By Dr. Rabbi Esther Boucher
| IF I MAY TOUCH THE HEM OF HIS GARMENT |
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If I may but touch His garment, I shall be made whole! This statement
could have been made in desperation, determination or faith. There is
no doubt that this statement is the centerpiece of one of the most
memorable of all Bible stories, an event that unfolds in what was
probably a very ordinary day in the life of Jesus of Nazareth. The
humble, unassuming Galilean peasant had long been sought out by
growing throngs of suffering people who desperately needed relief from
a virtually unending list of diseases and misfortunes. His compassion for
the poor, the infirmed, the mentally retarded, the emotionally unstable,
and the economically and politically disenfranchised had become
legendary. He reached out with an empathy that few had ever seen,
and he changed lives with a healing touch that had never been
witnessed on planet earth.
This lowly Nazarene had been born some 30 years earlier under most
unusual circumstances. While a few enlightened believers understood
him to be a virgin’s son, none of those among whom he grew up ever
saw anything extraordinary about him. Much of the general public, and
certainly his detractors, considered him illegitimate, born in a stable,
wrapped in swaddling clothes. In keeping with the strong devotion to
their Jewish faith, his parents had circumcised him on the 8th day,
thereby initiating him into the covenant of Abraham. In compliance
with the requirements of pidyon ha-ben (the redemption of the first
born), they presented him at the temple where the astonishing words of
both prophet and prophetess predicted wonderful things for his life that
would have far reaching and profound consequences for Israel and the
world. He was then reared by his family in a town southwest of the Sea
of Galilee whose only claim to fame was that no good thing came from
Nazareth. Jesus had been precocious, to be sure, debating at the age of
twelve with Israel’s greatest rabbis during his family’s pilgrimage
festival observance. But, for the most part, his life was that of an
ordinary Jew, being taught in the home, synagogue and temple in
Judaism’s great truths. He grew in wisdom and stature, and in favor
with God and men. He was employed in his father’s business, that of a
builder, soiling his hands and straining his body in the construction
industry of his day. When he reached the age of thirty, he set out on an
itinerant teaching ministry, announcing the imminent breaking forth of
the Kingdom of God. Immediately, those around Jesus recognized him
to be a rabbi, this, despite the fact that it is nowhere recorded that he
had been a student either of Beth Hillel or Beth Shammai, the era’s two
leading schools of rabbinic thought. He was unique as a teacher,
however, for his hearers attested to the fact that he spoke with an
authority that the other rabbis of his time did not manifest. He was a
lover of the land of Israel and its people. His teaching championed
honesty, integrity, and human dignity. Jesus also possessed an amazing
gift for the supernatural. Jesus spoke with unheard of authority so that
people were healed in masses, demons were exorcized, even the dead
were raised. Because of this, some began to think that perhaps he was
Elijah returned in Spirit and power to prepare the way for the Messiah.
Others considered that he might be Jeremiah or another of the
prophets. Since there had been no recognized prophet in Israel for
some four centuries, this was a distinct honor in itself. Then, one day as
he inquired of his disciples who they considered him to be, Peter, the
most outspoken of his followers, exclaimed, you are He, the Messiah,
Son of the living God. Jesus reiterated the fact that there was nothing
about his person that would identify him as such; it was a revelation of
the Eternal Father. Jesus’ identity as the divinely anointed of the
Jewish people and the Savior of the world had been largely hidden from
both the public and his disciples. On this day, therefore, as he went his
way, teaching and touching the lives of those who came to him who had
heard of his reputation for compassion and his power to mend broken
diseased bodies and wounded, troubled souls we pick up our story in
Mark 5:21 Jarius (Yair) was one of the rulers of the synagogue, whose
daughter was ill, almost to the point of death. Jarius saw Jesus, fell at
his feet, and virtually begged him to come and lay hands on his daughter
so that she might be healed. Jesus agreed to go with him and the
Scriptures say that much people followed him, and thronged him.
There was in that crowd a woman who had suffered from an issue of
blood for twelve years. We can imagine, based on what is recorded, that
her condition was grave. Frail, emaciated, anemic, she was but a shell of
her former vivacious self. Her youthful beauty had dissolved into a
haggard look of weakness. Her ashen face was punctuated by the thin
lips and the clenched jaw of determination to survive. She was
desperate, if I can but touch his garment, I shall be made whole she said
to herself. The poor woman had been hemorrhaging for twelve years,
probably with menorrhea, a condition that rendered her both physically
weak and psychologically depressed because her condition made her
perpetually unclean according to the ceremonial laws of her people and
had probably long since been cause for divorce as unfit for cohabitation.
