Biblion Bible Commentary
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A Daughter, and a Daughter
Luke 8:40-56
40 When Jesus returned, the multitude welcomed him, for they were all waiting for him. · WEB
A synagogue ruler's errand is interrupted by a woman nobody would touch, and the delay costs a child's life.
Behold, a man named Jairus came. He was a ruler of the synagogue Luke 8:41.
The two stories are told together in the earliest account Mark 5:21–43, one folded inside the other, and the folding is the meaning. This account keeps it and sharpens two details.
he had an only born daughter, about twelve years of age, and she was dying Luke 8:42. Only is this writer's word — he has used it of the widow's son at Nain and will use it of the boy at the foot of the mountain Luke 7:12 Luke 9:38. And she is twelve, which is exactly how long the woman in the crowd has been bleeding. One girl's whole life is the length of the other woman's suffering.
Jairus is a man of standing in the synagogue, at a point in the book where the synagogue authorities have begun plotting Luke 6:11, and he is on his face in the road.
A woman who had a flow of blood for twelve years, who had spent all her living on physicians and could not be healed by any Luke 8:43.
Her condition made her ceremonially unclean, and so did anything she sat on or touched Leviticus 15:25–27. Twelve years of that is not primarily a medical fact; it is twelve years of being untouchable, unable to worship normally, and financially ruined by treatment.
came behind him and touched the fringe of his cloak Luke 8:44. Behind, and only the tassel. She has arranged to take what she needs without being seen, because being seen would mean explaining in public what is wrong with her.
"Who touched me?" Luke 8:45. Peter's objection is the sensible one — the multitudes press and jostle you — and it is overruled. "Someone did touch me, for I perceived that power has gone out of me" Luke 8:46.
The question looks unkind and is the opposite. She had come for a cure and would have left with a cure and a secret; what he does is refuse to let her go anonymous.
When the woman saw that she was not hidden, she came trembling... and declared to him in the presence of all the people the reason why she had touched him Luke 8:47. It costs her everything she was avoiding. She says it out loud, in front of the crowd, and what she gets back is a word nobody had used to her in twelve years.
"Daughter, cheer up. Your faith has made you well. Go in peace" Luke 8:48.
Daughter — the only time he addresses a woman that way. And it is spoken in front of a father whose daughter is at that moment running out of time.
While he still spoke, one from the ruler's house came, saying, "Your daughter is dead. Don't trouble the Teacher" Luke 8:49. The interruption has cost exactly what Jairus feared. The account lets that stand.
"Don't be afraid. Only believe, and she will be healed" Luke 8:50. He asks the man for faith at the moment the reason for it has gone.
"Don't weep. She isn't dead, but sleeping." They were ridiculing him, knowing that she was dead Luke 8:52–53.
The mockery is recorded because it establishes the fact — professional mourners knew death when they saw it, and the account puts their certainty on the record. And the word he chooses is Scripture's ordinary word for the dead John 11:11–14, said by the one person present for whom the difference between the two states is a matter of a sentence.
Her spirit returned, and she rose up immediately. He commanded that something be given to her to eat Luke 8:55. The last instruction is the most ordinary in the chapter, and it is why this Gospel is trusted on such things. A twelve-year-old has just been raised, and somebody is told to get her a meal.
settled What this mark means