As he spoke these things to them, behold, a ruler coming in did homage to him, saying, My daughter has by this died; but come and lay thy hand upon her and she shall live.
A ruler kneels in front of Jesus and says his daughter is already dead — then asks for her life back anyway. His words raise two questions: what faith speaks like that, and who is worth kneeling to?
This appeal breaks into a conversation about old cloth and old wineskins:
From Matthew we learn what was happening when Jairus made his appeal. The Saviour was teaching that you cannot put new cloth on an old garment, or new wine into old skins (Matt. 9:14-18). He used this picture-language to show His hearers one thing. His mission of grace had nothing to do with the legal system of religious rules they grew up under. The old order of things, which demanded so much from man, had completely failed to do anything for ruined creatures. Everything now depended on Jesus. The two cases of the suffering woman and the dead girl, happening when they did, illustrated His point strikingly.
He does not just ask; he kneels before Jesus. Writers list this verse among the times Jesus accepted worship instead of refusing it:
The Lord Jesus claimed to be God (John 5 and John 8:53-58; John 10:36), and as such He never refused worship when it was offered to Him in the days of His humiliation (Matt. 8:2; Matt. 9:18; Matt. 18:26; Matt. 28:17; John 9:38, etc.) Compare this with Peter, Acts 10:26; the angel, Rev. 22:9, etc.
The ruler asks for a hand laid on the girl. Earlier a Roman officer — a centurion — had asked only for a word:
The Lord is stirred at once, and goes when the ruler calls. He owns the claim of faith, however feeble it is. The centurion knew that a word would be enough. But this Jewish ruler thinks as a Jew naturally would. He wants the Lord to come to his house and lay His hand on his daughter so that she might live. He linked the Lord's personal presence with the blessing his sick child would receive. But we Gentiles walk by faith, and not by sight. We believe in and love One whom we do not see. The Jews look for One whom they will see; and they will have Him in that way.
Mark and Luke report the girl as dying, not dead, when her father first speaks. Writers see no conflict here:
The apparent difference is this. Matthew says Jairus told the Lord his daughter was already dead. Mark and Luke make it seem she was at death's door. This variation is unimportant in itself. The Gospels themselves explain it: a messenger brought news of the child's actual death while Jesus was on the way to the ruler's house. Matthew does not mention that, because he presents the daughter's death from the very start of his account.
Beneath the family tragedy the writers see a picture of the nation of Israel:
The real state of Israel was death. Dying, as others saw it; in God's estimate Israel was dead before Jesus came. He visited it as dying — He really found it dead. So it is treated here; but, having come in life-giving power, Jesus will give it life. This will happen when He comes again.
The father's position sharpens the point. He held office in the synagogue, and the law had left his own household helpless:
The dead girl gives us a picture of Israel dead — spiritually dead — despite ages of possessing God's law. The law had not given life to Israel; so it was impossible that it could give righteousness. If it could not supply man's first need, it certainly could not supply his second.
Jairus shows what to do when nothing can be done:
The daughter was a child of twelve, just entering the age of responsibility. The father was a ruler of the synagogue. The disaster hanging over them was the last one — death. In his affliction Jairus found his resource in an appeal to the Lord. The Lord heard him. Yet the disaster did not pass, as he had expected it would, with more or less faith. Circumstances combined to hinder, and the Lord did not change the circumstances. Yet Jairus' appeal did not fall on deaf ears. The Lord answered it with a fullness of power that went beyond the father's faith, and the girl was restored to life.
- Timing. The appeal breaks into a talk about new wine and old skins. The old religious system had done nothing for ruined people. Everything now depended on Jesus.
- Worship. The ruler kneels, and Jesus accepts it. Peter and an angel both refused worship; Jesus never did.
- Faith. He asked for a hand on his child, not a word from a distance. The Lord owned that claim — feeble faith is still faith.
- Picture. A synagogue ruler's dead daughter pictures a nation the law could not bring to life. It waits for the One who gives life to come again.
- Answer. Jairus brought his grief to Jesus. His circumstances did not change, but the answer went past what he asked.
And Jesus rose up and followed him, and [so did] his disciples.
A synagogue ruler has just knelt in front of Jesus and asked Him to come to a house where a child lies dead. The answer is this verse — He gets up and goes — and commentators find a great deal in that short walk.
