Lange Commentary - Mark 5:21 - 5:43

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Lange Commentary - Mark 5:21 - 5:43


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This Chapter Verse Commentaries:

6. Conflict of Jesus with desponding Unbelief on the Sick-bed and Bed of Death; Healing of the Woman with the Issue of Blood; Restoration of Jairus’ Daughter; and Triumph of Jesus over the Healing Art, and the World’s Lamentations for the Dead. Mar_5:21-43.

(Parallels: Mat_9:1; Mat_9:18-26; Luk_8:40-56)

21And when Jesus was passed over again by ship unto the other side, much people 22gathered unto him; and he was nigh unto the sea. And, behold, there cometh one of the rulers of the synagogue, Jairus by name; and when he saw him, he fell at his feet, 23And besought him greatly, saying, My little daughter lieth at the point of death: 1 pray thee, come and lay thy hands on her, that she may be healed; and she shall live. 24And Jesus went with him; and much people followed him, and thronged him. 25, And a certain woman, which had an issue of blood twelve years, 26And had suffered many things of many physicians, and had spent all that she had, and was nothing bettered, but rather grew worse, 27When she had heard of Jesus, came in the press behind, and touched his garment. 28For she said, If I may touch but his clothes, I shall be whole. 29And straightway the fountain of her blood was dried up; and she felt in her body that she was healed of that plague [scourge]. 30And Jesus, immediately knowing [having known] in himself that virtue had gone out of him, turned him about in the press, and said, Who touched my clothes? 31And his disciples said unto him, Thou seest the multitude thronging thee, and sayest thou, Who touched me? 32And he looked round about to see her that had done this thing. 33But the woman, fearing and trembling, knowing what was done in her, came and fell down before him, and told him all the truth. 34And he said unto her, Daughter, thy faith hath made thee whole; go in peace, and be whole of thy plague [scourge]. 35While he yet spake, there came from the ruler of the synagogue’s house certain which said, Thy daughter is dead; why troublest thou the Master any further? 36As soon as Jesus heard the word that was spoken, he saith unto the ruler of the synagogue, Be not afraid, only believe. 37And he suffered no man to follow him, save Peter, and James, and John the brother of James. 38And he cometh to the house of the ruler of the synagogue, and seeth the tumult, and them that wept 39and wailed greatly. And when lie was come in, he saith unto them, Why make ye this ado, and weep? the damsel is not dead, but sleepeth. 40And they laughed him to scorn [jeered him]. But when he had put them all out, he taketh the father and the mother of the damsel, and them that were with him, and entereth in where the damsel was lying. 41And he took the damsel by the hand, and said unto her, Talitha cumi; which is, being interpreted, Damsel, (I say unto thee,) arise. 42And straightway the damsel arose, and walked; for she was of the age of twelve years. And they were astonished with a great astonishment. 43And he charged them straitly that no man. should know it; and commanded that something should be given her to eat.

EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL

See on the parallels.—Mark connects the return from Gadara with the narrative of the first raising of the dead, in accordance with his own principle of arrangement. According to the more exact account of Matthew, we must place in the interval the healing of the paralytic, the calling of Matthew, and the offence taken by the Pharisees and John’s disciples at Jesus’ eating in the house of the publican. In his presentation of the events that now follow, we once more observe the exact delineation of Mark. Concerning his little daughter ( èõãÜôñéïí ), the father here says ἐó÷Üôùò ἔ÷åé and in an appeal which announces itself at once by an ὅôé . In the account of the woman with an issue, Mark makes it very prominent that she had suffered much from many physicians, which Luke, the physician, much more gently intimates. And the woman’s healing is emphatically expressed: The fountain of her blood was dried up; she felt in her body (in her feeling of bodily vigor) that she was delivered from her plague (scourge). He does not (like Luke) expressly mention Peter as the one who replied to the Lord’s question as to who touched Him, “Thou seest the multitude,” etc.; but he records once more that Jesus turned and looked round to find out who had done this. We see how the woman comes forward trembling with fear, falls down before the Lord, and confesses all. We see Jesus separating Himself, with Jairus and the three elect disciples, from the multitude, in order to go into the house of death. The tumult of the lamentation for the dead is here vividly depicted. He defines accurately the group of those who enter; we hear the original Talitha cumi; we see the damsel at once, after her restoration, arising and walking, as she was able, being twelve years old; and hear how rigorously Jesus charged the people not to make much rumor about the miracle (which in itself could not be concealed); and finally, how He commanded that they should give the maiden food. Here and there Luke, and here and there Matthew, approximate to Mark’s description.

