Luke makes the connection to Eden when he tells the thief they’ll be together in paradise.
One of the criminals who were hanged railed at him, saying, âAre you not the Christ? Save yourself and us!â But the other rebuked him, saying, âDo you not fear God, since you are under the same sentence of condemnation? And we indeed justly, for we are receiving the due reward of our deeds; but this man has done nothing wrong.â And he said, âJesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.â And he said to him, âTruly, I say to you, today you will be with me in paradise.â
The greek word for paradise is, well, not-so-surprisingly paradeisos (ÏαÏαΎΔÎčÏÎżÏ). It’s used in two other New Testament passages: 2 Corinthians 12:3 where Paul describes a man “caught up into paradise,” and Revelation 2:7 where John has Jesus say, “To the one who conquers I will grant to eat of the tree of life, which is in the paradise of God.” In older bible versions, that 2 Corinthians passage may say the “third heaven” like this example in the NET, NIV, and ESV as found on Bible Gateway (follow the links), at least until these texts are updated there.
Here is a current screenshot of the 2 Corinthians passage in the ESV:
2 Corinthians 12:3 – Paradise
The Greeks borrowed paradeisos from the Persians in which language it meant a park surrounded by a wall. By the time of the writing of the Septuagint, paradeisos is used to name the garden of God in the creation story as distinct from secular parks. 1
The obvious connection, then, to God’s garden is Eden. But to get there using a modern English bible, you’d really have to know your Greek. The nuance is easily lost in most modern bibles because their source is the Hebrew documents. In Genesis 2:8 in most English bibles God “planted a garden in Eden.” The natural connection to Jesus’ paradise in Luke isn’t clear.
The bible of Paul, John, and the New Testament writers generally, was the Greek Septuagint. And in the Septuagint the connection is explicit: “God planted paradise in Eden.“
Once Luke makes the explicit connection to Eden through Jesus’ use of paradise, the rich interconnection of the garden as the explicit space where heaven and earth overlap at the dwelling place of God is brought to bear on Jesus’ relationship with the thief on the cross. They will both be together in the presence of God.
 Jeremias, J. (1964â). ÏαÏΏΎΔÎčÏÎżÏ. In G. Kittel, G. W. Bromiley, & G. Friedrich (Eds.), Theological dictionary of the New Testament (electronic ed., Vol. 5, p. 766). Eerdmans.
Ok, clickbait. Sort of. There are 5 steps. If you already have a mature study discipline these probably arenât new. If youâre not sure how to study your bible, these straightforward steps will begin to take you from reading your bible to studying your bible.
So maybe we need to define studying and think about that with respect to how we tend to interact with our bible. This could be oversimplifying, but maybe not. We tend to read, rather than study, our bible. We tend to read a chapter or two at a time. We tend to look for passages that we can apply to our life (think hope, grief, morality, encouragement, etc.). We tend to spend more time in the New Testament and less in the Old. We tend, probably unintentionally, to think the bible was written for me. At least thatâs how we talk about it: âThis passage encouraged me because I know that God understands my struggle.â To sum it up, we tend to read the bible pretty me-centrically. I have 20 minutes for a quiet time today. I need to improve; I need to work on this sin; I need to pray more. What can I get out of my reading, and what can I apply to my life today. I suppose weâve all heard someone say at one time or another something like, âIâm not done with my quiet time today until I find something I can apply to my life.â
In contrast, letâs define bible study as the practice of trying to understand what the authors say and what the original reader would have understood. This is not straightforward. Not because we canât read the words, but because we donât live in the culture. Itâs like reading Shakespeare. His plays at the time they were written were entertainment for the masses. From the lower classes to the higher classes, everyone got the innuendos, the sarcasm, the idioms and plays on words. They understood the language. But today the average English speaker has to struggle and pay close attention to sort of get most of whatâs happening in a Shakespeare performance. We miss the cultural connections and the word plays. Thatâs the dynamic we face when interacting with our bible. The goal of bible study is to get into the setting of the author and who that author writes for.
The discipline of bible study will challenge and excite you for the rest of your life if you let it. These five practices will get you started.
1. Read the entire letter or book in one sitting
Youâre looking for the big picture here. Why was this thing written? Why is the writer responding and what is he responding to?
