Topic
Crook-Backed
2 passages cited, from 1 classic reference work.
These works date from 1915 and are in the public domain. They reflect the Protestant scholarship of their time: their history, archaeology and dates can be out of date, and where they interpret, other traditions read the text differently. The verses are shown in the King James Version, the wording these works were written against.
The verses
The passages the works cite, those cited by more of them first.
- Leviticus 21:20ISBE
Or crookbackt, or a dwarf, or that hath a blemish in his eye, or be scurvy, or scabbed, or hath his stones broken;
- Luke 13:11–17ISBE
¶ And, behold, there was a woman which had a spirit of infirmity eighteen years, and was bowed together, and could in no wise lift up herself. And when Jesus saw her, he called her to him, and said unto her, Woman, thou art loosed from thine infirmity. And…
In the reference works
International Standard Bible Encyclopedia (1915) · 2 references
krook'-bakt (gibben; kurtos): A disqualification for the priesthood (Le 21:20); was probably an angular curvature of the spine, usually the result of tubercular caries of the vertebrae. It was by no means uncommon in ancient Egypt, where I have found a considerable number of spines affected with this disease. Some Talmudic authorities explain it as meaning "very dark colored," but this is unlikely.
The woman bound by the spirit of infirmity and unable to lift herself (Lu 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.
Alex. Macalister
Texts: International Standard Bible Encyclopedia (1915), from the CrossWire SWORD modules (public domain). Verse references were parsed from the works' own markup and checked against the KJV verse list.