If she even touched other people, they became ritually impure and
would continue to communicate her uncleanness to others unless they
immersed in a mikueh and waited until evening to be pronounced clean
again. How embarrassing! In such desperation, these words of hope
echoed like a chant in her troubled mind, if I can but touch His garment,
I shall be made whole. Trying to find a cure for her condition, she had
spent all of her resources on physicians and had only grown worse,
perhaps even the victim of medical malpractice or ineptitude. Now,
here she was, a poverty-stricken emotionally wrecked, physically
broken woman, possessing only one faint hope of deliverance from
certain death. If I can touch His garment I shall be made whole! She
repeated to herself so, defying all social convention, if she made
someone unclean due to her touch, she committed sin and risked
stoning, she mustered up the last reserves of her strength and pressed
her way through the multitude. How she made her way through the
crowd no one knows, but in her heart of hearts she just knew. She didn’
t need a word; she needed a touch. And touch Him she did. In one
desperate lunge, she reached out her bony near lifeless hand and
brushed against just the hem of Jesus’ garment. The fact that she just
touched the hem may be an indication that she was crawling through
the masses of huddled bodies. A miracle happened: immediately her
hemorrhaging stopped. She was made whole! Jesus realized that
something had occurred because of the release of power from His own
person. The Scripture says that He perceived the virtue had gone out
of Him. Virtue in Greek is dunimis and is defined as power. We get our
English word dynamite from it. In Hebrew virtue is geburha from the
root gabar, which means strength due to binding and twisting. It is a
particular strength that is produced by binding strands of cord together
to make a rope. When Jesus inquired, who touched me, His disciples
replied with this multitude thronging you, how can you ask, who
touched me? The woman fearing and trembling, knowing what was
done to her, came and fell down before Him, and told Him all the truth.
Why was she so fearful? Could it be that she knew what she had done
was considered a sin, she had made Jesus unclean. Jesus’ response was
one of kindness and understanding. He said, Daughter, thy faith has
made you whole, go in peace and be whole of your plague. What a
wonderful story of extra ordinary and powerful emotion! Desperation
and faith produce a profound miracle for a simple daughter of Israel.
What a wonderful Savior, this Jesus, who had the power to heal just by
being touched even when he was unaware of what had happened. If I
can but touch His garment, I shall be made whole! Words that have
inspired faith in the hearts of millions of believers in the Jesus of the
Gospels. But there’s more to the story. What was it about the hem of
his garment that was so important that it should become a point of
contact for the expression of faith that brought deliverance to all who
touched it? Hidden from the eye of the reader of these stories in an
enriching key to understanding what actually occurred on these days of
deliverance. Most versions of the Bible tell us she touched the hem of
his garment. The Greek word for hem is kraspedon, which means the
fringe of a garment, the appendage hanging down from the edge of the
mantle or cloak, made of twisted wool, a tassel. What the woman
touched, then, was not a band at the skirt of Jesus’ garment, but the
fringe, the twisted woolen tassel hanging from the edge of his mantle or
cloak. Jesus was in every way a very proper, Torah observant Jew. His
grooming and His type of dress immediately identified Him as a Jew.
First, in obedience to the commandments, the edges of his beard and
the hair at the sides of His head would not have been cut. Secondly, the
outer garment that he wore was called an adderet or me’il. Later it
came to be called tallit. It was a rectangular, four cornered, blanket-like
mantle made of wool or linen and worn for protection against the
weather. According to Jewish tradition this garment had to be a hand’s
breadth shorter in length than the garment under it. The tallit was
essential for public occasions and it would have been considered
immodest in Jewish society for one to appear in public without the
tallit. The original commandment to wear a tallit is in Numbers 15:37-
41. They were to place a tassel in each of the four corners of the tallit.
In each tassel was to be one wool thread dyed in blue. Archaeologists
have long known from ancient writings the blue/purple dyes were
produced by the extraction of the hypobranchial glands of the
Mediterranean gastropod mollushs. It became worth its weight in gold.
