If It Wasn't For The Women, Part 4: When She Gave Glory To God
Compassion Trumps Worship Protocol
Introduction
Transition To Body
Body
When Jesus Is Present In The Place Of Woship
Biblical Teaching Takes Place (even on Sunday)
Spiritually Disabled People Are Present
Spiritually Disabled People Are Seen
Spiritually Disabled People Are Delivered
God Is Given All The Glory
Protocol Police Get Indignant
Jesus’ Adversaries Are Put To Shame
There were two of them: on the one hand, the woman had become, and remained, completely bent over. “To stoop together, to bow toward each other, to be bent (over), to be stooped” in Greek is a compound verb, συγκύπτω. Here it designates a deformed lower, rather than upper (cerebral), spinal column. On the other hand, since there was nothing that could be done about the problem, and because the bent-over position could not be loosened up, the ill person was rendered unable to straighten up (ἀνακύπτω, “to stand erect,” to “straighten oneself”).
The adjective παντελής, -ές, means “completed,” “complete.” The phrase εἰς τὸ παντελές must be translated as “completely,” “totally,” “absolutely,” “permanently.” The expression can be attached to “incapable” in the sense of “completely unable”; or to “straighten up,” in the sense of “stand completely straight”; or, following a Lukan custom, to both at the same time.32 Personally, I would translate “not really able to stand up straight any more,” “could not stand up straight at all,” in order to make palpable the permanent incapacity to stand up completely straight.
What struck men and women in antiquity was the irremediable nature of an illness that did not kill but made it impossible to be in a vertical position. Indeed, Jewish thought held that what distinguished human beings from animals, and brought them closer to angels, was the vertical position, speech, intelligence, and sight permitting foresight (see Gen. Rab. 8.11 on Gen 1:27). But that mark of humanity had disappeared in this case. And with it, the power to stand up straight in order to look up (the sursum of the Vulgate, of course, suggests the sursum corda, “Lift up your hearts,” of the liturgy). The woman was thus deprived of a part of her humanity and the possibility of contact with the divine. Added to her sentiment of incurability she must have felt a personal humiliation, social degradation, and physical pain, on which point the text is silent. This woman symbolizes a human race characterized by the Fall (the good creation, “head held up high,” was readily contrasted with the result of the Fall, the birth of humans with their “head downwards”). That reversal of up and down, as well as staring down at lower things on the earth, being unable to rise up toward heaven, could not have escaped the notice of readers in antiquity, who saw in this isolated creature a symbol of all of creation, or at least sinful humanity.
We have to admire this capacity of Jesus to express emotion, often discernible in his direct encounters with women. This capacity underlies the criticisms he directed at those who interpreted the law in a restrictive manner.
The praising of God by the healed person is a motif not found in the similar stories in 6:10; 14:4, but is found in Acts 3:8f.; it may be due to Luke, but is entirely appropriate in the synagogue setting.
Jesus chose to rebuke the hypocrisy of this approach by pointing to the Jewish practice of looking after animals. The rabbis were greatly concerned that animals be treated well. On the sabbath, animals could be led out by a chain or the like as long as nothing was carried (Shabbath 5:1). Water could be drawn for them and poured into a trough, though a man must not hold a bucket for the animal to drink from (Erubin 20b, 21a). If animals may be cared for in such ways, much more may a daughter of Abraham be set free from Satan’s bondage on the sabbath. In fact Jesus uses a strong term and says she ‘must’ (dei) be loosed. The afflicting of the woman was due to Satanic activity and Satan must be overthrown. This does not, of course, mean that the woman was wicked. She was attending worship, and Jesus’ description of her seems to show that she was pious. But her illness was evil.