Cambridge Greek Testament for Schools and Colleges - Luke 8:44 - 8:44

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Cambridge Greek Testament for Schools and Colleges - Luke 8:44 - 8:44


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44. προσελθοῦσα ὄπισθεν ἥψατο τοῦ κρασπέδου κ.τ.λ. ‘Approaching from behind touched the tassel of His outer robe.’ This is a miracle ‘by the way’ (obiter), but, as Fuller says, “His obiter is more to the purpose than our iter.” She sought to steal (as it were) a miracle of grace, and fancied that Christ’s miracles were a matter of nature, not of will and purpose. Probably the intense depression produced by her disease, aggravated by the manner in which for twelve years every one had kept aloof from her and striven not to touch her, had quite crushed her spirits. By the Levitic law she had to be “put apart, and whosoever toucheth her shall be unclean” (Lev 15:19; Lev 15:25). The word translated “border” (κράσπεδον, Heb. tsitsith) is a tassel at each “wing” or corner of the tallith or mantle (Mat 14:36). The Law (Num 15:38-40) required that each tassel should be bound with a thread (not as in E. V. ribband) of blue, the colour of heaven, and so the type of revelation. The strict Jews to this day wear these tassels, though they are usually concealed. The Pharisees, to proclaim their orthodoxy, made them conspicuously large, Mat 23:5. One of the four tassels hung over the shoulder at the back, and this was the one which the woman touched. (For full particulars of the Rabbinic rules about these tassels see an article by the present writer, in the Expositor, v. 219.) The quasi-sacredness of the tassels may have fostered her impulse to touch the one that hung in view.