5:35-43
The Reward of Confession
It was not the purpose of the Lord Jesus that His mighty works should be done “in a corner,” but openly and before all the people. Accordingly the public confession of the woman was made. She then received the additional and inestimable benefit of the assuring words of the Lord addressed personally to her. She learned from His own lips that her application to Him for healing was not unwelcome, and that His gift of mercy was not made grudgingly but with His whole heart. Her fears were calmed and her soul set at rest. And the words spoken were such as would be her inward strength and stay when the Messiah was no longer present. The Lord said to her:
(1) Daughter, be of good comfort,
(2) Thy faith hath made thee whole (saved thee);
(3) Go in peace,
(4) Be whole from thy plague.
The last phrase occurs only in Mark. The tense (perfect) of the verb employed was a guarantee for the future. It indicated the thorough nature of the cure and precluded a recurrence of her trouble. The words implied, “Be permanently whole [hale, healthy] from thy plague.”
(1) The considerate words of comfort used by the Lord are illustrative of that tender compassion of His, ever in active exercise towards those who sought Him in their distress. He knew the intense mental depression which accompanies protracted physical suffering, and especially so when, as in this case, the disease repeatedly baffles human attempts to cure. The heart is sick with oft-deferred hope, and the debilitated frame is further weakened by the added burden of nervous anxiety and worry. But while “heaviness in the heart of a man maketh it stoop, a good word maketh it glad” (Prov. 12:25).
There are many instances of the Lord removing such feelings of distress by His word. To the trembling woman before Him, whether her fears were the indirect result of the wasting disease from which she had now been freed, or whether they arose from her apprehension that she had offended the Great Physician, He addressed her with the words, both tender and strength-giving, “Daughter, be of good comfort.”
The term of address, “Daughter,” recalls His words to the weeping women who bewailed and lamented Him as He was led to the place of crucifixion. “Daughters of Jerusalem, weep not for me, but weep for yourselves and for your children” (Luke 23:28). To the bowed woman, He said, not “Daughter,” but, “Woman, thou art loosed from thine infirmity,” though He also spoke of her, referring to her faith, as “a daughter of Abraham” (Luke 13:12, 16). But this occasion is the only recorded one on which the Lord used this title of “Daughter” simply, and it soothed the woman's tremors and fears. She caught a glimpse of that “perfect love which casteth out fear” (1 John 4:18).
(2) It is here recorded for the first time in the course of this Gospel that faith is the means of obtaining blessing. There is no encouragement of any superstitious veneration for the tassel of His robe which was touched. The Lord declared to the woman in the hearing of all that the faith within her had saved her, or made her whole. Her cure was not a right which she could have claimed as an Israelite, but the blessing was accorded to her because she had exercised faith in Jehovah's Servant. This faith of hers the Lord undoubtedly “saw,” as He did that of the paralytic and his friends (Mark 2:5); only in this case by His words to the woman, “Thy faith hath saved thee,” He made it clear to all concerned that faith on the part of the recipient is essential whether the salvation is physical, or moral as in the case of another woman (Luke 7:50).
The report of the sayings and doings of the Prophet of Nazareth had spread abroad throughout Galilee, but with little effect upon the people generally. Isaiah might well ask in prophetic view of this time, “Lord, who hath believed our report?” But this woman had believed the report, for we read, “having heard the things concerning Jesus she came in the crowd behind and touched his garment.” And having believed the report, the strength of the arm of Jehovah for healing was revealed to her and in her (Isai. 53:1).
Faith in the heart may express itself in a variety of ways—in importunate earnestness, like Abraham pleading for Sodom and Gomorrah, or in patient endurance of suffering, as in the cases of Job and Joseph. Here the mute appeal of the woman's touch shows how eloquent before God the very silence of faith may be. In like manner the dumb posture of Hannah did not escape the pitying eye of Jehovah (1 Sam. 1). For it is with the heart man believes, whatever the mode in which faith expresses itself before man.
It is worth noticing that the word σώζω, usually translated in the New Testament “save,” is employed in its general sense of deliverance in regard to the healing of this woman in all three accounts: Matt. 9:21, 22; Mark 5:28, 34; Luke 8:48. It is also applied to the restoration of the daughter of Jairus, Mark 5:23; Luke 8:50; to the healing of Bartimus, Mark 10:52, Luke 18:42; of the Gadarene demoniac, Luke 8:36; of the Samaritan leper, Luke 17:19; of many that touched Jesus, Mark 6:56; of the impotent man at the temple gate, Acts 4:9; of the cripple at Lystra, Acts 14:9. In these instances the Greek word is translated “made whole,” or, “healed.” The disciples, speaking to the Lord concerning Lazarus, also made use of the word, and in this passage it is rendered “do well,” or, “recover “: “If he sleep he shall do well” (John 11:12).
The utterance by our Lord of this form of benediction, “Go in peace,” is only recorded in one other instance in the Gospels, and there, as on this occasion, it is associated with the faith that saved. To the woman who sought the Lord in Simon the Pharisee's house for the forgiveness of sins He said, as He did to this woman who came to Him for a temporal benefit, “Thy faith hath saved thee; go in peace” (Luke 7:50). On account of this connection we are fairly entitled to regard these words as of greater significance than the ordinary farewell salutation of the East, such as we find in Ex. 4:18; Judg. 18:6 Sam. 1:17; 20:13, 42; 2 Kings 5:19; Acts 15:33. The Lord was infinitely above human conventionality in speech, such as James condemns (James 2:16). He had come to “ordain peace” for His people in the best and surest sense.
Peace, as it is here regarded, is an inward possession of the soul. It is the antithesis of fret, and anxiety which, in its gravest forms, may arise within a person from the sense of guilt before God or from the fear of death. Divine assurance alone can dispel this anxiety; hence peace is the sequel of faith, and is associated with the mind and heart. Confidence and calmness are connected in the oft-quoted promise, “Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on thee: because he trusteth in thee” (Isa. 26:3). And, in the New Testament, the apostle Paul wrote to the Philippians, “The peace of God, which passeth all understanding, shall guard your hearts and thoughts in Christ Jesus” (Phil. 4:7).
Here the woman who came to the Lord in fear and trembling is bidden to depart in peace. The Prince of peace bestowed His royal boon upon her whose spirit had been broken by sorrow of heart (Prov. 15:13); while He, at the same time, proved Himself to be the Jehovah of prophecy giving first strength and then peace; “The LORD will give strength unto his people; the LORD will bless his people with peace” (Psa. 29:11).
In the phrase already noted as peculiar to Mark's Gospel, “Be permanently recovered from thy plague,” we observe another of those minute touches which emphasize the special object of this Evangelist. Mark was inspired of God to show how thoroughly the divine Servant did His work. And it is in his Gospel therefore that it is recorded that the people said of Him, “He hath done all things well” (7:37). The cure of this woman is an instance in point; hers was not a temporary relief but a complete deliverance from the disease which had afflicted her throughout the previous twelve years.
[W. J. H.]