Your faith has healed you

In re: Luke 8:42-44, we have another great example of a simple little bit of text that has layers of context. 

Now a woman, having a flow of blood for twelve years, who had spent all her livelihood on physicians and could not be healed by any, came from behind and touched the border of His garment. And immediately her flow of blood stopped.
And Jesus said, “Who touched Me?”
When all denied it, Peter and those with him said, “Master, the multitudes throng and press You, and You say, ‘Who touched Me?’”
But Jesus said, “Somebody touched Me, for I perceived power going out from Me.” Now when the woman saw that she was not hidden, she came trembling; and falling down before Him, she declared to Him in the presence of all the people the reason she had touched Him and how she was healed immediately.
And He said to her, “Daughter, be of good cheer; your faith has made you well. Go in peace.”

                                     
We know the story - the woman with bleeding reaches out and touches the hem of Jesus' garment. However, in digging into this a little bit I found that it is much more complex. 

If we look back at Numbers 15, you can see that Moses had instructed the Israelites to attach a fringe or tassel to the 4 corners/hem of their outer garments.

"The Lord said to Moses, 'Speak to the Israelites and say to them: Throughout the generations to come, you are to make tassels on the corners of one's garments, with a blue cord on each tassel. You will have these tassels to look at and so will remember all the commands of the Lord, that you may obey them and not prostitute yourselves by going after the lusts of your own hearts and eyes. Then you will remember to obey all My commands, and will be consecrated to your God. I am the Lord your God.'"

Each tassel, called a tzitziyot in Hebrew, was tied up into knots, which were purposed to acknowledge the name of God and His laws. So when the people would walk around wearing these garments with the blue tassels on each corner, it was like a reminder and display that they were living under the name of God and His laws. There are also a few instances in the OT where the hem/tassel is mentioned, and they are always connected to men that God chose to do important things. For example, Samuel (I Sam. 15:27) had his tassel torn by King Saul, and Samuel immediately rebuked Saul by saying that his kingly authority would be torn away from him in the same fashion. In another case in 1 Kings 19, Elijah placed his garment and tassels on Elisha, signifying the passage of authority and the work of the prophet. Out of that tradition, these garments with the 4 tassels on them became a symbol of God's leaders on earth and the divine authority entrusted to them.

Remember when David was hiding in the cave from Saul, and David cut off part of Saul's cloak in 1 Sam. 24? He didn't just cut off a chunk of cloth, but one of these tassels, which was a direct strike at Saul's authority as God's anointed. David knew it too, because you can see that afterward he was extremely grieved for doing it and sought forgiveness.  While at the same time, we the reader know that symbolically, it was a sign that David was going to assume Saul's authority because God was going to 'tear' Saul's anointing away from him. 

Unfortunately, these tassels on the robes of the men became status symbols, not merely signs of devotion. In Matt. 24 Jesus actually rebukes the symbol directly - he criticized those who preached but did not practice, who made their tassels long to impress others. The hem/tassel was meant to be an outward display of the inward heart, and a sign of true Godly power. Yet the spiritual leaders of Jesus' day, whom he referred to as a brood of vipers (Matt. 12:34), were only showcasing their tassels in order to portray faux-spirituality while being corrupt in their hearts.

When this sick woman reaches out and grabs Jesus' tassel, both she and Jesus probably knew exactly what was going on. Remember, she's probably supposed to be quarantined because of her bleeding, yet here she is pushing through the crowds and reaching out to touch Jesus. Where did she grab? She grabbed the very symbol that underscored both the authority of Jesus as a high priest as well as the symbol for the name of God and the very law itself. If there was any true outward sign of Jesus' divine authority, the tassel would have been it. So that's what she touched and Jesus recognized it, saying that her faith in his authority and nature is what healed her.