Greek word · G131
αἱμορροέω
haimorroeō
to bleed
'To flow with blood', to have a hemorrhage. The word is built from haima (blood) and rheō (flow). Greek medical writers use it for any persistent bleeding. Its only New Testament use is here.
Appears once in the Greek New Testament. ·
What it means
αἱμορροέω,
(αἷμα, ῥέω), [in LXX: Leviticus 15:33 (דָּוֶה) * ;]
to lose blood, suffer from a flow of blood (Hipp.): Matthew 9:20.†
(AS)
From G. Abbott-Smith, A Manual Greek Lexicon of the New Testament (1922), via STEPBible.org (CC BY 4.0).
In depth
From the study of Matthew 9:20
- Range of meaning
'To flow with blood', to have a hemorrhage. The word is built from haima (blood) and rheō (flow). Greek medical writers use it for any persistent bleeding. Its only New Testament use is here.
- Against the English
KJV 'diseased with an issue of blood' adds 'diseased', and 'issue' is now an archaic word for discharge. 'Suffered from bleeding' (BSB) and 'had a discharge of blood' (WEB) are accurate. None of them says outright that the bleeding was most likely gynecological. Matthew's audience would probably have assumed it.
- Used elsewhere in the period
Greek Leviticus 15:33 uses the participle of this verb for the bleeding woman in the closing summary of the discharge laws. Leviticus 15:25 (Hebrew zav dam, 'flow of blood') describes a woman who bleeds 'many days' outside her normal period, the condition later called zavah. Hippocratic writers use the verb for hemorrhages generally.
Where it appears
Matthew · 1
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Matthew 9:20 αἱμορροοῦσα having a flux of blood
Suddenly a woman who had suffered from bleeding for twelve years came up behind Him and touched the fringe of His cloak.
Here: Literally 'blood-flowing'. The present tense means the bleeding is still happening, not something in her past. The same verb appears in the Greek translation of Leviticus 15:33 for a woman's bleeding, so it most likely points to a continuous bleeding from the womb.
Word data: STEPBible.org (CC BY 4.0), main text only.