It took over 3,387,000 mollushs hand drilled to produce a pound of
dye. Aaron the high priest had his robe dyed in blue in Exodus 28:31-
35. By placing one blue thread in every tassel, God identified every
Jewish man as King in his home. The fact that each man was allowed to
mix linen with wool in his tassel also reveals how God identified each
man as a priest. The tallit displayed a person’s authority. The more
important the person, the more elaborate the tallit. Prophets would cut
off one of their tassels to send along with a prophecy to assure the King
it was their prophecy. The tassel was called a tzee-tzeeth you get 600.
There are 8 threads and 5 knots in each tassel. Added together you get
613 commands of the Lord. It also reminds him of the great
commandment the Lord is One from in the Shema (Deut. 6:4). The
tassel has five knots and four sets of wrappings that numerically spell
out The Lord is One. The proper use of the tallit kept a person’s life
pure, and so brought him into closer communion with God, reminding
him to seek after God’s heart, not his own ways. The blue thread
stands for the word of God; it is a reminder of heaven and the sapphire
throne of God. The tallit was in effect, a uniform that identified Jews as
God’s Army, a force for peace and justice on the earth. Through the
ministry of Jesus, this uniform became the Holy Spirit himself, which
clothed the believer with power from on high. God’s people of all ages
are to be singled out by marking that identify them in the world as His
chosen and serve as constant reminders they are to do His
commandments and His will. Theirs were to be lives not only of
obedience, but also of trust, not only of submission but also of living
faith. The Holy Spirit is the shamash, the longest, helper strand of the
tzitzit that binds believers together with the life of God. Are you
wrapping your life with the Lord? If so how tightly? The tzitzit
represented the essence of God. When praying they would often wrap
themselves in their tallit separating themselves unto God. When held
out the tallit often looks like wings. Malachi 4:2 states when the Sun of
righteousness comes He will bring with Him healing. It speaks of
restoration, to recover what was stolen, to mend or repair something
broken. Ezk. 6:8 the healing will be in His wings. Jesus is going to
return as He left. His tallit, complete with tzitzuit will demonstrate His
authority to bring restoration to earth by the visible symbol of God’s
word.
So the stage was set. Jarius had convinced Jesus to go with him to heal
his daughter who was sick to the point of death. Jarius knew the law as
a ruler of the synagogue. He knew at the moment this woman touched
Jesus he became unclean. How his heart must have sunk when he
heard her confess the truth. Now Jesus would not be able to go to his
daughter. He must go and bathe, wash his clothes and wait until
evening before He could minister to her. After Jesus’ declaration to the
woman, certain people from Jarius’ home came and told him his
daughter had died. Jesus responded saying Be not afraid, only believe.
Jesus did not allow anyone to follow except Peter, James and John.
When they arrived people were mourning. He asked them why they
weep and states the girl is only sleeping. The passage then tells us they
laughed to scorn. Then He takes the parents and disciples into the room
where the girl is laying. The dead are considered unclean. However
Jesus was already unclean by the woman with the issue of blood.
Something was said in that room that was of such magnitude that Jesus
instructed them to tell no man what was said or done. In verse 41 in
the Hebrew version two words have been basically un-translated in the
verse because it is difficult to translate them into English. Everyone
knew she was dead, so when she came outside people would know what
happened in that room. There would be no need for them to keep
quiet. So Jesus must have been referring to something else. Could it
have something to do with the two words left un-translated eleyah
tallitha? A direct translation states he grasp the hand belonging to the
girl and said, God speaking to the female under the tallith get up. Could
it be possible that Jesus proclaimed himself to be God?
In Jesus’ time the woman and the people of Genessaret touched the
tzitzit on Jesus’ tallet they were operating under a Hebraic tradition of
respect for a God and his Word. It was honor to touch a rabbis clothing.
