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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comRobertson Word Pictures - Matthew 9:23 - 9:23
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The flute-players (tous aulētas). The girl was just dead, but already a crowd “making a tumult” (thoruboumenon) with wild wailing and screaming had gathered in the outer court, “brought together by various motives, sympathy, money, desire to share in the meat and drink going at such a time” (Bruce). Besides the several flute-players (voluntary or hired) there were probably “some hired mourning women (Jer 9:17) praeficae, whose duty it was to sing naenia in praise of the dead” (Bruce). These when put out by Jesus, “laughed him to scorn” (kategelōn), in a sort of loud and repeated (imperfect) guffaw of scorn. Jesus overcame all this repellent environment.