Mark 5 - In Depth Bible Commentaries

714 715 716 717woman, who is in a hemorrhage (for) twelve years, 5.26 and who has suffered much714Following the noun h, gune, “a woman,” the indefinite pronoun tij, tis, “a certainone,” is interpolated into the text by Bezae, Theta, Uncial Manuscript 0132, Family 13 ofMinuscules, the “Majority Text,” the Old Latin Manuscripts a, f and the Syriac tradition.The indefinite pronoun is not read by Sinaiticus, Alexandrinus, Vaticanus,Ephraemi Rescriptus, L, W, Delta, Family 1 of Minuscules, Minuscules 33, 892, 2427,2542, a few other Greek manuscripts, the Latin Vulgate or some of the Old Latin witnesses.It appears to be a later addition to the original text, designed to “enhance” itsreading, but whether read or not makes no difference for the meaning of Mark.Following this phrase, "And a woman..." come some seven participles (one presentparticiple, six aorist participles) each introducing a descriptive phrase, enabling a word-pictureof this woman in great detail (we have introduced each participle with "who," in order toindicate this Markan usage). The actual continuation of "And a woman" comes at the end ofverse 27, "...she touched his robe."Taylor notes that "This passage [verses 25-27] is remarkable as being one of the veryfew examples in Mark of a longer Greek [sentence] with subordinating participles, in contrastto the repeatedly used...construction [of placing short sentences side by side]." (P. 289)France comments that “The second suppliant, whose social standing is in markedcontrast to that of Jairus, is introduced in a sentence which piles seven participial clauses onone another before reaching the main verb (h` ,yato, epsato) in verse 27. This interestingdeparture from Mark’s more usual paratactic [‘the coordination of grammatical elements suchas phrases or clauses without the use of coordinating elements such as conjunctions’] styleallows the reader (or hearer) to build up a sympathetic mental portrait of the woman’s situationbefore her story begins...” (P. 236)715Literally, "...who being in a flow (or, "flowing") of blood..." It is the present participle thatis used here (ïóá, ousa, "being").France comments that “In Decapolis Jesus confronted ‘unclean spirits,’ located amongtombs, and appropriately transferred into pigs, as unclean animals. Now back on the westbank he confronts the uncleanness of a menstrual disorder, and (assuming that she really wasdead) of a corpse, and yet in both cases Mark records physical contact (verses 27, 41).Since the issue of uncleanness, and of Jesus’ apparently cavalier attitude to the laws ofpurity, will become a central feature of the story in chapter 7, it may be that Mark hasdeliberately prepared the way by this sequence of narratives. But it must be confessed thatthe issue is implicit rather than explicit in the account of the woman with the hemorrhage, andif anyone noticed the problem of potential defilement in the case of Jairus’ daughter Markgives no hint of it.” (P. 235)440(continued...)