They were laying hold on the visible symbol of the totality of God’s
word and by doing so were touching in a spiritual dimension the God of
the universe. Jarius fell at Jesus’ feet, the woman with the issue of
blood reached from Jesus’ feet; Mary sat at Jesus’ feet. We all need to
be at the feet of Jesus. In His presence, wisdom, guidance and healing
come for every situation in your life. Leave your disappointment,
rejections and hurt at His feet. Jesus is about resurrecting that which is
dead. Let Jesus be your hiding place; let Him cover you with his
sheltering wings.
could have been made in desperation, determination or faith. There is
no doubt that this statement is the centerpiece of one of the most
memorable of all Bible stories, an event that unfolds in what was
probably a very ordinary day in the life of Jesus of Nazareth. The
humble, unassuming Galilean peasant had long been sought out by
growing throngs of suffering people who desperately needed relief from
a virtually unending list of diseases and misfortunes. His compassion for
the poor, the infirmed, the mentally retarded, the emotionally unstable,
and the economically and politically disenfranchised had become
legendary. He reached out with an empathy that few had ever seen,
and he changed lives with a healing touch that had never been
witnessed on planet earth.
This lowly Nazarene had been born some 30 years earlier under most
unusual circumstances. While a few enlightened believers understood
him to be a virgin’s son, none of those among whom he grew up ever
saw anything extraordinary about him. Much of the general public, and
certainly his detractors, considered him illegitimate, born in a stable,
wrapped in swaddling clothes. In keeping with the strong devotion to
their Jewish faith, his parents had circumcised him on the 8th day,
thereby initiating him into the covenant of Abraham. In compliance
with the requirements of pidyon ha-ben (the redemption of the first
born), they presented him at the temple where the astonishing words of
both prophet and prophetess predicted wonderful things for his life that
would have far reaching and profound consequences for Israel and the
world. He was then reared by his family in a town southwest of the Sea
of Galilee whose only claim to fame was that no good thing came from
Nazareth. Jesus had been precocious, to be sure, debating at the age of
twelve with Israel’s greatest rabbis during his family’s pilgrimage
festival observance. But, for the most part, his life was that of an
ordinary Jew, being taught in the home, synagogue and temple in
Judaism’s great truths. He grew in wisdom and stature, and in favor
with God and men. He was employed in his father’s business, that of a
builder, soiling his hands and straining his body in the construction
industry of his day. When he reached the age of thirty, he set out on an
itinerant teaching ministry, announcing the imminent breaking forth of
the Kingdom of God. Immediately, those around Jesus recognized him
to be a rabbi, this, despite the fact that it is nowhere recorded that he
had been a student either of Beth Hillel or Beth Shammai, the era’s two
leading schools of rabbinic thought. He was unique as a teacher,
however, for his hearers attested to the fact that he spoke with an
authority that the other rabbis of his time did not manifest. He was a
lover of the land of Israel and its people. His teaching championed
honesty, integrity, and human dignity. Jesus also possessed an amazing
gift for the supernatural. Jesus spoke with unheard of authority so that
people were healed in masses, demons were exorcized, even the dead
were raised. Because of this, some began to think that perhaps he was
Elijah returned in Spirit and power to prepare the way for the Messiah.
Others considered that he might be Jeremiah or another of the
prophets. Since there had been no recognized prophet in Israel for
some four centuries, this was a distinct honor in itself. Then, one day as
he inquired of his disciples who they considered him to be, Peter, the
most outspoken of his followers, exclaimed, you are He, the Messiah,
Son of the living God. Jesus reiterated the fact that there was nothing
about his person that would identify him as such; it was a revelation of
the Eternal Father. Jesus’ identity as the divinely anointed of the
Jewish people and the Savior of the world had been largely hidden from
both the public and his disciples. On this day, therefore, as he went his
way, teaching and touching the lives of those who came to him who had
heard of his reputation for compassion and his power to mend broken
diseased bodies and wounded, troubled souls we pick up our story in
Mark 5:21 Jarius (Yair) was one of the rulers of the synagogue, whose
daughter was ill, almost to the point of death. Jarius saw Jesus, fell at
his feet, and virtually begged him to come and lay hands on his daughter
so that she might be healed. Jesus agreed to go with him and the
Scriptures say that much people followed him, and thronged him.
There was in that crowd a woman who had suffered from an issue of
blood for twelve years. We can imagine, based on what is recorded, that
her condition was grave. Frail, emaciated, anemic, she was but a shell of
her former vivacious self. Her youthful beauty had dissolved into a
haggard look of weakness. Her ashen face was punctuated by the thin
lips and the clenched jaw of determination to survive. She was
desperate, if I can but touch his garment, I shall be made whole she said
to herself. The poor woman had been hemorrhaging for twelve years,
probably with menorrhea, a condition that rendered her both physically
weak and psychologically depressed because her condition made her
perpetually unclean according to the ceremonial laws of her people and
had probably long since been cause for divorce as unfit for cohabitation.
