I need to stop right here for a second & I’ll put all this together in a minute. I feel I need to show you how I see this woman. The Bible refers to her as a “Certain Woman”, which in those days would have most likely meant she was a woman of means, which means she most likely had a husband & many friends. However, this woman had an issue of blood for 12 years. During this time the laws of impurity covered the procedures for an issue of blood in a woman in the book of Leviticus. To understand fully the issue of blood & it’s impurities it’s centrality in the Rabbinic context must be seen in the context of the Biblical Purity System. This system mainly pertains to the temples, sacrifices & priestly gifts and were highly guarded from ritual impurities. The penalty for polluting the temple is “Karet”. “Karet” is defined as punishment of premature death at the hands of Heaven as a penalty for prescribed number of sins committed deliberately. All the Purity laws hinged on this law, so to deliberately break this law could have led to death at the most and at the least meant you had to be “set apart” during your period of uncleanness. Taking all that into consideration and the fact that this woman had an issue of blood for 12 years it’s most likely safe to say that she had gone these 12 years having to go everywhere she went announcing that she was unclean to avoid any one from touching her by mistake and also to avoid her being accused of deliberately making someone unclean by her touch. This was the law of the day. I’m further convinced that after a while this brought great shame to her, not to mention loneliness due to the fact that she had no human contact lest she make someone else unclean. Can you imagine 12 years without touching your children, hugging your spouse or hugging your parents? Being “set apart” she had to wash her clothes at a separate time & when she went into the markets not only was she physically ill from the lose of blood but she had to announce her shame with the word “unclean” everywhere she went as not to deliberately cause someone else to become unclean knowing the purification laws highest penalty could have possibly been death and at the lowest she would have made this other person she touched be unclean and having them be forced to go thru undo rituals of this one simple touch. So everywhere she went she had to announce “unclean”. This woman for 12 years had gone to physicians & spent all her money trying to get better. Her body was racked with pain & weakness from this condition. I’m sure that it was noised abroad the condition she had & as she walked thru the years her family and friends slowly distanced her & her life of solitude became her walk of shame, this thing that the enemy used against her to keep her bound & bent & having to constantly announce her bondage as “unclean” broke her in a way BUT as the testimony of Jesus coming reached her ears, her faith began to grow. This is how I see this taking place…