Vincent's NT Word Studies
26. Mark is much fuller and more vivid than Matthew or Luke.Had suffered (paqousa). To be taken, as everywhere in the New Testament, in the sense of suffering pain, not merely subjected to treatment. What she may have suffered will appear from the prescription for the medical treatment of such a complaint given in the Talmud. "Take of the gum of Alexandria the weight of a zuzee (a fractional silver coin); of alum the same; of crocus the same. Let them be bruised together, and given in wine to the woman that has an issue of blood. If this does not benefit, take of Persian onions three logs (pints); boil them in wine, and give her to drink, and say, 'Arise from thy flux.' If this does not cure her, set her in a place where two ways meet, and let her hold a cup of wine in her right hand, and let some one come behind and frighten her; and say, ' Arise from thy flux.' But if that do no good, take a handful of cummin (a kind of fennel), a handful of crocus, and a handful of fenugreek (another kind of fennel). Let these be boiled in wine and give them her to drink, and say, 'Arise from thy flux!'" If these do no good, other doses, over ten in number, are prescribed, among them this: " Let them dig seven ditches, in which let them burn some cuttings of vines, not yet four years old. Let her take in her hand a cup of wine, and let them lead her away from this ditch, and make her sit down over that. And let them remove her from that, and make her sit down over another, saying to her at each remove, 'Arise from thy flux!'" (Quoted from Lightfoot by Geikie, " Life and Words of Christ ").
Of many physicians (upo). Lit., under; i.e., under the hands of.
And was nothing bettered, but rather grew worse. Luke's professional pride as a physician kept him from such a statement. Compare Luke viii. 43.
Robertson's NT Word Studies
5:26 {Had suffered many things of many physicians} (polla paqousa hupo pollwn iatrwn). A pathetic picture of a woman with a chronic case who had tried doctor after doctor. {Had spent all that she had} (dapanesasa ta par' autes panta). Having spent the all from herself, all her resources. For the idiom with para see #Lu 10:7; Php 4:18. The tragedy of it was that she "was nothing bettered, but rather grew worse" (meden wfeleqeisa alla mallon eis to ceiron elqousa). Her money was gone, her disease was gaining on her, her one chance came now with Jesus. Matthew says nothing about her experience with the doctors and #Lu 8:43 merely says that she "had spent all her living upon physicians and could not be healed of any," a plain chronic case. Luke the physician neatly takes care of the physicians. But they were not to blame. She had a disease that they did not know how to cure. Vincent quotes a prescription for an issue of blood as given in the Talmud which gives one a most grateful feeling that he is not under the care of doctors of that nature. The only parallel today is Chinese medicine of the old sort before modern medical schools came.
