STORY of TWO WOMEN

STORY of TWO WOMEN

Mark 5:21-43

This is an example of so-called sandwich story – within the story about the resurrection of the Jair’s daughter, there is a narrative of a bleeding woman.

a. 5:21-24a, Jair invites Jesus to cure and save his daughter

  b. 5:24b-34, woman touches Jesus and is healed

a’. 5:35-43, Jesus takes/touches a girl by the hand, and she is healed/raised from the dead

A couple of notes on the text.

v. 24 has two verbs in relation to the crowd’s behavior toward Jesus – followed Him and thronged. Some of the translations prefer a better verb – pressing in on Him (NASB). St. Augustine comments: Few are they who by faith touch Him; multitudes are they who throng Him. (ACCS, NT-II, p. 75).

v. 26. Mark notices that she wasted all her financial resources on the doctors. Luke, probably being a doctor (Col. 4:14), avoids the mentioning of this fact (Lk. 8:43).

v.27-28. Interesting that none of the Church Fathers (referring to ACCS selection) made a connection between her desire to touch His garment and the prophecy of Zechariah 8:23. The Zech. Passage itself is based on Num 15:37-40. The outer garments of a faithful Jew were symbolic representation of the YHWH’s covenant with the people. As a result, the people wearing this covering were to witness His presence in their lives and thus lead the Gentiles to the God who is present among the people. That’s why the woman did not need to touch Jesus, but her goal was to touch the garment.

v. 36. Jairus’ name comes from the Hebrew Jair (or Yair, cp. Num. 32:339-41, 1 Chron. 2:21-23), meaning: He (Yah) enlightens (gives vision/sight). People perceiving his daughter dead, and Jesus “overhearing” them (some manuscripts say “ignored”) tells Jairus to “believe”. This narrative simple illustrates what later St. Paul will put so gallantly: Faith comes from hearing, hearing of the Word of God (Rom.10:17) and we walk by faith and not by sight (2 Cor. 5:7).     

Parallels/contrasts between the woman and daughter:

	Woman	Daughter
1	No name	No name
2	Daughter (v. 34)	Daughter (v. 23,35); little girl (v. 41)
3	12 years of sickness	12 years old
4	Bleeding (spiritually “dead”)	dying
5	She touches Him	He takes/touches her by her hand
6	Jesus heals her using “talith”	Jesus calls her “Talitha”
7	Great crowds	Limited (7) number of people

 

  Picture: The Raising of Jairus' Daughter (twelfth-century mosaic) (datail) Byzantine school (from Peter Stanford, A Life of Christ, (London: Quercus [2009], p. 92).  

My sermon from 2021 on the text (go to 34:20)