Jairus had nothing to offer but need. The answer came as movement, not words.
A great request was now laid at the feet of Jesus. The petitioner was Jairus, ruler of the synagogue. His daughter, a girl of twelve years, was dying. "But come," said her father, "lay Your hand on her, and she will live." Nor did our meek Master turn a deaf ear, but rose and followed him.
Another writer, reading the whole chapter together, notes the order in which the Lord's character comes out — first His stooping to walk behind a grieving father, then His gentleness with the woman who interrupts the journey:
These two cases bring out very clearly the love and power of the Son of God. First His gracious condescension in following the man, then His tender kindness to the woman.
A Roman officer had earlier asked only for a word. Kelly sees Israel itself in this dying girl.
That was exactly an illustration of the Lord's attitude toward Israel. He was there with life in Himself. Israel was like the girl who needed Him; she had no life in her: such was Israel's condition. But the Lord is at once roused, and goes at the call of the ruler. He owns the claim of faith, however feeble it may be. The centurion knew that a word would be enough. But this Jewish ruler thinks as a Jew naturally would. He wants the Lord to come to his house and lay His hand on his daughter, so that she might live.
The man asking here is no beggar. He belongs to the class that produced the opposition to Jesus.
Jairus, the petitioner, was a man of social and religious standing, and moreover of the very class from which the active opposition to Jesus came. Nicodemus and Joseph of Arimathea were honourable exceptions. Of the rest it was once asked with scorn, "Have any of the authorities or the Pharisees believed in him?" (John 7:48). Here then the Lord's mercy to the ruler shows that He is rich toward all who call on Him.
Commentators differ on how Matthew's account lines up with Mark's and Luke's. One reading is that Matthew records a second approach, made after the first went unanswered.
It would seem that Matthew, in his account, is not referring to the event recorded by the other two writers. He relates how the anxious ruler sought the Lord's presence a second time. If this was so, we must suppose that the Lord did not answer the first prayer of Jairus at once. In the same way, in His perfect wisdom, He did not answer at once the urgent message of the sisters of Bethany about Lazarus... The Lord waited no longer, but "rose" — a word not found in the parallel passages — and followed him.
Another reading is simpler: Matthew leaves the stages out on purpose, because he is telling the story for a different reason.
Other accounts add details that are not here. She was at the point of death, and word of her death came before they reached the house. Whatever the time may have been, and whatever incidents others add, the account stands here for one purpose. Israel's case was desperate, even to death. So He, the Messiah, was the giver of life when all, in human terms, was over.
The child stands for something larger, and so does the request that Jesus come in person.
The ruler of the Jews wants the Lord to come in person to his house and touch the one without life. His personal presence is demanded to raise the daughter from death to life... Israel is often spoken of in the Old Testament as a daughter, the daughter of Zion. The daughter who has died is then likewise a picture of the people. Life can come to Israel only through the presence of Him who is the life. When He came the first time, they would not come to Him to have life. But He is coming again to raise up His people, to touch the daughter of Zion.
The journey itself carries meaning. He sets out for one person, and meets others on the road.
At His first coming He was on the way with Israel, the whole crowd around Him. Power was in Him, where faith was at work through grace, to stop death and to give life where everything else had failed. The poor woman pictures those whose faith took hold of Jesus in the middle of the crowd, and who were marked out from it.
- He rises. A father begs, and the meek Master does not turn a deaf ear. He gets up and goes.
- He accepts. He owns the claim of faith, however feeble it is.
- He reaches. A ruler of the synagogue, from the class that opposed Him, proves He is rich toward all who call on Him.
- He walks. On the road to the dead girl, one woman's faith takes hold of Him, and she is healed.
- He gives life. The daughter pictures Israel without life. Only the presence of the One who is life can raise her — and He is coming again.
And behold, a woman, who had had a bloody flux [for] twelve years, came behind and touched the hem of his garment;
Jesus is walking toward the house of a dying girl. A woman who has bled for twelve years slips up behind Him and touches the edge of His clothing. Everything turns on that quiet touch: what her illness meant under Israel's law, why she reached for the garment, and what Jesus did with a faith that tried to stay hidden.
