Because of this woman's continual flow of blood, she was not permitted to move about in crowds; anyone she touched or whose cloak she touched became unclean. Abbreviating as he often does, Matthew omits Mark's crowds (Mk 5:27) but retains the woman's intention: she is so desperate that she will touch the teacher, knowing full well that this will make him unclean under the law (Lev 15:25-27; m. Toharot 5:8).

Her condition is desperate both for medical reasons and because of its social consequences; her ostracism would extend even to her private life. Her ailment probably had kept her from marriage if it started at puberty, and almost surely would have led to divorce if it began after she was married (which would have been within a few years after puberty), since intercourse was prohibited under such circumstances (Lev 18:19) and childlessness normally led to divorce (Keener 1991a:75). Singleness is difficult for many people in Western society, but to be a unmarriageable woman in first-century Jewish Palestine must have often been terrifying. The stigma of childlessness (compare Lk 1:24-25; 1 Enoch 98:5), the pain of feeling "left over" and the dilemma of being unable to earn an income yet having neither husband nor children for long-term support would have made this woman's condition seem almost unbearable.

Yet her desperation also begets confidence that Jesus is an absolutely certain source of her healing. Desperation has driven many of us to a faith that refuses to be deterred. This woman was undoubtedly more desperate than most of us have been, and she pressed her way to Jesus with the determination of faith, regardless of the consequences.