The Gospel of Luke
The Two Daughters: Luke 8,40-56
The first point of contact is that both women are daughters (8,42 & 8,48).
The other is that one is twelve years old while the other had been bleeding for twelve years (8,42 & 43). Luke has highlighted this contact by making it in adjacent verses.
The woman as indicated by Leviticus would have been unclean because of her bleeding. She cannot therefore be part of the people of Israel. By joining a large crowd,and Luke emphasises the size more than Mark, she is breaking all taboos and even more so when she touches Jesus.
She touches the fringes of Jesus' clothes. As the book of Numbers makes clear (Num 15,37-41) this detail highlights that Jesus was an orthodox Jew.
It is not surprising therefore that the woman comes forth trembling (9,47). Luke omits Mark's detail of Jesus looking around to see who touched him (Mk 5,32). He does though stress the woman's public proclamation of her healing. Maybe this is an anticipation of later Christian witness.
Jesus's reaction is that her faith has saved the women whom he calls "Daughter". This is in line with Luke's stress on faith and salvation (8,12, for example). The healing is not magic, the result of touching Jesus. It is also high commendation of this unnamed woman.
The outer story begins with the crowd welcoming Jesus, 8,40. Welcome is a theme of this Gospel: in 9,11 Jesus welcomes the crowd while in 10,38 Martha will welcome Jesus.
In contrast to the woman, Jairus in verse 41 expects Jesus to go with him to his daughter. As with the only son of the widow of Nairn (7,12), so here we have an only daughter. His grief though is evident.
In the second half of this outer story, Luke stresses that the girl is dead in verse 53.
Jesus' reaction to the death of the daughter is once again to highlight the link between faith and being saved (8,50), see 7,12.
Jesus himself now breaks taboo by touching a corpse which is unclean. His command to the girl to rise up is the same word which will be used for Jesus' resurrection.
In verse 56, the parents are amazed. There is no mention here of faith as for the woman in the other story or the centurion in 7,9. The exhortation in 8,50 has been fulfilled by the woman in 8,48.
Back now to the main page .