Mar_5:21. He was nigh unto the sea.—Meyer: “Here there is a discrepancy with Matthew’s account, according to which Jairus entered the house of Jesus in Capernaum.” But it was neither in Jesus’ house, nor in that of the publican Matthew; for the transaction with the Pharisees and the disciples of John doubtless took place after the meal in a public place. Hence there is no discrepancy in the narratives.

Mar_5:23. My little daughter.—(Tender expression of the troubled father).—That Thou mayest come ( ἵíá ἐëèὼí ἐðéèῇò ).—The ὅôé and the ἵíá give vivid reality to his urgent words; they are to be referred to the kneeling and cry for help ( ðáñáêáëåῖ ). Hence there is nothing to be supplied in the text.

Mar_5:26. Had suffered many things from many physicians.—“How various were the prescriptions of Jewish physicians for women in that case, and what experiments they were in the habit of making, see in Lightfoot, p. 614.” Meyer. Comp. also the article Krankheiten in Winer. “She probably suffered from a chronic hæmorrhage in the womb, and its long continuance endangered life.” See also the article Reinigkeit. “Such a woman was, according to Lev_15:25, through the whole time unclean, and was required, after the evil had passed away, to bring on the eighth day an offering for purification.” On the strong Oriental abhorrence of such persons, see the same article.

Mar_5:28. For she said,—thinking in audible words.—Touch but His clothes.—That the more precise “hem of His garment,” occurring in Matthew and Luke, is wanting in Mark, gives no warrant for conjectural emendation.

Mar_5:29. The fountain of her blood.—Not euphemistic description of the womb, but vivid description of the cause of the evil; the blood being represented as flowing from a fountain.—She felt in her body.—Euth. Zig.: As her body was no longer moistened, etc. But here there is something greater signified: she experienced the healthy feeling of new life.

Mar_5:30. Virtue had gone out of Him.—Meyer maintains that Jesus perceived the flowing of His virtue after it took place; a simultaneous knowledge of it being thought at variance with the words. But, on the contrary, it must be observed that the simultaneousness of the knowledge is declared in the ἐðéãíïýò ; first by the ἐðé , and then by the Aorist. The opposite explanation might be made to favor a magical interpretation of the event, and Strauss’ criticism upon it. Yet Meyer himself refers with an emphatic note of exclamation to Calovius: “Calovius quoted the passage against the Calvinists: vim divinam carni Christi derogardes.”

Mar_5:38. Them that wept.—A scene of Jewish ceremonial lamentation over the dead, in which Mark omits the minstrels (see Matthew), and lays less stress than Luke upon the weeping and bewailing, but only to give more prominence to the tumult and mechanical liturgical cries (by ἀëáëÜæåéí ). On the Jewish lament for the dead, see Grotius on Matthew, and Winer’s article Trauer.

Mar_5:41. Talitha cumi, èָìִéúָà ÷åּîִé .—Similar original Aramaic words occur in Mark, Mar_3:17; Mar_7:11; Mar_7:34; Mar_14:36.

Mar_5:42. She was of the age of twelve years.—Reason for the statement that she arose and walked at once. Bengel: Rediit ad statum, œtati congruentem.

Mar_5:43. That no man should know it.—That is, should know the occurrence in its precise characteristics, viz., the way and manner of the restoration of the dead. On the motive of this prohibition, see Meyer.—That something should be given her to eat.—Theophylact: That the raising might not be regarded as only an appearance. Meyer: In order to show that the child was not merely delivered from death, but from sickness also. Chiefly, however, because she was in need of strengthening by food.

DOCTRINAL AND ETHICAL

1. See on the parallels.—The touching of Christ’s garment, and the conscious issuing of a divine virtue from Him as the result, are a testimony to the living unity and reciprocal influence of the divine and human natures in His personal consciousness; in which the human nature was not (as the old dogmatics taught) merely in a passive relation.

2. Two miracles of healing were wrought on diseased women. Otherwise, they are mainly male sufferers who are adduced as examples of His healing acts. Not that other instances were wanting; for the very first healing recorded by the Evangelists took place on a woman, Peter’s wife’s mother. Luke mentions some women who were dispossessed of devils, Mar_8:2. But the deliverance of Mary Magdalene from seven devils we regard, after the analogy of Mat_12:45, as a symbolical expression of an essentially great conversion.—The woman with an issue of blood, the dead maiden: progression in the manifestation of suffering in the female sex. That the former had been afflicted twelve years and the latter was twelve years old, was a coincidence from which rash criticism has vainly sought to extract ground of suspicion.