Her illness did two things at once, and only one of them was physical.
So while the Lord is on His way to carry out a purpose He has already announced, the faith of this woman with the flow of blood lays claim to Him, and receives its answer. Again, Matthew does not give the same detail as Mark or Luke, and for the reason noted before: Matthew is occupied with the signs that show who He is. Her disease is named — a flow of blood. It was not only a slow draining away of her life. Under the law it also made anyone unclean who touched her (Lev. 15:25-27). So here again, as with the man with leprosy, there is uncleanness, the picture that reminds us of what sin does.
That law made her touch daring, not casual. She reached out to a holy Person while the law counted her unclean.
How great must have been her trial and her sorrow during the twelve years of her uncleanness. Still greater was her faith and the testimony she bore to the holy Person of our Lord. Anyone and anything that touched such an unclean person became unclean. She believed both that her touch could not make Christ unclean, for He is holy, and that His power could heal her.
She had only heard about Him. That report was enough to move her.
But faith comes by hearing; and, having heard of Jesus, she came in the crowd behind, and touched His garment, or, as Matthew and Luke say, its hem. Faith is always sure of the Saviour; it may have as feeble knowledge of itself as of Him, but it never doubts in Whom the power lies. Much remains to be learnt and corrected, but it goes straight to its object.
She did not ask for His hand or His word. She reached only the outer edge of His clothing — the "fringe" of the verse, which older translations call the hem.
The woman timidly touches only the hem of His garment. If this was not the great faith of the centurion (Ch.8:10), yet it was faith, the confidence that the least contact with Him would heal her. His clothes speak of His character as it was shown in the world. That alone was enough to meet her need, even though she may have understood little of His own glory.
A whole crowd was pressing against Him. Only one touch was a touch of faith, and He knew the difference.
Jesus looked round and asked, "Who touched Me?" Peter, always quick to speak, objected to the question. The crowd was so thick that many people were bound to be touching the Lord (Luke 8:45). But the Lord knows all things. He would not confuse the touch of faith with the rude shove of a curious crowd. He tells the same two apart today: the great mass of people who crowd into "places of worship" from all kinds of motives, and the true hearts among them who truly seek Him in humble faith.
She already knew she was well. Jesus still would not let the matter end there.
But even her own certainty of the cure is not enough for the grace of God. She had, in a way, stolen the blessing; she must have it as a free and full gift from the Lord, face to face.
Her healing interrupts a journey to a dying girl. Commentators read that order as a picture, though they differ on whom she stands for. One view ties her to Israel's own believers:
He visited Israel as dying — He really found it dead... So the poor woman stands for the faithful few whose faith took hold of Jesus in the middle of the crowd around Him. That is what marked them out from the crowd. These the Lord owned. They are healed and saved on the way.
Another view sees blessing reaching beyond Israel while the nation waits:
She stands for the Gentiles — the nations outside Israel — and the grace that comes to them by faith. Israel's resurrection has not happened yet, but it is drawing near. Faith touches Him now and receives salvation from Him.
- Heard. Faith started with a report about Jesus; she knew little about Him and still went straight to Him.
- Touched. The least contact was enough — the fringe of His clothing, reached for by a woman the law counted unclean.
- Healed. The touch of faith received healing; the crowd pressing on all sides received nothing. He still tells the two apart.
- Owned. What she took secretly He drew into the open, so the blessing came to her face to face as a gift.
- Awaited. Her healing came on the road to a dead girl — grace given now, while the raising of Israel is still to come.
for she said within herself, If I should only touch his garment I shall be healed.
A woman who had bled for twelve years makes her whole plan in silence, deciding to reach the edge of His clothing in a crowd. Everything about her cure hangs on that unspoken sentence: what she believed about Him, and how little contact she thought she needed.
What she believed came from reports about Him. She came only after her money had run out.
The Holy Spirit draws our special attention to what happens while He is on His way to raise the dead Jewish girl. Another Gospel says, "she had heard of Jesus." She had heard enough to conclude that if she could only touch Him she would get the blessing. And this was after "she had spent all." As long as she had a coin left, she kept away.
She expected a full cure from the smallest contact.
The woman had said, "If I only touch His garment, I will be made well." She was right. Jesus was like a vessel filled to the brim with water, and the least touch makes it overflow. She was one of the few exceptions; the great mass saw nothing desirable in Him.