This is best practice especially for the letters in the New Testament. What is a letter after all if not a personal communication. Like getting an update from a friend who sends a letter with a holiday card. Or a long email discussing a family reunion as a destination vacation. You donât start by turning to page two and reading the third paragraph. First you read the whole thing so you can figure out the big picture of what’s going on.
Reading, say, a chapter at a time and one chapter a day of Hebrews, youâll read the whole book in 13 days. By day 5 or 6 youâve forgotten the important details of chapters 1 and 2. By chapter 10 you may forget the book is about the superiority of Jesus to Torah and that the works of the law wonât âsaveâ you. Youâll wind up reading verse 25, ânot neglecting to meet together,â and come to a conclusion that if youâre not at all the church meetings then youâre in sin. Which is sort of not the point of, well, any of Hebrews.
For most letters of the New Testament you might spend 45 to 90 minutes reading from beginning to end. Some are a 10-minute read. Some Old Testament books might take a couple hours. If you have YouVersion read Hebrews to you, that takes about 50 minutes. You might need to do this on a weekend or a day off if your general bible reading is a half hour or so. Set aside the time and plan for it so you can read from beginning to end uninterrupted. You might need to do this a couple of times for each letter if youâre not used to reading this way. The first time might just be too jarring as you try to take in and understand so much detail.
2. Read your bible like a novel, read a letter like a conversation at Starbucks
The bible is not a math, or science, or legal textbook where you learn formulaic processes to solve problems. Itâs not a checklist of doâs and donâts. Rather itâs the story of God and his people. Again oversimplifying, the Old Testament tells Godâs story from creation to Noah, to Abraham, to David, to Jesus and the restoration of Godâs creation. The New Testament authors tell about the life of Jesus and work out what their scriptures (the Old Testament) mean in light of Jesus and how our purpose in our Jesus communities is to partner and participate in the restoration work of God as he restores his creation through the resurrected Messiah.
Read the Old Testament books, the gospels, and Revelation like a novel. You donât open a novel and start on page 87. No, you start on page one and read to the end. Why? Because the detail on page 132 is important and connects back to page 49. The author wrote, edited, and revised the story to make these connections. Itâs deliberate and purposeful. The biblical authors and editors wrote with the same intentionality. Read it like a story so you can make the connections. And donât skip the Old Testament or think that the value is its wisdom. Literally the ENTIRE New Testament is founded on all sorts of detail in the Old Testament. Just look at all the footnotes in your New Testament, especially if you read *the NET bible. The New Testament is, dare I say, incoherent without a firm grasp of the Old Testament. This will ground you in Godâs story.
Read the letters in the New Testament like youâre having a conversation at Starbucks with a friend. That friend is talking to you about something very meaningful. You listen intently to make sure you understand them because you deeply care for your friend and get the sense that what they are telling you has profound implications on your life. In a conversation with a good friend you donât generally sit there waiting for commands to be told to you. You actively listen. You ask clarifying questions. You respond. Communication goes both ways.
3. Identify who the âyouâ and the âweâ or âusâ are in the New Testament letters
There is this passage in 2 Corinthians from 2:14 – 6:13 where Paul finds himself defending the role of the apostles to the believers, the Jesus community, in Corinth. Right. Maybe slow down and read that again. Paul, a man with extensive education and context, who has been taught by Jesus himself, has to defend himself to other Christians. And he also stands up to the Corinthians in defense of the other apostles.
So we do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day. For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal.
This is the kind of passage heard in sermons regularly encouraging us to not lose heart in the face of health issues, or financial problems, or marriage and family struggles, because these are âlight momentary affliction.â And of course thatâs true. But itâs not the point of this passage. The âweâ here is the apostles. In the sense of âwe,â Paul talks about the struggles of being an apostle and why the apostles are able to persevere – even against their own brothers and sisters in Christ. The sense of âweâ is clarified in 4:15 because Paul contrasts âwe the apostlesâ with âyou the Corinthians.â Paul says, âFor it is all for your sake . . .â Again in 5:12 Paul makes this clear saying, âWe are not commending ourselves to you again but giving you cause to boast about us . . .â
This use of âweâ meaning not you the reader, and âyouâ meaning you the reader (sort of – weâll get to that in the next point) is prevalent in the New Testament letters. Your understanding of quite a bit of whatâs going on will be flipped on its head once you get this. And back to the first point, youâll probably miss it if you donât read the entire letter in one sitting.