3. We term this narrative a history of victory over despairing unbelief. This appears in the comfortless wail of the Jewish lament over the dead; in the circumstance that the people around the dead maiden laughed at the Lord, when He declared that she was not dead, but slept; but especially in the message which they sent to the ruler of the synagogue, Why troublest thou the Master any further? wherein there is an evident tone of bitter and almost ironical unbelief. The faith of Jairus itself appears, at first, as only a fruit of distress. Hence it, was subjected to a severe test, that period of deep anxiety during Christ’s delay while He cured the woman with the issue of blood. The weak germ of Jairus’ faith was encompassed by desponding unbelief. Even the faith of the sick woman struggles with the despondency into which a long series of disappointed acts of trust in physicians had thrown her. She does not venture to bring her distress publicly before the Lord’s notice; the rather as, being ceremonially unclean, she had in a forbidden manner mingled with the crowd, and as her malady was of such a kind as shame would not allow her to speak of. Hence her faith must be brought to maturity by a public confession, even as that of Jairus by a season of delay.

4. As Christ’s work of salvation assumed a specific form in many acts of blessing in favor of the male sex, so also Christianity has wrought immeasurable specific benefits for the female. Here we see, first, a wretched sick woman, lost in the crowd; and Christ delivers her not only from her sickness, but also from the morbid dread and fear of her feminine consciousness. Even shame required redemption and sanctification by the Spirit of truth. And so the female sex has been redeemed from the reproach of inferiority, impurity, the rude contempt of man’s prejudice, and the ban of self-depreciation.

5. Reischl: “The woman was afraid; partly ashamed on account of the nature of her malady, partly disturbed by the consciousness of impropriety, as having, while Levitically unclean, mingled with the people, and even touched the great Teacher Himself.” In the last point she forms a contrast to the leper, whom the Lord Himself touched. Under the veil of diffidence, however, there was a touch of womanly boldness, which was excused by the faith that the touching of Christ would heal her.

6. “Daughter, be of good courage, thy faith hath saved thee: go in peace.” Thus He blessed her in the same manner as He had blessed that palsied man. And in fact we must connect together these two petitioners for help, in order that we may see two characteristic forms of faith in the male and in the female contrasted. Both applicants pressed through with confidence, and seized their deliverance almost by force: the man did it in man’s fashion, entering through the roof like a robber; the woman in woman’s fashion, as it were, like a female thief. But both were recognised by the Lord, as showing the pure spirit of confidence.” (Lange’s Leben Jesu, ii. 682.) But the faith of this woman had a superadded conflict to maintain with her timorous natural feeling confronting the fearful power of prejudice.

HOMILETICAL AND PRACTICAL

See on the parallels.—The miracles of Christ a wonderful connected chain.—New life added to new life in the way of Christ, until the great word is fulfilled, Behold, I make all things new!—Christ at once ready to help the man who comes from the powerful party of His opponents.—The ruler of the synagogue at the feet of Jesus; or, the victory of the Gospel over party spirit.—The triumph of Christ over the whole domain of sickness and death, a sign also of His supremacy over all natural means of help and human skill in healing.—Christ the Physician of physicians (as the Preacher of preachers, the Teacher of teachers, the Judge of judges, the Prince of kings).—Christ’s divine power the sign of salvation to all the despondency, little faith, and unbelief of man.—Christ in our history the conqueror of all hindrances to His own work and man’s faith.—The woman with the issue, and the dead maiden; or, Christ the Helper in all suffering; whether secret or public.—Christ the Prince of salvation in the domain of secret sorrows and silent sighs.—Hearing and answering all the sighings of faith.—The test to which the faith of the ruler and of the woman was subjected: 1. The element common to both: they were wanting in the full surrender of trust. Both must be set free from fear and despondency. 2. The difference: the spiritual ruler must retire, wait, submit, despair of all signs for hope, and then in his despair learn to believe. He scarcely believed in the invigorator of the sick, and now He must believe in the awakener of the dead. He must, at the same time, in humility yield precedence to a poor unclean woman, and in the case of a seeming religious impropriety.—The woman must come forward and confess.—Even amidst the pressure of thousands the Lord perceives the silent and gentle touch of a single believer.—Internal union with Jesus high above the external.—The hastening and the delaying of Jesus sublime above the haste and delay of the world.—Christ purposed here to effect, not the healing of the sick, but the raising of the dead.—Twice (in the history of Lazarus too) He first yielded the point to death, that He might approve Himself afterwards his conqueror.—With the Lord the spiritual is everything, and the edification of the inner life the great concern.—The gradually progressive manifestation of Christ’s power in raising the dead, a sign and symbol of the great and universal resurrection.

