Eighteen Years Bent Over

The Story

Jesus was teaching in a synagogue on the Sabbath. Among the people listening was a woman who “had a spirit of infirmity eighteen years, and was bowed together, and could in no wise lift up herself.”

For eighteen years she had been bent over. She couldn’t straighten her back. She saw the floor, the ground, people’s feet. She hadn’t looked anyone in the eye or seen the sky in nearly two decades.

Jesus saw her. He called her over. “Woman, thou art loosed from thine infirmity.”

“And he laid his hands on her: and immediately she was made straight, and glorified God.”

The leader of the synagogue was indignant. He told the crowd, There are six days to work. Come and be healed on one of those, not on the Sabbath.

Jesus answered him. You untie your ox or donkey on the Sabbath to lead it to water. “And ought not this woman, being a daughter of Abraham, whom Satan hath bound, lo, these eighteen years, be loosed from this bond on the sabbath day?”

His opponents were embarrassed, and all the people rejoiced.

Reflection