Mark 5:26-33

5:26 She had endured a great deal under the care of many doctors and had spent all that she had. Yet instead of getting better, she grew worse. 5:27 When she heard about Jesus, she came up behind him in the crowd and touched his cloak,¹ 5:28 for she kept saying,² “If only I touch his clothes, I will be healed.”³ 5:29 At once the bleeding stopped,⁴ and she felt in her body that she was healed of her disease. 5:30 Jesus knew at once that power had gone out from him. He turned around in the crowd and said, “Who touched my clothes?” 5:31 His disciples said to him, “You see the crowd pressing against you and you say, ‘Who touched me?’” 5:32 But⁵ he looked around to see who had done it. 5:33 Then the woman, with fear and trembling, knowing what had happened to her, came and fell down before him and told him the whole truth.

¹tn Grk “garment,” but here ἱμάτιον (Jimation) denotes the outer garment in particular.

²tn The imperfect verb is here taken iteratively, for the context suggests that the woman was trying to muster up the courage to touch Jesus’ cloak.

³tn Grk “saved.”

sn In this pericope the author uses a term for being healed (Grk “saved”) that would have spiritual significance to his readers. It may be a double entendre (cf. parallel in Matt 9:21 which uses the same term), since elsewhere he uses verbs that simply mean “heal”: If only the reader would “touch” Jesus, he too would be “saved.”

⁴tn Grk “the flow of her blood dried up.”

sn The woman was most likely suffering from a vaginal hemorrhage, in which case her bleeding would make her ritually unclean.

⁵tn Grk “And.” Here καί (kai) has been translated as “but” to indicate the contrast present in this context.