Starke:—Quesnel.:—God has His own times and seasons; He delays and yet helps. Have patience, and walk in the way He marks.—Hedinger:—Daring wins.—Quesnel:—Men are slow to do for the healing of the soul what they are ready enough to do for the cure of the body.—Cramer:—Medicines are not to be despised, Sir_38:1; but God does not always see fit to prosper them.—To use them is not displeasing to God, but ungodly trusting in them is.—The humility of the woman.—Canstein:—Shame and fear would keep us back from Christ, but faith presses near to Him with a right and laudable shamelessness.—Osiander:—In our sickness we should put our trust, not in medicine, but in God.—Faith is stronger than all earthly medicaments.—The Lord is not ignorant what benefits we have received from Him, and He will demand an account of all the good deeds lie has done to us.—Bibl. Wirt.:—Tempted souls think that God takes no care of them, but He faithfully remembers their case; the deeper they are in misery, the more graciously does His compassionate eye rest upon them.—Canstein:—To acknowledge our own weakness and God’s power, is to speak the truth indeed.—What God has done for us in secret we should publicly speak of to His glory.—Go in peace.—Hedinger:—Reason despairs at sight of death.—In perfect faith there is no fear.—Quesnel:—Let us learn from Christ to confide only to a few elect ones the works of God which we have to do, that those works may not be thwarted.—To sorrow in secret over our dead is Christian, but to howl and cry is heathenish.—Hedinger:—God’s wonderful works must have devout and attentive witnesses: away with tumult!—Nova Bibl. Tub.:—Why do ye mourn, ye parents, over the departure of your children? Jesus will one day lay His mighty hand upon them, raise, them, and give them back to you.

Lisco:—The question of our Lord was designed to free the woman from her false fear of man.—The delay of help, and the message, were severe tests of Jairus’ faith; but the healing of the woman strength ened his faith again, as did the word of Jesus, Mar_5:36;—Braune:—The urgency and continuance of her malady, the vanity of all human help, the lack of substance, were three steps which brought the sick woman to faith; and the feeblest cries of the believing heart were understood by her Lord.—The Jews received this custom of lamentation from the Romans [Qy.: see Jer_9:17]. This purchased grief was intended to make the occasion of death important, to distribute the impressions of sorrow over many, and lighten the grief of the friends. Thus it was mere heathenish vanity.—Schleier-macher:—The more mighty love is in those who can help others, and, on the other hand, the more longing and trust there is in those who need help, the more good will be the result in the particular case, though we may not be able to show how, and the beginnings of cause and effect may be concealed from us.—It is always the case that from those whom God has called to do good, many influences proceed which they themselves do not in the special cases know of. But how much more efficacious would charity be, if those from whom the influences proceed did not think so much about those which they themselves receive!—How important it is for the general order of the community that we should not neglect our own individual personal relations!—Christendom has now still to press through the world violently with its blessings.—Although the power of Christ is continually entering more and more into the order of nature, yet that which Christianity has wrought in the world from its beginning is the greatest miracle that we know; but we must be careful to distinguish from it the internal miracle, which only those see who live in internal fellowship with the Redeemer.—Bauer:—Mark how He does not break the bruised reed, or quench the smoking flax!

Footnotes:

Mar_5:22.—The ἰäïý not in B., D., L., Vulgate, Versions, Tischendorf, Meyer; bracketed by Lachmann.

Mar_5:23.—The Present ðáñáêáëåῖ , Tischendorf, after A., C., L.

Mar_5:25.— Ôὶò wanting in A., B., C., Vulgate, Versions, Lachmann, Meyer.

Mar_5:33.—’ Åð ’ wanting in B., C., D., Syriac, Coptic, Tischendorf; bracketed by Lachmann.

Mar_5:36.— Ðáñáêïýóáò , Tischendorf, after B., L., Ä .

Mar_5:38.—The Plural ἔñ÷ïíôáé has most support, viz.: A., B., C., D., F., Versions, Lachmann, Tischendorf.

Mar_5:40.—The ἀíáêåßìåíïí (Elzevir) is set aside by Tischendorf, after B., D., L., Versions; bracketed by Lachmann.

Meyer mutes the motive to be, a desire on the part of Christ to repress the tendency to fanatical expectations and tumults concerning the Messiah, among the Jews.—Ed.