If she even touched other people, they became ritually impure and
would continue to communicate her uncleanness to others unless they
immersed in a mikueh and waited until evening to be pronounced clean
again. How embarrassing! In such desperation, these words of hope
echoed like a chant in her troubled mind, if I can but touch His garment,
I shall be made whole. Trying to find a cure for her condition, she had
spent all of her resources on physicians and had only grown worse,
perhaps even the victim of medical malpractice or ineptitude. Now,
here she was, a poverty-stricken emotionally wrecked, physically
broken woman, possessing only one faint hope of deliverance from
certain death. If I can touch His garment I shall be made whole! She
repeated to herself so, defying all social convention, if she made
someone unclean due to her touch, she committed sin and risked
stoning, she mustered up the last reserves of her strength and pressed
her way through the multitude. How she made her way through the
crowd no one knows, but in her heart of hearts she just knew. She didn’
t need a word; she needed a touch. And touch Him she did. In one
desperate lunge, she reached out her bony near lifeless hand and
brushed against just the hem of Jesus’ garment. The fact that she just
touched the hem may be an indication that she was crawling through
the masses of huddled bodies. A miracle happened: immediately her
hemorrhaging stopped. She was made whole! Jesus realized that
something had occurred because of the release of power from His own
person. The Scripture says that He perceived the virtue had gone out
of Him. Virtue in Greek is dunimis and is defined as power. We get our
English word dynamite from it. In Hebrew virtue is geburha from the
root gabar, which means strength due to binding and twisting. It is a
particular strength that is produced by binding strands of cord together
to make a rope. When Jesus inquired, who touched me, His disciples
replied with this multitude thronging you, how can you ask, who
touched me? The woman fearing and trembling, knowing what was
done to her, came and fell down before Him, and told Him all the truth.
Why was she so fearful? Could it be that she knew what she had done
was considered a sin, she had made Jesus unclean. Jesus’ response was
one of kindness and understanding. He said, Daughter, thy faith has
made you whole, go in peace and be whole of your plague. What a
wonderful story of extra ordinary and powerful emotion! Desperation
and faith produce a profound miracle for a simple daughter of Israel.
What a wonderful Savior, this Jesus, who had the power to heal just by
being touched even when he was unaware of what had happened. If I
can but touch His garment, I shall be made whole! Words that have
inspired faith in the hearts of millions of believers in the Jesus of the
Gospels. But there’s more to the story. What was it about the hem of
his garment that was so important that it should become a point of
contact for the expression of faith that brought deliverance to all who
touched it? Hidden from the eye of the reader of these stories in an
enriching key to understanding what actually occurred on these days of
deliverance. Most versions of the Bible tell us she touched the hem of
his garment. The Greek word for hem is kraspedon, which means the
fringe of a garment, the appendage hanging down from the edge of the
mantle or cloak, made of twisted wool, a tassel. What the woman
touched, then, was not a band at the skirt of Jesus’ garment, but the
fringe, the twisted woolen tassel hanging from the edge of his mantle or
cloak. Jesus was in every way a very proper, Torah observant Jew. His
grooming and His type of dress immediately identified Him as a Jew.
First, in obedience to the commandments, the edges of his beard and
the hair at the sides of His head would not have been cut. Secondly, the
outer garment that he wore was called an adderet or me’il. Later it
came to be called tallit. It was a rectangular, four cornered, blanket-like
mantle made of wool or linen and worn for protection against the
weather. According to Jewish tradition this garment had to be a hand’s
breadth shorter in length than the garment under it. The tallit was
essential for public occasions and it would have been considered
immodest in Jewish society for one to appear in public without the
tallit. The original commandment to wear a tallit is in Numbers 15:37-
41. They were to place a tassel in each of the four corners of the tallit.
In each tassel was to be one wool thread dyed in blue. Archaeologists
have long known from ancient writings the blue/purple dyes were
produced by the extraction of the hypobranchial glands of the
Mediterranean gastropod mollushs. It became worth its weight in gold.
