“And a woman having an issue of blood twelve years , which had spent all her living upon physicians, neither could be healed of any,”
My Notes
What Does Luke 8:43 Mean?
"A woman having an issue of blood twelve years, which had spent all her living upon physicians, neither could be healed of any." Luke — himself a physician — records that the medical establishment had completely failed this woman. Twelve years of hemorrhaging. Every doctor consulted. Every cent spent. And the result: nothing. She was incurable by human medicine.
The twelve-year duration means this woman has been ritually unclean for over a decade. Under Levitical law, her condition made her untouchable — everything she sat on, everyone she touched, became unclean. She was socially isolated, religiously excluded, financially depleted, and medically hopeless.
Luke's detail — "spent all her living" — means she's now destitute. The illness took not just her health but her wealth. She began with means (she could afford doctors) and ended with nothing. The disease consumed everything: her body, her money, her social standing, and her hope.
Reflection Questions
- 1.What have you been 'bleeding' from — physically, emotionally, financially — that nothing has healed?
- 2.How does the woman's social isolation compound her physical suffering?
- 3.What does it mean that Jesus' purity is contagious rather than her impurity?
- 4.What 'touch' — reaching for Jesus in desperation — do you need to make?
Devotional
Twelve years of bleeding. Every doctor visited. Every penny spent. And nobody could help her. She started with money and hope. She ended with neither.
Luke, the physician, records the failure of medicine without defensiveness. The doctors couldn't do it. Whatever her condition — chronic hemorrhaging that resisted every treatment available — the medical establishment exhausted itself and her resources without producing a cure. The honest physician records medicine's limitation.
The social dimension is as devastating as the medical. Twelve years of ritual uncleanness means twelve years of isolation. She couldn't go to the Temple. She couldn't touch her children. She couldn't sit in a public chair without contaminating it. Her illness made her a social leper — present but untouchable, alive but excluded.
When she touches Jesus' garment (verse 44), she's violating the purity code. She's making Him ritually unclean by her touch. But instead of her uncleanness contaminating Jesus, His holiness heals her. The flow goes the wrong direction — in the old system, impurity was contagious. In Jesus, purity is contagious. Her touch doesn't defile Him. His power cleanses her.
Twelve years of depletion — physical, financial, social, spiritual — reversed by a single touch. The doctors couldn't do in twelve years what Jesus did in a moment.
What have you been bleeding from for years that human solutions haven't touched?
Commentary
Trusted original commentary from respected historical Bible scholars and theologians.
Came behind him,.... In the press and crowd of people, being ashamed to come before him, and tell him her case:
and…
Spent all her living upon physicians - See the note on Mar 5:26.
Christ was driven away by the Gadarenes; they were weary of him, and willing to be rid of him. But when he had crossed…
which had spent all her living Literally, -having in addition spent" her-whole means of livelihood.
neither could be…
Cross References
Related passages throughout Scripture