TEXT [Commentary]

10. The woman with the hemorrhage and Jairus’s daughter (5:21-43; cf. Luke 8:40-56)

21 Jesus got into the boat again and went back to the other side of the lake, where a large crowd gathered around him on the shore. 22 Then a leader of the local synagogue, whose name was Jairus, arrived. When he saw Jesus, he fell at his feet, 23 pleading fervently with him. “My little daughter is dying,” he said. “Please come and lay your hands on her; heal her so she can live.”

24 Jesus went with him, and all the people followed, crowding around him. 25 A woman in the crowd had suffered for twelve years with constant bleeding. 26 She had suffered a great deal from many doctors, and over the years she had spent everything she had to pay them, but she had gotten no better. In fact, she had gotten worse. 27 She had heard about Jesus, so she came up behind him through the crowd and touched his robe. 28 For she thought to herself, “If I can just touch his robe, I will be healed.” 29 Immediately the bleeding stopped, and she could feel in her body that she had been healed of her terrible condition.

30 Jesus realized at once that healing power had gone out from him, so he turned around in the crowd and asked, “Who touched my robe?”

31 His disciples said to him, “Look at this crowd pressing around you. How can you ask, ‘Who touched me?’”

32 But he kept on looking around to see who had done it. 33 Then the frightened woman, trembling at the realization of what had happened to her, came and fell to her knees in front of him and told him what she had done. 34 And he said to her, “Daughter, your faith has made you well. Go in peace. Your suffering is over.”

35 While he was still speaking to her, messengers arrived from the home of Jairus, the leader of the synagogue. They told him, “Your daughter is dead. There’s no use troubling the Teacher now.”

36 But Jesus overheard[*] them and said to Jairus, “Don’t be afraid. Just have faith.”

37 Then Jesus stopped the crowd and wouldn’t let anyone go with him except Peter, James, and John (the brother of James). 38 When they came to the home of the synagogue leader, Jesus saw much commotion and weeping and wailing. 39 He went inside and asked, “Why all this commotion and weeping? The child isn’t dead; she’s only asleep.”

40 The crowd laughed at him. But he made them all leave, and he took the girl’s father and mother and his three disciples into the room where the girl was lying. 41 Holding her hand, he said to her, “Talitha koum,” which means “Little girl, get up!” 42 And the girl, who was twelve years old, immediately stood up and walked around! They were overwhelmed and totally amazed. 43 Jesus gave them strict orders not to tell anyone what had happened, and then he told them to give her something to eat.

NOTES

5:22 leader of the local synagogue. Jairus was a key figure at the synagogue who helped to direct the worship services and operate the building. A local synagogue could have more than one leader (Acts 13:15). He would have been a “lay leader.” This is one of the few scenes in Mark in which a Jewish leader was responsive to Jesus.

fell at his feet. This prostration (piptō [TG4098, ZG4406]) indicated his respect for Jesus; the Syro-Phoenician woman will later do the same (7:25).

5:23 is dying. Lit., “has the last” or “has [it] terminally”; our idiom might be “is on her last leg.” The leader understood that Jesus could heal her.

lay your hands on her. In the Heb. OT, there is no example of a healing that involved the laying on of hands. In the LXX, the idea is found in 2 Kgs 5:11 (Guelich 1989:295).

5:25 constant bleeding. This is lit. “a flow of blood,” a euphemistic reference to vaginal bleeding. It made the woman ceremonially unclean (the language matches Lev 15:25-30) and a source of uncleanness, thus prohibiting her from marital relations and to some degree restricting a normal social life. Key Jewish texts for this condition include 11QTemple 45:7-17, 46:16-18, 48:14-17; Josephus Antiquities 3.261; and m. Niddah. Marcus (2000:357-358) surveys the issues involved in the Jewish background of this scene. The unclean woman’s social position and status were exactly opposite to those of Jairus. Jesus ministered to the whole gamut of society.

5:26 had gotten worse. In Judaism, doctors were viewed on a spectrum between esteem (Sir 38:1-5) and contempt (m. Qiddushin 4.14; Tob 2:10; Geulich 1989:297).

5:27 touched his robe. There was an ancient belief that a person’s power could be conducted by his or her clothes (see 3:10; 6:56; Acts 19:12).

5:28 If I can just touch his robe. This is expressed as a Gr. third class condition, expressed as a pure hope with no presumption as to its likelihood. However, her willingness to violate the rules governing uncleanness showed her determination.

5:29 the bleeding stopped. Lit., “the well of her blood was dried up.” The language reflects Lev 12:7, LXX, where the rite of cleanliness is described. The woman was restored.

her terrible condition. Her condition is described very graphically in Gr. as an affliction or “whipping” that had been removed (BDAG 620).

5:30 healing power had gone out from him. Jesus knew that someone had touched him. As one who possessed healing power and transcended any defilement that normally would result from such contact, Jesus now made public what the woman had naturally hoped would remain private.

5:31 Who touched me? The disciples were amazed that Jesus would ask such a question. The crowd was so tight around him that numerous people were touching him. Jesus, however, knew the difference between casual contact and what had taken place. God had acted graciously in healing this woman (Lane 1974:192-193) and she needed to understand that.