4. Figure out if âyouâ and âyourâ is singular or plural
The word âyouâ in English is ambiguous. Does it mean âyou that person?â Or âall of you in the crowd?â Only through context does the sense of you being singular or plural get clarified. That actually becomes a huge obstacle to understanding our bible. Does an important passage apply to me specifically? Or my Jesus community that meets in my church building? Or a network of house churches addressed in Hebrews and Romans? Or maybe all the churches in my city? How you read and apply âyouâ changes dramatically how the world around us experiences Jesus and the gospel.
I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.
In this passage the âyouâ in most cases is Greek plural, something like âall of you.â To clarify what the author intends to communicate to the original audience in Greek, the passage would read something like this in English:
I appeal to all of you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present all of your bodies together collectively as one living sacrifice [singular sacrifice], holy and acceptable to God, which is your collectively unified act of spiritual worship. Do not be conformed to this world, but each one of you be transformed by the renewal of your [singular in this instance, thus each one of you] mind, that by testing you, together as a community, may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.
The living sacrifice is singular. The plural âyouâ instructs the collective audience to come together around the idea of a living sacrifice. However good it is that you or I might individually and sacrificially serve, love, and give of ourselves, thatâs not where this passage is going. Rather, the passage points to the world-changing, creation-restoring power of Godâs mercy as our Jesus communities together worship God as a singular sacrifice. That is an entirely different level of meaning for us as Christians and how we intentionally come together, because, Jesus. And in this case it profoundly affects how the world around us sees Christianity. This meaning is dependent on understanding who is included in the âyou.â
You can determine the use of âyouâ in a tool called an interlinear bible. Hereâs a link to Romans 12 in a free online interlinear. Open it up and take a look. You should get the basic idea of whatâs going on as each Greek word or phrase is augmented with explanatory detail.
This screen shot contains annotations of an instance of âyouâ and the living sacrifice in this passage. The âyouâ is identified as plural, and the living sacrifice as singular. To use the interlinear, open up the verse youâre looking for and hover your mouse over the details.
Romans 12 in an Greek interlinear bible
#5 – Ask yourself questions about what you just read
When we read the bible as a text book, a checklist of commands to obey, or, basically, not as a story, then everything is a fact being spit out *at* you. That might be fine if itâs the very first time youâve read your bible, but after a year or so of familiarity you want to grow to a point where the details startle you, or make you ask why, or cause you to compare what you just read with a passage you know that maybe contradicts it. Youâre trying to get at the authorâs point to his audience or why this particular detail is important to the story.
For instance, in Acts 4:36 we get the detail that Joseph, a Levite, sold a field:
Thus Joseph, who was also called by the apostles Barnabas (which means son of encouragement), a Levite, a native of Cyprus, sold a field that belonged to him and brought the money and laid it at the apostlesâ feet.
Ok, whatever. If you know your Old Testament you might wonder why Joseph had land to sell because the Levites were not given land in the distribution to the tribes. So you can walk through some lines of reasoning to fill in the details. Maybe the Levites werenât prohibited from buying land for themselves. Or Joseph, being from Cyprus, would not have owned land in Israel, but maybe the land he owned was in Cyprus.
Another example might be Paul not being ashamed of the gospel in Romans 1:16
For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith for faith, as it is written, “The righteous shall live by faith.”
Maybe the gut reaction for a modern reader is, âOf course not. Iâm not ashamed of the gospel. I know itâs my purpose to share my faith and make disciples.â And thatâs fine. Yet given Paulâs education, the amount of suffering heâs been through for the name of Jesus, his need to spend 10 years reworking everything he knew about Judaism and the scriptures in order to land where he has on the expected Messiah, you would not be faulted for thinking itâs gotta be deeper than that.
The question you might ask is, âWhy does Paul even have to note that heâs not ashamed of the gospel?â Could he have left this detail out and not changed the message to his audience? Paul doesnât just add extraneous detail. It must mean something. In the passage he mentions Jew and Gentile. This is a touchy area for the Jews; you donât associate with Gentiles. And if youâre familiar with Paulâs communications you know that the Jew-Gentile relationship, and the Gentile inclusion in Godâs family, is foundational to how Paul understands the work of Jesus. In that case, perhaps heâs doubling down on not only not tiptoeing around the issue but raising it in the opening of his communication. Maybe there are other reasons he could be ashamed but isnât. The gospel crescendos with the kingship and lordship of Jesus as opposed that of Caesar. Paulâs proclamation of the gospel undermines and subverts the government, the lordship of Caesar, and the gospel attached to Caesar, and Paul’s not ashamed to subvert this.
