If I just touch his garment, I will be made well.'
What happened defied theritual logic of the law: normally, uncleanness was contagious — touching an unclean person made you unclean too. But when Jesus was touched, the reverse happened: His cleanness was contagious. Power flowed out of Him and transformed her condition. Jesus did not become unclean by her touch; she became clean by His. This is the Gospel in miniature — Christ absorbs our uncleanness and transmits His wholeness.