5:32 who had done it. This expression is feminine (“the woman who had done this”), indicating that either Jesus or the narrator knew that this was a woman. A narrative comment to that effect seems superfluous as the story makes this clear, so there is a hint here that Jesus was aware of who it was. Jesus sought her out for her sake, not his own.

5:33 came and fell . . . and told him what she had done. Jesus’ question elicited the woman’s public testimony. She was trembling because she had not been able to be healed anonymously. Would he be angry that she had made him unclean? She told “the whole truth” (so the Gr.) of what she had done and Jesus reassured her that all was well. She learned that what had taken place was not simply an ancient form of magic. While all of this went on, Jairus waited. One can only imagine how he felt about the delay in treating his daughter.

5:35 Your daughter is dead. The delay caused by the woman’s healing was apparently devastating for Jairus and his daughter. In the messengers’ view, she had died and it was too late to help her now. Jesus should be sent on his way.

5:36 Jesus overheard them. Jesus heard the message but continued as though nothing had been said. The NLT mg has “ignored” because the word parakouō [TG3878, ZG4159] (overheard) can also mean “ignored,” as it consistently does in the LXX. This is, in effect, what Jesus did (BDAG 767); he heard what the messengers said but continued on his mission to help Jairus. Having just commended the woman’s faith, Jesus issued a call to recognize and trust what God could do through him. The present imperative call to faith means “keep on believing.”

5:37 except Peter, James, and John. This is one of a handful of events, such as the Transfiguration, the Olivet discourse, and Gethsemane, where only the inner circle of the Twelve observed what took place (Taylor 1966:294). Crowds and mourners (5:40) were excluded. Luke 8:51 notes that the parents were also there.

5:38 saw much commotion and weeping and wailing. This is one of the clear indications that the girl had died. Mourners were customary in Judaism, although whether these were professional mourners or just friends and neighbors is not clear in Mark.

5:39 only asleep. This is a frequent euphemism that indicates that death is not permanent. It appears elsewhere in the NT with this meaning (see 1 Thess 5:10, with the same verb, katheudō [TG2518, ZG2761]; see also Dan 12:7, LXX and Ps 87:6, LXX; Taylor 1966:295). Genesis Rabbah 17.5 associates sleep with incomplete death. Jesus may be alluding to such an idea as he declares her not to be dead. Jesus knew that the girl would not remain dead; rather, her situation was more like a person taking a nap.

5:40 laughed. The crowd viewed Jesus’ claim that the girl was not permanently dead as ridiculous. In their view, Jesus either misunderstood the tragic situation or he was being silly. kategelōn [TG2606, ZG2860], the verb the NLT translates as “laughed,” has a nuance of ridicule and is used only in this scene in the NT (Matt 9:24; Luke 8:53).

5:41 Talitha koum. Mark often uses Aramaic expressions directly and then explains them (3:17; 7:11, 34; 11:9-10; 14:36; 15:22, 34; Taylor 1966:296). Here it is Jesus’ call for the girl to come back to life. As 5:42 indicates, she “arose” (aorist tense in Gr.) and “continued walking” (imperfect tense in Gr.). This miraculous resuscitation had precedent (cf. Elijah in 1 Kgs 17:17-23 and Elisha in 2 Kgs 4:18-37).

5:42 totally amazed. This term (ekstasis [TG1611, ZG1749]) is rare in the synoptic Gospels, appearing only here, in Mark 16:8, and in Luke 5:26. It is used only in the context of miracles.

5:43 strict orders not to tell anyone. Once again, Jesus restricted the discussion of this miracle. The possible reasons for this are considered in the note on Mark 1:34 (see also 1:25, 43; 3:11).

COMMENTARY [Text]

This double miracle completes a sequence of four consecutive miracles in Mark. Luke’s Gospel keeps this tight sequence, while Matthew spreads these miracles across four chapters. The difference suggests that the unit is an anthology of Jesus’ miraculous activities, with incidents placed side by side that show Jesus’ authority over creation, demons, disease (and uncleanness), and death. His ministry had certainly taken on an unusual scope for a human. His display of power was divine. The power of the new era was overcoming the law of the old. The instantaneous nature of the woman’s healing and of Jesus’ immediate response indicates that something unusual had occurred. In the Greek it is clear that the power went out “from” him (ek [TG1537, ZG1666]), not “through” him (Cranfield 1959:185). Jesus was not the mere conduit of this power but its source.

The woman touched this source and was healed by her faith in that power. Jesus commended the faith of the woman who sought him out and explained that her faith had made her well (2:5; 10:52). Her willingness to recognize God’s work through Jesus and to receive what God offered had restored her health. She could now go on in life knowing that she had been restored to peace (Heb., shalom [TH7965, ZH8934]; Judg 18:6; 1 Sam 1:17) from the “whipping” of her disease.

Jesus’ divine power was also manifest in raising Jairus’s daughter after her death, but Jesus did not want to draw excessive attention to such healing. Although it underscored God’s work through him, it also pictured a greater authority and deliverance that were crucial parts of his message. The danger was that people would be drawn to the miracles and remain oblivious to what they depicted—that God was uniquely working through Jesus to show his authority over creation, cosmic forces, disease, and life itself. This is the most important knowledge to grasp about Jesus.

All this activity continued despite opposition and the hesitation of some to accept what Jesus was doing. Mark wanted his readers to appreciate just how powerfully God was expressing his presence in and through Jesus.