Asking questions of the bible will help you identify topics for further study in order to understand its context. That will help you get a better grasp of what your bible means, not just what it says.
Wrapping Up
Understanding the bible is difficult because we don’t live in the context of the original author and audience. These practices will help you start to get into their minds and that context. If you add these to your discipline of bible study you’ll open up more meaning in the bible you read.
* You can add the NET bible for free on YouVersion and other apps. With nearly 61,000 translator notes hyperlinked right in the text, it’s a super easy way to check what you’re hearing in a sermon in real time. You know, like the Bereans.
Mike Heiser provides illuminating guidance on what makes an effective commentary. In my thoughts about his notes I also understood where my own laziness keeps me from digging deeper and stretching my comfort zone with my bible study.
Part 1 – Aside from page count, there are many other differences between commentaries. All commentaries are not created equal. Not even close. I have had hundreds of students that simply donât realize that. They presume that since the commentary exists and has lots of pages, it must be something that really digs into the biblical text. Thatâs a myth.
Part 2 – Yes, this really is the commentary on 2 Cor 4:1-6. Completely unhelpful. Where is the interpretive beef? Itâs hard to know that itâs even the right passage. This is a classic example of talking about the text (loosely speaking) and not giving people the text. At best one could read this after spending some time in the actual passage. But if this is what pastors give their people in the pulpit, they shouldnât expect them to grow in the knowledge of the Word. Theyâll be lucky to find the Word in all that.
One of the hardest lessons Iâve had to learn as a professor and in my role at Logos is that most Christians think Bible reading is Bible study. It isnât. This is followed by the corollary that what most people do beyond Bible reading isnât going to get them very far into the text, either. That is, what most people think of as Bible study isnât real biblical research.
In part 1 we explored how Matthew explicitly connected Jesus to Zechariah’s singular Judean, and in doing so he demonstrated that Jesus is Emmanuel – God with us. We’ll continue working through Amy Elizabeth Richter’s work on this topic in her dissertation The Enochic Watchersâ Template and the Gospel of Matthew (156-160).
Grasping the fringe of Jesus’ garment provided healing power. This is a common understanding, and Matthew draws attention to this again in 14:36 enforcing the point that Jesus is God with us.
34 And when they had crossed over, they came to land at Gennesaret. 35 And when the men of that place recognized him, they sent around to all that region and brought to him all who were sick 36 and implored him that they might only touch the fringe of his garment. And as many as touched it were made well.
Matthew 14:34-36, ESV
For Matthew, Jesus is the Judean whose fringe is grasped in Zechariah 8. While Zechariah points to a future time in an eschatological sense for this fulfillment, Matthew’s account of the bleeding woman, and then the crowds being healed, illustrates that the future is now. “Jesus’ identity as Emmanuel, which begins in Matthew’s infancy narrative, means that eschatological righteousness has become a present reality in Jesus” (Richter 159).
Richter then points to work done by Crispin H. T. Fletcher-Louis that connects the fringe incident to a priestly tradition in Ezekiel arguing that “Jesus saw himself as the eschatological high priest, ‘the physical, human, embodiment of the divine Glory'” (Richter 159). Apparently holiness is contagious, communicated through the touch of a garment.
16 They shall enter my sanctuary, and they shall approach my table, to minister to me, and they shall keep my charge. 17 When they enter the gates of the inner court, they shall wear linen garments. They shall have nothing of wool on them, while they minister at the gates of the inner court, and within. 18 They shall have linen turbans on their heads, and linen undergarments around their waists. They shall not bind themselves with anything that causes sweat. 19 And when they go out into the outer court to the people, they shall put off the garments in which they have been ministering and lay them in the holy chambers. And they shall put on other garments, lest they transmit holiness to the people with their garments.
Ezekiel 44:16-19, ESV
We find a similar idea in Exodus with respect to the priestly instruments.