It took over 3,387,000 mollushs hand drilled to produce a pound of
dye. Aaron the high priest had his robe dyed in blue in Exodus 28:31-
35. By placing one blue thread in every tassel, God identified every
Jewish man as King in his home. The fact that each man was allowed to
mix linen with wool in his tassel also reveals how God identified each
man as a priest. The tallit displayed a person’s authority. The more
important the person, the more elaborate the tallit. Prophets would cut
off one of their tassels to send along with a prophecy to assure the King
it was their prophecy. The tassel was called a tzee-tzeeth you get 600.
There are 8 threads and 5 knots in each tassel. Added together you get
613 commands of the Lord. It also reminds him of the great
commandment the Lord is One from in the Shema (Deut. 6:4). The
tassel has five knots and four sets of wrappings that numerically spell
out The Lord is One. The proper use of the tallit kept a person’s life
pure, and so brought him into closer communion with God, reminding
him to seek after God’s heart, not his own ways. The blue thread
stands for the word of God; it is a reminder of heaven and the sapphire
throne of God. The tallit was in effect, a uniform that identified Jews as
God’s Army, a force for peace and justice on the earth. Through the
ministry of Jesus, this uniform became the Holy Spirit himself, which
clothed the believer with power from on high. God’s people of all ages
are to be singled out by marking that identify them in the world as His
chosen and serve as constant reminders they are to do His
commandments and His will. Theirs were to be lives not only of
obedience, but also of trust, not only of submission but also of living
faith. The Holy Spirit is the shamash, the longest, helper strand of the
tzitzit that binds believers together with the life of God. Are you
wrapping your life with the Lord? If so how tightly? The tzitzit
represented the essence of God. When praying they would often wrap
themselves in their tallit separating themselves unto God. When held
out the tallit often looks like wings. Malachi 4:2 states when the Sun of
righteousness comes He will bring with Him healing. It speaks of
restoration, to recover what was stolen, to mend or repair something
broken. Ezk. 6:8 the healing will be in His wings. Jesus is going to
return as He left. His tallit, complete with tzitzuit will demonstrate His
authority to bring restoration to earth by the visible symbol of God’s
word.
So the stage was set. Jarius had convinced Jesus to go with him to heal
his daughter who was sick to the point of death. Jarius knew the law as
a ruler of the synagogue. He knew at the moment this woman touched
Jesus he became unclean. How his heart must have sunk when he
heard her confess the truth. Now Jesus would not be able to go to his
daughter. He must go and bathe, wash his clothes and wait until
evening before He could minister to her. After Jesus’ declaration to the
woman, certain people from Jarius’ home came and told him his
daughter had died. Jesus responded saying Be not afraid, only believe.
Jesus did not allow anyone to follow except Peter, James and John.
When they arrived people were mourning. He asked them why they
weep and states the girl is only sleeping. The passage then tells us they
laughed to scorn. Then He takes the parents and disciples into the room
where the girl is laying. The dead are considered unclean. However
Jesus was already unclean by the woman with the issue of blood.
Something was said in that room that was of such magnitude that Jesus
instructed them to tell no man what was said or done. In verse 41 in
the Hebrew version two words have been basically un-translated in the
verse because it is difficult to translate them into English. Everyone
knew she was dead, so when she came outside people would know what
happened in that room. There would be no need for them to keep
quiet. So Jesus must have been referring to something else. Could it
have something to do with the two words left un-translated eleyah
tallitha? A direct translation states he grasp the hand belonging to the
girl and said, God speaking to the female under the tallith get up. Could
it be possible that Jesus proclaimed himself to be God?
In Jesus’ time the woman and the people of Genessaret touched the
tzitzit on Jesus’ tallet they were operating under a Hebraic tradition of
respect for a God and his Word. It was honor to touch a rabbis clothing.
They were laying hold on the visible symbol of the totality of God’s
word and by doing so were touching in a spiritual dimension the God of
the universe. Jarius fell at Jesus’ feet, the woman with the issue of
blood reached from Jesus’ feet; Mary sat at Jesus’ feet. We all need to
be at the feet of Jesus. In His presence, wisdom, guidance and healing
come for every situation in your life. Leave your disappointment,
rejections and hurt at His feet. Jesus is about resurrecting that which is
dead. Let Jesus be your hiding place; let Him cover you with his
sheltering wings.
Copyright Gates of Praise Ministries 2006