the Week of Proper 26 / Ordinary 31
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Bible Encyclopedias
Crook-Backed
International Standard Bible Encyclopedia
The woman bound by the spirit of infirmity and unable to lift herself (Luke 13:11-17 ) was affected with senile kyphosis, a chronic bone disease often found among aged men (and more frequently women) whose lives have been spent in agricultural labor. In these the vertebrae become altered in shape so that it is impossible to straighten the back. Some rabbinical authorities believed all deformities to be due to Satan, and to this our Lord seems to have alluded in his rebuke to those who caviled at His healing on the Sabbath. I have found this condition in some Egyptian skeletons, and have seen it in a Palestinian fellah. A skeleton affected with a similar curvature was found buried under the threshold of a house at Gezer, where she had evidently been offered as a foundation sacrifice.
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Orr, James, M.A., D.D. General Editor. Entry for 'Crook-Backed'. International Standard Bible Encyclopedia. https://www.studylight.org/​encyclopedias/​eng/​isb/​c/crook-backed.html. 1915.