25 And you shall make of these a sacred anointing oil blended as by the perfumer; it shall be a holy anointing oil. 26 With it you shall anoint the tent of meeting and the ark of the testimony, 27 and the table and all its utensils, and the lampstand and its utensils, and the altar of incense, 28 and the altar of burnt offering with all its utensils and the basin and its stand. 29 You shall consecrate them, that they may be most holy. Whatever touches them will become holy.
Exodus 30:25-29, ESV
So there is this idea that simply touching even the fringes of the garment transmit contagious holiness, and this idea is held by the woman and the crowds. If a connection can be made between Jesus’ garments and those worn by the high priest that also transmitted holiness, then Jesus is the high priest – and possibly something more.
Fletcher-Louis thinks the fringe of Jesus’ garment is the tassels described in Numbers.
37 The Lord said to Moses, 38 âSpeak to the people of Israel, and tell them to make tassels on the corners of their garments throughout their generations, and to put a cord of blue on the tassel of each corner. 39 And it shall be a tassel for you to look at and remember all the commandments of the Lord, to do them, not to follow after your own heart and your own eyes, which you are inclined to whore after. 40 So you shall remember and do all my commandments, and be holy to your God.
Numbers 15:37-40, ESV
These tassels are worn by the general Jewish population. In this case they are not priestly ornamentation.
In the Masoretic Text (MT), the word used for tassel is tzitzit. Here is the Numbers 15 passage in the MT.
37 Adonai said to Moshe, 38 âSpeak to the people of Israâel, instructing them to make, through all their generations, tzitziyot on the corners of their garments, and to put with the tzitzit on each corner a blue thread. 39 It is to be a tzitzit for you to look at and thereby remember all of Adonaiâs mitzvot and obey them, so that you wonât go around wherever your own heart and eyes lead you to prostitute yourselves; 40 but it will help you remember and obey all my mitzvot and be holy for your God.
Numbers 15:37-40, Complete Jewish Bible
Fletcher-Louis points out that the tassels – the tzitzit – are the ordinary person’s “equivalent of the tsits, the rosette that bears the Name of God on the high priest’s forehead” (Richter 160). Following this line to a conclusion, the argument is that because all Israelite males wear the tassels, then the entire nation is a kingdom of priests, e.g. Exodus 19:6.
5 Now therefore, if you will indeed obey my voice and keep my covenant, you shall be my treasured possession among all peoples, for all the earth is mine; 6 and you shall be to me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.
Exodus 19:5-6, ESV
Fletcher-Louis’ argument goes something like this:
The tassels that the people wear are an equivalent of the rosette that the high priest wears. The people share in the priesthood as a “kingdom of priests”
Jesus mediates contagious holiness, the evidence of which is demonstrated through the touching of the fringe (tassels) of Jesus’ garments.
Perhaps Jesus was interested in the fulfillment of the call for the nation to become a nation of priests sharing the contagious restorative holiness of the high priest.
Richter concludes her ideas saying the idea of a kingdom of priests fits well with Matthew emphasizing the participation of Jesus’ followers in all aspects of his ministry, including teaching:
18 And Jesus came and said to them, âAll authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. 19 Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20 teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.â
Matthew 28:18-20, ESV
Matthew’s Jewish audience would have understood the implications of the fringe, tassels, and the transmission of holiness through priestly garments. Matthew puts an exclamation point on the identification of Jesus as the eschatological fulfillment of Zechariah’s Judean.
she, perhaps even unwittingly, shows Jesus to be Zechariahâs Jew whose tassel is grasped because his presence mediates Godâs presence.
I’ve posted a couple times about content in Amy Elizabeth Richter’s dissertation, The Enochic Watchers’ Template and the Gospel of Matthew. The details are interesting. Richter spends some time explaining the relationship of Jesus as Emmanuel, or God with us, to the singular Jew in Zechariah 8:23. This is part 1 of 2 where we’ll work through Richter’s thoughts. You can find her exposition on pages 156-160.
Matthew writes to a Jewish audience. It’s natural that he uses examples and Old Testament passages that his audience would be familiar with. In 9:20-22 Matthew recounts the story of the bleeding woman. In this case she touched the fringe of Jesus’ garment.
And behold, a woman who had suffered from a discharge of blood for twelve years came up behind him and touched the fringe of his garment, for she said to herself, âIf I only touch his garment, I will be made well.â Jesus turned, and seeing her he said, âTake heart, daughter; your faith has made you well.â And instantly the woman was made well.