She aims not at His person but at the outer edge of His clothing — the part anyone in a crowd could reach.
The woman timidly touches only the hem of His garment. If this was not the great faith of the centurion (Ch. 8:10), yet it was faith — the confidence that the least contact with Him would heal her. His garments speak of His character as shown in the world. This alone is enough to meet her need, even though she may have had little grasp of His glory as a Person.
Under the law of Moses, her condition made her unclean, and whatever she touched became unclean too. Her plan assumes that with Him the rule runs the other way.
Leviticus 15:25-27 states the case of the woman with a discharge of blood (Matthew 9:18-26). How great her trial and sorrow must have been during the twelve years of her uncleanness. Greater still was her faith and the testimony she bore to the holy Person of our Lord. Everything that came in touch with such an unclean person became unclean. She believed both that her touch could not make Christ unclean, for He is holy, and that His power could heal her.
She knew little about Him. She was sure of one thing: where the power lay.
Faith is always sure of the Saviour. It may know as little about itself as it knows about Him, but it never doubts who holds the power. Much still has to be learned and corrected, but faith goes straight to its object.
Her hope rested on Him, not on the size of her own confidence. So her blessing was not cut down to match her small faith.
It was only a touch, and only the hem of His garment, yet the blessing was hers in full measure. She was completely healed. This shows that the measure of our faith does not set the measure of the blessing that grace gives.
Other people made contact with Him in that crowd. Nothing happened to them.
His question also showed that many people had been touching Him in various ways. Yet no other touch had drawn any power from Him. Why was this? Because, of all the touches, hers was the only one that sprang out of a consciousness of need, and faith. When these two things are present, the touch is always effective.
The Lord was already on His way to raise a dead girl when this woman touched Him. His errand did not shut her out.
While He is going, a woman touches Him. The Lord's errand was to Israel, and that errand is only suspended, not cancelled. While He is on the way, whoever comes and touches Him gets the blessing. No unbelief from the scribes and no self-righteousness from the Pharisees could ever hinder the Lord in His mission of love. He was about to bring in new principles that would not mix with the law: grace that would go out to everyone, and would meet the worst cases.
- Heard — she had never met Him. A report was enough to convince her that contact with Him meant healing, and she came only after her money was gone.
- Said — she speaks the words inside herself, to no one. Faith can reason in the heart before it ever asks out loud.
- Touched — she reached the hem, the smallest contact possible. She counted on this: her uncleanness could not defile Him, but His holiness could heal her.
- Whole — the One she touched set the measure of the blessing, not the strength or clarity of her faith.
- Different — others touched Him at the same moment and drew nothing. Need and faith are what make a touch count.
But Jesus turning and seeing her, said, Be of good courage, daughter; thy faith has healed thee. And the woman was healed from that hour.
A woman who had been bleeding for twelve years came up behind Jesus in the crowd and touched His clothes, hoping no one would see. He turned and spoke to her — so why did a cure she already had still need His voice?
Many people were pressing against Jesus that day, yet He asked who had touched Him. One writer points out that not every touch is the same.
What the Lord does is always worthy of Himself, and, like Himself, perfect. He is a divine person, and there was infinite fullness in Him to respond to all need. It was a puzzle to the disciples when He said "Who touched me?" The crowd was so thick that the question might rather have been, "Who did not touch me?" But this was a touch of faith and of need, and He never fails to respond to such.
She was already healed before He spoke, and He was already on His way to raise a dead girl. He turned anyway. He knew her faith was there; He simply had more to give her than a healed body.
"Who touched My clothes?" (Mark 5:30) said the Lord Jesus. And again in Luke 8:46, "I perceive that power has gone out of Me." It was the effective power of God to meet the power of death working in her. Faith was there before the touch, and He knew it well. But His blessed heart would not let her go without the fuller and richer blessing of peace from God in her soul. The paralysed man at the beginning of the chapter was put right first in soul, then in body. Here it was the body first, then the soul, by the healing power of the Son of God. In the woman there had been the touch of faith from her side, but in the room where the dead girl lay it was the touch of power from His side. These two cases bring out very clearly the love and power of the Son of God.
