In his essay on the hemorrhaging woman (Matthew 10) in The Social Setting of Jesus and the Gospels , Stuart Love points out that in Matthew Jesus addresses only two women with a gendered word, as “daughter” or “woman.” The first is the woman with the 12-year flow of blood, a clear symbol of impure, desperate, but believing Israel (“daughter”); the other is the Syro-Phoenician “woman” (Matthew 15:28).
It’s a nice picture of Jesus’ ministry. He helps both women, but the Israelite woman alone qualifies as “daughter.”
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