8:42b-43 The crowd that Luke described graphically as pressing against Jesus and almost crushing Him created the scene in which the woman approached Jesus. The exact reason for her continual bleeding is unknown and unimportant. This condition resulted in her discomfort, inconvenience, ritual uncleanness, and embarrassment. Some commentators believe that Luke's omission of the fact that she had spent all her money on doctors who could not cure here was his attempt to guard the reputation of his profession. However it may have been a simple omission of a detail he felt was unimportant in view of his purpose. The point is that no one could heal the woman for 12 years, but Jesus did in an instant.
8:44 The woman's superstition has also created problems for some readers. However, God honored even stranger expressions of faith than hers (cf. Acts 5:14; 19:11-12). Even though her knowledge was imperfect she believed that Jesus could heal her, and Jesus honored that faith.
8:45-46 Jesus' question did not reveal lack of knowledge but the desire to identify the woman so He could strengthen and encourage her faith. Occasionally Jesus chose to heal people who expressed no faith in Him. Here someone with faith drew on His power without His conscious selection of her. Evidently God healed the woman through Jesus without Jesus' awareness. Likewise God sometimes brings blessing to others through His children without those believers being aware of it. Jesus meant that God's power had gone from Him to another person, but not that He consequently felt a lack of power. Luke alone identified Peter as the spokesman of the disciples here perhaps to make the narrative more concrete and vivid.
8:47-48 The woman's embarrassment was undoubtedly due to her illness and to her presumption in mingling with a crowd even though she was ritually unclean. Her falling at Jesus' feet recalls the sinful woman in Simon the Pharisee's house (7:36-50) who had a kindred spirit of thankfulness. One of the reasons Jesus insisted on identifying the woman was to secure her public confession of faith in Him. Perhaps Luke included this public confession after a private deliverance as a good example for his readers to follow (cf. Rom. 10:9-10). Jesus then corrected a possible misunderstanding that her healing had been the result of magic by ascribing it to her faith. Jesus' benediction also ties this story in with the earlier one involving the sinful woman (cf. 7:50).