His first word to her is a family word. And what makes faith right is not its strength but its object.
"Daughter" was a term of endearment. Perhaps she was not conscious of her faith, but there it was, and it was right, for it was in Jesus. It is very necessary to see that her faith was in the person of Christ. Very strong faith in a wrong thing will not make the faith right nor the thing right. What gives faith its value is its object.
Older translations read "be of good comfort" or "be of good cheer" here. One writer explains what that cheer is, and where else Jesus said it.
"Cheer" is that comfort of heart which springs from complete confidence in the love and power of God. And who could give this sustaining strength like our Lord? Besides this occasion, Jesus used these words in four other cases. Two were cases of physical weakness and two of mental distress. Two came in the middle of trouble, and two were full of fear about what was coming.
Jesus points to her faith — but the healing power was never in her faith. It was in Him.
Jesus also told her that she was made whole, and that by faith — "your faith has made you well." She had confessed the Lord "before all the people," but that had not made her whole. It is important to see that it is not our tears, our sorrows, our reformations, or efforts of any kind that make us whole. No, it is Christ, and Christ alone.
Matthew closes by dating the cure: from that hour. A study of the expression notes that here the phrase carries no delay at all — "'moment' or 'at once' would give the sense" (Morrish Bible Dictionary).
The healing broke into another journey. One writer sees a picture in that: the Gentiles — the nations outside Israel — blessed by faith while Israel still waits.
She represents the Gentiles and the grace which comes to them by faith, while the resurrection of Israel is still unaccomplished, but drawing near. Faith touches Him now and receives from Him salvation with its precious help. But the touching of Him is parenthetical, just as the present age with salvation come to the Gentiles is a parenthesis.
- Touch. Crowds pressed Him; one woman touched Him. He answers need and faith, not proximity.
- Turn. He turned not to expose her but to give more — the body healed already, now peace in the soul.
- Daughter. His first word is kinship. She may not even have been aware of her faith, but it rested on Christ — and its object is what gave it value.
- Whole. Not tears, not reform, not even her public confession made her whole — Christ alone did, and He did it in a moment.
- Meanwhile. He healed her on the way to a deathbed. One writer sees grace reaching the nations by faith while Israel's raising still waits ahead.
And when Jesus was come to the house of the ruler, and saw the flute-players and the crowd making a tumult,
Jesus reaches the house of the synagogue ruler whose daughter has died. He does not walk into silence. Musicians and a crowd are already there, making a din. What He finds there, and what He does with it, says as much about Him as the raising that follows.
A Bible dictionary explains who these musicians were and why they were there:
The word nagan means a player on a stringed instrument, a harpist. But it is used of players of any musical instrument. Once, when asked for advice, Elisha called for a musician, and "when the musician played, the hand of the LORD came upon him." 2 Kings 3:15. The musicians mentioned in Matt. 9:23 were pipers or flute players hired to help with mourning.
That world mourned its dead with an organised display. Scripture records the custom, and then asks for something deeper:
At a death professional mourners were hired, mostly women. "Call for the mourning women to come... let them make haste and raise a wailing over us, that our eyes may run down with tears and our eyelids flow with water." Jer. 9:17-18... Musicians also attended at deaths, who played mournful tunes. Matt. 9:23. God does not want grieving people to be without feeling: the Lord wept at the grave of Lazarus. But He wants what is real in all things. He had to say to His people, "Rend your hearts and not your garments." Joel 2:13.
Their scorn was not only unbelief. They had a financial interest in the girl staying dead:
He arrives at Jairus' house, where He finds mourners — no doubt paid mourners. "He said to them, 'Go away, for the girl is not dead but sleeping.' And they laughed at Him." They would have lost their work, so to speak, if she was not dead, and their pay would be gone too. Man had introduced all that. If He was there, all they had to do was go away. "Be silent, all flesh, before the Lord."
Another writer weighs how much real feeling such an uproar carries, and names who stayed:
Unbelief may weep and wail and create all sorts of uproar, and feel very little after all. At the same moment it can laugh Jesus to scorn. But He lets no one enter except the chosen ones — Peter, James and John alone, with the parents.
