The Loneliest Woman in the Bible

Reading Leviticus can feel a bit like the end of a medication ad when the narrator is suddenly speaking in 5x speed about all the ways you could die. The book is densely packed, is often skimmed in hyper-speed, and, just like the ends of those ads, it mentions a lot of ailments.

With a staggering 613 laws, the Torah covers a wide variety of situations. Some are contingent on the existence of a still-standing Temple. Some feel bizarrely random (like Deuteronomy 25:11–12).  Some promote health, holiness, and cleanliness. Half of Leviticus 15 is devoted solely to discussing the procedures a woman must follow regarding menstruation. Are we having fun yet?

Although I am so glad I didn’t have to endure such bodily functions thousands of years ago, as a Jewish woman who still reads these laws, I feel for the women who had to abide by them in the context of the ancient world.

But I feel for one woman in particular.

The Most Isolated Woman in Israel

Though unnamed, she’s commonly referred to as “the bleeding woman.” She lived near the Sea of Galilee in the north of Israel in the first century, and she was desperate.

According to the account in Mark, she had experienced bleeding for 12 straight years. “She had suffered a great deal under the care of many doctors and had spent all she had, yet instead of getting better she grew worse” (6:26). She had tried so hard to find help. Nothing worked.

She also knew the law laid out in Leviticus 15: 

She had spent 12 years being unclean. I can’t even imagine.

When a woman has a discharge of blood for many days at a time other than her monthly period or has a discharge that continues beyond her period, she will be unclean as long as she has the discharge, just as in the days of her period….Anyone who touches them will be unclean; they must wash their clothes and bathe with water, and they will be unclean till evening. (vv. 25, 27)

She had spent 12 years being unclean. I can’t even imagine.

Unfixable Uncleanliness

As with any other type of ritual uncleanliness, menstruation prevented women from entering the Temple courts and participating in much of communal life. To rejoin society, women were to follow certain instructions for cleansing, including bathing, sacrifices, and waiting. 

But her bleeding was unceasing, so no amount of rituals would allow her to rejoin society. By being in a permanent state of halachic uncleanliness, she couldn’t touch anyone without rendering them unclean, too. It's like the social distancing and isolation we experienced during a global pandemic, but even worse. And for 12 years.

Because of her affliction, this woman was prevented from going to the Temple, from joining community events, from joining society. Because of spending money on doctors, she was broke. Because of her ailment, she experienced shame. How could she socialize? How could she worship? How could she live? This bleeding woman demonstrates what it looks like to be separated from God. 

The law didn’t heal her body or her shame. But what she did in the face of that makes me downright emotional.

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The Moment Her Life Changed

She had heard about Jesus, and when he passed by, “she came up behind him in the crowd and touched his cloak, because she thought, ‘If I just touch his clothes, I will be healed.’ Immediately her bleeding stopped and she felt in her body that she was freed from her suffering” (Mark 5:27–29).

It was risky, it was desperate, and it was with an impressive amount of faith.

That’s a bold move. She was unclean, but she pushed through a crowd to get to Jesus (if any of them realized who she was and that she had rendered them unclean, it could have been very dangerous for her). And she grabbed the garment of an esteemed figure at the center of the crowd. It was risky, it was desperate, and it was with an impressive amount of faith. (Honestly, the fact that she still had such faith after being severed from corporate worship and society for so long is all the more impressive.)

But it wasn’t just any garment she grabbed. The Greek word used here (and in the parallel accounts in Matthew and Luke) for cloak can mean just an outer garment. But the account in Luke (and a similar reference in the following chapter of Mark) specifically says “edge of his cloak.” The Greek word for edge here, kraspedon, means “tassels.” 

This indicates she wasn’t grabbing the hem of some kind of an overcoat, but the tzitzit of Jesus’s garment. These fringes were commanded in Numbers 15 “for you to look at and remember all the commandments of the Lord” (v. 39). 

This unclean woman touched the symbol of the very Law that deemed her unclean.

Contagious Holiness

Because of the Law, we know that Jesus touching this woman would render him “impure.” Yet instead of the uncleanliness spreading, the woman was healed. This radical "contagious holiness” rather than “contagious impurity” demonstrates something new, powerful, and transformative. 

But it’s also something God spoke to the prophet Ezekiel about.

In chapter 36, verse 17, God says, “Son of man, when the people of Israel were living in their own land, they defiled it by their conduct and their actions. Their conduct was like a woman’s monthly uncleanness in my sight.”

But just a few verses later, God provides the remedy himself. 

I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh.

I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you will be clean; I will cleanse you from all your impurities and from all your idols. I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit in you and move you to follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws. Then you will live in the land I gave your ancestors; you will be my people, and I will be your God. I will save you from all your uncleanness. (vv. 25–29)

These verses in Ezekiel are depicting a process whereby we aren’t cleansed by our own ritual bathing, but by the intervening power of God himself. This woman was witnessing the words in Ezekiel manifest in real time.

Where the Law Leads

I think you can see why this woman’s story moves me so deeply. She was condemned by the words of Leviticus and redeemed through the words of Ezekiel. She experienced suffering, separation, and redemption.

When Jesus realized what had happened, he didn’t let her disappear back into the crowd. He called her out. “He turned around in the crowd and asked, ‘Who touched my clothes?’... The woman, knowing what had happened to her, came and fell at his feet and, trembling with fear, told him the whole truth. He said to her, ‘Daughter, your faith has healed you. Go in peace and be freed from your suffering’” (vv. 33–34).

This woman’s shame was public. But so too was her healing public. This woman who had experienced such separation was at the center of a crowd, speaking face to face with Jesus. He declared her clean in front of everyone that was pressing in from all sides. He called her Daughter. He not only healed her disease, but her connection to society, and her very name.

Today, as I read the Law, I’m prompted to think about its implication for us today. I’m thankful that it set us apart as a distinct people. I’m honored to be able to read it today. And ultimately, I’m grateful for the way it illuminates where our power ends and God’s begins.

Leviticus taught us to distinguish between the clean and the unclean, the holy and the unholy. Ezekiel taught us to look forward to the day when God himself would make us clean and holy. We have only to reach out, hands open and unclean, full of faith.