Bible Strands
Matthew 9:20
Suddenly a woman who had suffered from bleeding for twelve years came up behind Him and touched the fringe of His cloak.
Berean Standard Bible
Follow its threads on the canvas →
Study note
Setting — Jesus is walking toward Jairus’s house with His disciples when a woman suffering from a twelve-year hemorrhage approaches from behind Him. The narrative shifts focus from the official’s request to this sudden, unannounced encounter.
The words — The Greek ἰδοὺ (idou) translates to “behold,” signaling a sudden narrative shift, while αἱμορροοῦσα (haimorroousa) literally means “having a flux of blood.” These terms mark the woman’s condition and the abrupt interruption of the preceding scene.
The thread — The same woman and her twelve-year hemorrhage appear in Luke 8:43, while the practice of touching the fringe of His cloak for healing recurs in Mark 6:56 and Matthew 14:36. These passages show a consistent pattern of desperate physical contact with Jesus in response to chronic illness.
Why it lands — The text records a specific act of physical contact without commentary, leaving the mechanism of healing unexplained. It requires the reader to observe how proximity to Jesus functions as the immediate catalyst for intervention.
Drafted by a language model from the text, its original words and its cross-references, then checked against them. It can still be wrong: open the verse in the app to report it.
The Greek words
King James Version
And, behold, a woman, which was diseased with an issue of blood twelve years, came behind him, and touched the hem of his garment:
Cross-references
- Luke 8:43 including a woman who had suffered from bleeding for twelve years. She had spent all her money on physicians, but no one was able to heal her.
- Mark 6:56 And wherever He went—villages and towns and countrysides—they laid the sick in the marketplaces and begged Him just to let them touch the fringe of His cloak. And all who touched Him were healed.
- Matthew 14:36 and begged Him just to let them touch the fringe of His cloak. And all who touched Him were healed.
- Mark 5:25 And a woman was there who had suffered from bleeding for twelve years.
- Deuteronomy 22:12 You are to make tassels on the four corners of the cloak you wear.
- Leviticus 15:25 When a woman has a discharge of her blood for many days at a time other than her menstrual period, or if it continues beyond her period, she will be unclean all the days of her unclean discharge, just as she is during the days of her menstruation.
- Matthew 23:5 All their deeds are done for men to see. They broaden their phylacteries and lengthen their tassels.
- Acts 5:15 As a result, people brought the sick into the streets and laid them on cots and mats, so that at least Peter’s shadow might fall on some of them as he passed by.
- Numbers 15:38 “Speak to the Israelites and tell them that throughout the generations to come they are to make for themselves tassels for the corners of their garments, with a blue cord on each tassel.
- Acts 19:12 so that even handkerchiefs and aprons that had touched him were taken to the sick, and the diseases and evil spirits left them.