Was she truly dead? The same writer answers that, and sets her raising beside two others:
He raised her from her bed, the young man of Nain from the stretcher that carried him, and Lazarus from the grave. Each case needed the same power — the power of Him who is the Resurrection and the Life. Unbelieving people may be ready to explain this away and say it was a trance. But the case of Lazarus proves any such idea false... How awful that the musicians and the people laughed at Him! They mocked Him. That in itself was proof that they were fully convinced she was dead.
One writer reads the raising as more than one family's rescue:
The girl was not dead, but sleeping: this is the state of Israel now. And as surely as the Lord did raise her up, so surely will He in a future day awaken the sleeping daughter of Zion.
Another writer turns the scene into a lesson for families today:
Even the best-provided homes in the world around us fall to pieces like Jairus' when something goes wrong. When the Lord Jesus arrived there to raise his daughter from the dead, He "saw the flute players and the crowd making a commotion" (Matt. 9:23)... it was a scene of chaos. Today many people, things and influences have come into families that are alien to what God intends... This is what God wants our homes to be: beacons of light and peace in a dark and troubled world. For this to be so we must bring Him in and obey Him as Jairus did.
- Hired. The "flute players" were paid professionals, brought in to supply the sound of grief at a death.
- Hollow. Loud mourning can carry little real feeling; God wants torn hearts, not torn clothes.
- Threatened. Paid mourners had a stake in the girl staying dead, so His word met scorn — and that scorn proved they were sure she had died.
- Cleared. He put the noise out and kept only the parents and three disciples in the room where He would act.
- Sleeping. What looked like the end He called sleep — and the girl He raised pictures a nation He will yet awaken.
he said, Withdraw, for the damsel is not dead, but sleeps. And they derided him.
A girl has died, her house is loud with mourners, and Jesus says she is only asleep — so they laugh at Him. That raises two questions: what does He mean by "sleeping," and why does the laughter matter?
The Lord is not correcting a medical mistake. He is naming death by what it is to Him. One writer links that word to how Scripture later speaks of believers who have died.
Then, at the end of the chapter, the Lord is in the presence of death; but He will not allow death to stay in His presence. "The girl is not dead, but sleeping," He said — and how true it was! Just so the Spirit says that believers are asleep, as in "those who sleep in Jesus God will bring with Him."
The same power stands behind every such word of His, whatever stage the body has reached.
On a later occasion we find the Lord speaking of Lazarus as "sleeping." It was His way of speaking. He was going to raise Lazarus, and He was about to raise this girl now. He raised her from her bed; the young man of Nain from the bier; and Lazarus from the grave. Each case needed the same power — the power of Him who is the Resurrection and the Life.
The people making the noise were not family. One writer notes that someone paid them for the job, which explains both their noise and what they stood to lose. In the quote below, "Give place" is an older wording for the ESV's "Go away."
He arrives at Jairus' house, where He finds mourners — no doubt paid mourners. He said to them, "Give place, for the girl is not dead but sleeping." And they laughed at Him. They would have lost their work, so to speak, if she was not dead, and their pay would be gone too. Man had introduced all of that. All that was needed was for them to give place, if He was there.
Their mourning was a performance, and His word cut across their expertise:
The Lord, who was always tender and gracious to people in distress, rebuked this show of hollow grief over the daughter of Jairus. His severity was aimed at their hypocrisy and pretence, for their sympathy was not sincere... His words, "The girl is not dead," clashed head-on with what they knew as professionals. They had no faith in Him and no respect for His sayings to set against what looked like a denial of plain fact... It was the laughter of folly, as the laughter of Abraham and Sarah was the laughter of disbelief (Genesis 17:17; Genesis 18:12).
The scorn is not just an ugly detail. It is a witness, and it settles a question sceptics raise about the account.
Unbelieving man may be ready enough to explain this away and say it was a trance. But the case of Lazarus contradicts any such idea... How very terrible that the flute-players and the people laughed Him to scorn! They mocked Him. That of itself was evidence that they thoroughly believed she was dead.
Matthew records that Jesus put the mockers outside before He raised the girl. That order says something about what they had trusted.
He put out all the rest, who were weeping and wailing, when they mocked His saying, "Do not weep; she is not dead but sleeping." They believed their senses, not His word. The scornful will not see the blessing.