Mt 9:20-22, ESV
And this detail in Matthew that a broader Jewish audience understood that those who touched the fringe of Jesus’ garments were made well.
And when the men of that place recognized him, they sent around to all that region and brought to him all who were sick 3and implored him that they might only touch the fringe of his garment. And as many as touched it were made well.
Mt 14:35-36, ESV
Matthew chooses the Septuagint (LXX) as a frame of reference for “fringes.” A Greek speaking Jewish audience would most likely be familiar with translation and phrasing, and these passages in Numbers 15:38 and Deuteronomy 22:12 would come to mind.
And the Lord spoke to Moses, sayingâSpeak to the children of Israel and instruct them that they should make fringes for themselves upon the borders of their garments throughout their generations, and place upon the fringes of the borders a blue thread. 39 And so it will be for you in the borders, and you will see these things, and you will recall all of the commandments of the Lord, and you will do them; and you will not distort them according to your intentions and your eyes, by which you committed fornication by going after them, 40 so that you will recall and observe all my commandments and will be holy to your God. 41 I am the Lord, your God, the one who led out you of the land of Egypt to be your God. I am the Lord, your God.â
Numbers 15:37-41, LXX
You shall make twisted braids for yourself on the four edges of your cloak that you throw around yourself.
Deuteronomy 22:12, LXX
The Numbers reference makes clear the purpose of the fringe to take the Jewish mind back to God’s commands and drive observance as a holy people (Num 15:40)
Broadly, eschatology is the study of the final events of history and the ultimate destiny of humankind. Zechariah points to “those days” (Zech 8:23) in an eschatological sense as a time when people of all nations return to Jerusalem to seek the face of the Lord.
And the word of the Lord Almighty came to me, saying, 19 âThe Lord Almighty says, âThe fourth fast and the fifth fast and the seventh fast and the tenth fast will be for the house of Judah for joy and merriment, and for a good feast, so you will rejoice and love truth and peace.â 20 This is what the Lord Almighty says: âYet many people will come, even ones who dwell in many cities. 21 And those who dwell in five cities shall come together into one city, saying, âLet us go to pray before the face of the Lord and to seek out the face of the Lord Almighty; and I myself will go.â 22 And many people and many nations will come to seek out the face of the Lord Almighty in Jerusalem and to make atonement âbeforeâ the Lord.â 23 This is what the Lord Almighty says: âIn those days if ten men from every tongue of the nations should seize, then let them seize the fringe of the garment of a Judean man, saying, âWe will go with you, because we have heard that God is with you.”
Zechariah 8:18-23, LXX
The grasping of the fringe by men of all nations signifies the eschatological realization that God is with the Jews. Matthew leverages this thinking and makes the explicit connection that God is with us through a Judean man – Jesus.
The eschatological significance of Matthew’s retelling of the incident becomes clearer against the retellings of Mark and Luke. Mark does not refer to the fringes of the garment.
27 She had heard the reports about Jesus and came up behind him in the crowd and touched his garment. 28 For she said, âIf I touch even his garments, I will be made well.â 29
Mark 5:27-29, ESV
And Luke, while appealing to the eschatological sense of the fringe, has the woman somewhat arbitrarily touching the fringes without her statement to herself that she would be made well by doing so.
43 And there was a woman who had had a discharge of blood for twelve years, and though she had spent all her living on physicians, she could not be healed by anyone. 44 She came up behind him and touched the fringe of his garment, and immediately her discharge of blood ceased. 45 And Jesus said, âWho was it that touched me?â
Luke 8:43-45, ESV
In any case, it may be the woman does not understand the eschatological significance of her action – that “she shows Jesus to be Zacharias’ [Judean] whose fringe is grasped because his presence mediates God’s presence.” (Richter 158). But Jesus surely does. Unlike the accounts in Mark and Luke where Jesus asked who had touched him, in Matthew “Jesus turned, and seeing her he said, âTake heart, daughter; your faith has made you well.â Jesus knows she has touched his fringe because of her faith and perceives the significance of her actions, even if the woman herself does not. Jesus is Emmanuel – God is with us, foretold in Zechariah and witnessed by the bleeding woman.
Bibliography
Brannan, R., Penner, K. M., Loken, I., Aubrey, M., & Hoogendyk, I. (Eds.). (2012). The Lexham English Septuagint (Dt 22:12). Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press.
