Luke 13:11 - Ellicott's Commentary On The Whole Bible

Behold, there was a woman.... — The description indicates the accuracy of the trained observer. The duration of the affliction (as in Acts 9:33), the symptoms of permanent curvature of the spine, the very form of the two participles, bent together.... unable to unbend, are all characteristic. The phrase a “spirit of infirmity,” i.e., an evil spirit producing bodily infirmity, implies a diagnosis that the seat of the powerlessness, as in some forms of catalepsy and aphasia, was in the region in which soul and body act and react on each other. The presence of such a sufferer in the synagogue may, perhaps, be held to imply habitual devotion, and therefore the faith that made her receptive of the healing power.