The Woman with the Spirit of Infirmity
    Other Scholars’ Views


    J. J. Van Oosterzee The Gospel According to Luke, Translated from the second German Edition, with additions original and selected by Philip Schaff and Rev Charles C. Starbuck Sixth Edition, T & T Clarke, Edinburgh, 1872

      Vs 16. Being a daughter of Abraham. –  . . . That we are entitled to regard this woman as a daughter of Abraham in the spiritual sense, appears even from this, that the Saviour does not once ask as her faith, doubtless because He had already read this in her heart, while besides, her glorifying of God immediately after the miracle, vs 13, testifies of her devout disposition of soul; nor is the declaration: “Thy sins are forgiven thee,” here made. Where now such a daughter of Abraham was bound by Satan, the Saviour could not forbear to snatch from him this booty.

      Whom Satan hath bound. – More plainly than by this otherwise superfluous expression the Saviour could not give it to be understood that he regarded the demoniacal condition of this sufferer as the effect of a direct Satanical influence. Since possession could never be merely corporeal, it may be assumed that along with the spirit of discouragement and privation of power, the spark of faith had maintained or developed itself in the woman.


    Charles John Ellicott (Editor) A Bible Commentary for Bible Students, by Various Writers Volume 6, Marshall Bros, London

      The presence of such a suffer in the synagogue may, perhaps, be held to imply habitual devotion, and therefore the faith that made her receptive of the healing power. . . .

      [After her healing] she poured forth her joy (as the tense of the verb implies) in a continuous strain of praise.


    Adam Clarke The Holy Bible Containing the Old and New Testament  . . . with a Commentary and Critical Notes, a New Edition by the Rev Thornley Smith Vol V William Tegg, London

      She was bowed together, bend down to the earth, a situation equally painful and humiliating; the violence of which she could not support and the shame of which she could not conceal.  . . . Notwithstanding her infirmity was great, painful, and shameful, she took care to attend the synagogue. While she hoped for help from God, she saw it was her duty to wait in the appointed way, in order to receive it. Jesus saw her distress, and the desire she had both to worship her Maker and to get her health restored, and his eye affected his heart.


    The quote by Campbell Morgan was itself cited by:

    Geldenhuys, Norval Commentary on the Gospel of Luke: The English Text with Introduction Exposition and Notes (The New International Commentary on the New Testament, General Editor, F. F. Bruce) Wm. B. Eerdmans, Grand Rapids, Michigan, page 375


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