What He met in that house He would meet again on a far darker day:
It is sad that the appointed sufferings of the Messiah included such ridicule from man. But Scripture said of Him, "All who see me mock me" (Psalm 22:7), and this word reached its high point of fulfilment at the cross.
Darby reads the scene as a picture of Israel, and of what the Lord will yet do for that nation.
The real state of Israel was death. On the point of dying as others saw it, in God's estimate Israel was dead before Jesus came... As for the one He set out for, He must, when the time comes, not heal but raise from the dead. For God holds Israel as only asleep, though really dead morally.
- Sleep. Jesus renames death by His own power. What ends everything for us is sleep to Him — and Scripture later says the same of believers who have died.
- Scorn. The paid mourners had a living to protect and a name for knowing death. His word crossed both, so they laughed.
- Evidence. Their mockery proves the girl was dead. That rules out any theory of a trance.
- Excluded. Jesus put the scoffers outside before He raised the girl. Those who trust their senses over His word do not get to watch the blessing.
- Awakening. The same voice that woke a girl called asleep will wake the nation God still calls asleep.
But when the crowd had been put out, he went in and took her hand; and the damsel rose up.
A ruler's daughter has died. The house is full of noisy mourning, and Jesus has just told the crowd that she is only sleeping. What He does next shows His authority over death. Commentators also read it as a picture of what He will do for a whole nation.
The wailing in that house was not private sorrow alone. Some of it was hired work, and the Lord's word about sleep threatened the trade:
He arrives at Jairus's house, where He finds mourners; no doubt paid mourners. He said to them, "Give place, for the girl is not dead but sleeping." And they laughed at Him. They would have lost their work, so to speak, if she was not dead, and their pay would be gone. Man had brought all that in. All that was needed was for them to give place, if He was there.
Older translations give His words in verse 24 as "Give place"; the ESV has "Go away." Clearing the room was not just practical. Jewish custom had a fixed routine for a death, and His grace broke it:
When Jesus reached the house of Jairus, He brushed aside the usual prescribed course of things. The power of His grace broke the wineskins of Jewish custom. He said, "Give place," and everything indeed had to give place to the power of life that He wielded — and He restored the dead child.
The crowd's laughter looks like nothing but an insult. In fact it settles a question: was the girl truly dead?
Unbelieving man may be ready enough to explain this away and say it was a trance. But the case of Lazarus gives the lie to any such supposition. Jesus allows only the girl's father and mother into the room. Three favoured disciples come too — Peter, James and John — as witnesses. How terrible that the flute players and the people laughed Him to scorn! They mocked Him. That in itself was testimony that they thoroughly believed she was dead.
The same writer points out that calling death sleep was simply His way of speaking. He raised this girl from her bed, the young man of Nain from the funeral bier, and Lazarus from the grave. Each case needed the same power — the power of the One who is the resurrection and the life.
On the road a sick woman had touched His clothes. In this room the touch comes from Him:
At the start of the chapter the Lord put the paralysed man right first in soul, then in body. Here it was the body, then the soul, by the healing power of the Son of God. In the woman there had been the touch of faith from her side, but in the room of death it was the touch of power from His side.
He took a dead girl's hand. Pollution passes by touch — but not into Him:
How all this magnifies the Lord Jesus when we think of His life in connection with it. He was always dealing with sin and the results of it. He raised the dead and cleansed the leper. Unclean people touched Him, and He allowed all kinds of defiled men to come near and touch Him. And yet nothing stained Him in the middle of it all... Instead of pollution getting into Him through the touch, power went out from Him to dismiss the power of death and blot out the stain.
Writers also see a national picture here. Scripture itself calls Israel a daughter:
Israel is often spoken of in the Old Testament as a daughter, the daughter of Zion. In the short book of Lamentations alone we find the word "daughter" meaning Israel eighteen times. The daughter who has died is then likewise a type of the people. Life can only come to Israel through the presence of Him who is the life.
The picture is not only for Israel. It reaches the reader too:
Christ came to awaken dead Israel; He will do this hereafter in the full sense of the word. Meanwhile, anyone in the crowd around Him who laid hold of Him by faith was healed, however hopeless the case. What took place in Israel when Jesus was there is true in principle of us also. Grace in Jesus is a power that raises from the dead and that heals.
