Mark 5:28
For she kept saying, “If only I touch His garments, I will be healed.”
BSB
ASV
For she said, If I touch but his garments, I shall be made whole.
KJV
For she said, If I may touch but his clothes, I shall be whole.
1834–1892
BRIEFLY consider this poor woman's case. She was afflicted with a disease of exceedingly long standing which not only wasted her strength and threatened to bring her speedily to the grave, but rendered her, according to the Jewish ceremonial Law, unclean, and therefore unable to mix in company. Thus she was doomed to be a poor, suffering, desponding, desolate woman. The physicians of those days were bold enough to attempt impossible cures, but their skill was not at all commensurate with their courage. They tormented their patients, but seldom relieved them of anything but their money.
She believed that he cured, not as a prophet, by virtue derived from God, but as the Son of God, by a virtue inherent in himself. Her case was such as she could not in modesty tell him publicly, as others did their grievances, and therefore a private cure was what she wished for, and her faith was suited to her case.
Rare words are the text's own signal of a deliberate thread: the fewer the occurrences, the more the places it appears belong together.