- Give place — the paid mourners laughed, and He put them out. Where the power of life is present, human custom steps aside.
- Give evidence — their scorn proved they knew she was truly dead. The mockers became witnesses to the miracle.
- Give His hand — the woman on the road touched Him in faith. Here the touch came from His side, reaching someone past all reach.
- Give life, take no stain — He touched death and leprosy and stayed clean. Power went out from Him instead of uncleanness coming in.
- Give a nation back — the dead daughter pictures Israel, the daughter of Zion. The same grace that will raise the nation raises anyone who lays hold of Him now.
And the fame of it went out into all that land.
Matthew closes the story of Jairus's daughter not with the girl's first steps but with news spreading. Why end there, and how far does that news reach?
Before the news could spread, the death had to be beyond dispute. The mourners who laughed at Him supplied that proof.
How terrible that the musicians and the people laughed Him to scorn! They mocked Him. That in itself was testimony that they were sure she was dead. Unbelieving people are ready enough to explain the raising away and say it was only a trance. But the case of Lazarus proves that idea false.
The district is a small place. One writer makes that limit the point.
"And the report of this went through all that district." That is very sweet, but what is still to come will go far beyond that district. Instead of great light, great darkness is coming first, and when the Light rises on them it will shine out to all the world. "Arise, shine, for your light has come, and the glory of the LORD has risen upon you. For behold, darkness shall cover the earth, and thick darkness the peoples; but the LORD will arise upon you, and His glory will be seen upon you. And nations shall come to your light, and kings to the brightness of your rising" (Isaiah 60). Things will never be right in this world until He comes whose right it is to reign, and Israel then have their place.
Commentators read the dead girl as a picture of the nation. The Old Testament way of speaking is why.
Israel is often spoken of in the Old Testament Scriptures as a daughter, the daughter of Zion. In the short book of Lamentations alone we find the word "daughter" meaning Israel eighteen times. The daughter who has died is then likewise a type of the people. To bring life to Israel can only be through the presence of Him who is the life.
Matthew tells it briefly. One writer explains both that brevity and the scale of what the scene pictures.
Matthew gives little of the detail about this woman or about the daughter of Jairus that Mark's Gospel gives. The stress in Matthew is on the authority by which He overcomes everything that stands against Him. Then His action confirms His word, as He takes the girl by the hand and raises her up alive. This is the picture of Israel raised, in effect, from a state of death. The news of it spread far and wide. In the same way, all the earth will marvel at the wonder of Israel's revival in the age to come.
Hopeless appearances did not settle the girl's case. They will not settle Israel's either.
But He took hold of her hand and called, "Little girl, arise." Then her spirit returned, for it was gone. She rose up at once, and He told them to give her food. In due time the same Lord will raise up the people from the valley of dry bones. The prophets assure us of it, however many say, "Our bones are dried up, and our hope is lost; we are indeed cut off." As Jehovah has spoken, so He will do. In that day all the earth will know it.
The same writer sets the long-tried woman beside the girl, and names what both cases turned on.
Whether it be the long and desperately tried woman or the girl of Israel, faith alone enjoys the blessing. And rightly so. Faith gives up all dependence on self and honours God and His Son. It credits Him with love as great as His power, and with a word from Christ as sure as either.
One writer applies the verse to family life.
Those in Jairus' home mocked the Lord for what He said. But the ruler of the synagogue was desperate enough to follow His instructions. Once the crowd was put out, the Lord went in and took his daughter's hand. She rose up, and "the report of this went through all that district." This is what God wants our homes to be: beacons of light and peace in a dark and troubled world. For this to happen we must bring Him in and obey Him as Jairus did.
- Death proved. The mourners' scorn showed they were sure the girl was dead, so no one could write the raising off as a trance.
- Touch given. He put the crowd out, took her hand, and her spirit returned. The same power will raise a people who say their bones are dried up and their hope is lost.
- Faith receives. For the long-tried woman and for the girl of Israel, faith alone enjoyed the blessing, because faith drops all dependence on self and honours God and His Son.
- Report spread. The news filled one district only — a small measure of the day when His glory rises on Israel and nations come to that light.
- Home lit. A home that brings Him in and obeys Him becomes a beacon of light and peace that others hear about.