Matthew 9:18-26 meaning

The parallel accounts of Matthew 9:18-26 are found in Mark 5:21-43 and Luke 8:40-56.

Jesus's conversation with the disciples of John was interrupted, for while He was saying these things to them, a synagogue official came with heartbreaking news (v 18). Synagogues were the local meeting places where Jews assembled to commune, worship, and study God's law. They were the domain of the Pharisees. Local leaders typically appointed an official to take care of the building and preserve the sacred scrolls that belonged to it. The synagogue official was usually a responsible layman, respected in the community. Mark and Luke report that this synagogue official's name was "Jairus" (Mark 5:22; Luke 8:41).

The synagogue official came and bowed down before Jesus (v 18), showing Him respect before telling Him the terrible thing that just happened. My daughter has just died, he tells Jesus (v 18). She was still a child and according to Mark and Luke was twelve years old, Jairus's only daughter (Mark 5:42; Luke 8:42).

This man shares this dreadful news with a hope-filled faith. But come and lay Your hand on her, and she will live (v 18). The synagogue official had no doubt heard, or perhaps even witnessed, Jesus performing miracles healing lepers, paralytics, fevers, and casting out demons. Now that his daughter had died, he had nowhere else to turn. Based on what he had heard or seen, he believed that Jesus had the power to bring her back to life. Jesus got up and began to follow this father to his home (v 19). His disciples did the same.

Along the way, Matthew tells us that a woman who had been suffering from a hemorrhage follows after Jesus. She might have been suffering from heavy menstrual bleeding. Apart from the physical suffering she would have endured, she would have also been considered ritually unclean according to the Mosaic Law (Leviticus 19:15-30). She had been suffering under these physical and social conditions for twelve years.

As Jesus passed by the woman came up behind Him and touched the fringe of His cloak (v 20). Matthew tells us that she did this because she was saying to herself, "If I only touch His garment, I will get well" (v 21). She knew Jesus had the power to heal her hemorrhage. But she appeared to be ashamed or afraid to publicly ask Him to make her well. Perhaps because her malady was so personal. So she attempted to seek healing covertly by touching Jesus's garment.

She touched the fringe of His cloak (v 20).

The fringe of His cloak meant she touched the tassels of the rabbinical shawl wrapped around Jesus. There are several likely reasons why the woman decided to touch the fringe of His cloak as she sought to be healed.

1. One possible reason for why she touched the tassels of Jesus’s rabbinic shawl may because she believed that they had a special power.

Tassels (and phylacteries) were worn by Jewish religious leaders, including Pharisees, Sadducees, and scribes, who often made a show of them to display their righteousness before others. The larger and more ostentatious the tassels, the more righteous the man who wore them was perceived to be (Matthew 23:5). Because of this, many people associated a leader’s tassels with his righteousness. This may explain why the woman was set on touching the fringe of Jesus’s cloak—she reached for the tassels, believing in the power and righteousness associated with them.

2. A second possible reason explaining why the woman touched the tassels of Jesus’s rabbinic shawl may be because she did not want to cause Him to become ceremonially unclean by touching His person.

Of the first two reasons, this possibility #2 seems to be the more likely because, as we will see, Jesus praises the woman’s faith in Him (v 22). Jesus would not likely have praised the woman’s faith if her faith was in something other than Himself—such as a superstition concerning tassels like possibility #1 described.

3. A third reason for why the woman touched the fringe of Jesus’s cloak to be healed was because she was ashamed of her condition.

If she had stopped Jesus, or grabbed Him, it would have likely caused a scene and potentially brought more shame upon her. By only touching the fringe of His cloak, she believed that she could be made well without attracting unwanted attention.

It is possible that the woman had more than one of these motives for acting as she did.  

After she touched Jesus in faith, He turned around, saw her, and said "Daughter, take courage; Jesus showed that He valued her by calling her, "Daughter" (v 22). He told this fearful daughter to not be afraid or ashamed but to take courage. He then explained, your faith has made you well (v 22). Christ's power had healed her, but she received His healing grace through her faith (timid though it was) in Jesus's power. Matthew concludes this encounter by explaining that at once the woman was made well (v 22).

Mark and Luke both add that when she touched Jesus, that He was surrounded by a crowd of people pressing against Him and He noticed power go out from Him and asked "Who touched me?" His disciples were perplexed by what He meant by this until Jesus explained what had happened, and began talking to this daughter. Mark and Luke add that as this event was occurring that the report came from Jairus's house that his twelve-year old daughter died (see Mark 5:24-36; Luke 8:43-50).

When Jesus came into the official's house, He saw the flute-players and the crowd in noisy disorder (v 23). This word translated crowd is the same as translated "crowds" in 7:28, referring to the disciples who heard the Sermon on the Mount. That infers the group of disciples listening to the Sermon on the Mount could have been a number of people who would fit into the official's house.

Lamentations and dirges filled the air. Flute-players were sometimes hired to play sad music in houses where someone died. When Jesus saw and heard this commotion, He tried to disperse the crowd, telling them to Leave. There was no cause to mourn, for, Jesus claims, the girl has not died, but is asleep (v 24). It is not clear why Jesus said that she had not died, when the girl was reported to be dead. Perhaps He was speaking prospectively. Perhaps He knew something they did not. In any event, it appears He did not wish to have a crowd around Him when He raised her back to life. Perhaps He wanted to downplay what He was about to do.

Perhaps if it was confirmed that Jesus did raise someone from the dead it would complicate His mission. If people knew He could raise the dead, then every Jew would instantly proclaim Him to be the Messiah and demand that He overthrow their Roman oppressors, which they expected the Messiah to do. But Jesus did not primarily come to earth to overthrow political systems. He came to do His Father’s will (John 4:34, 5:30, 6:38, and Luke 22:42).

God the Father’s will was for Jesus to overthrow sin and death forever. Jesus sought to avoid the praise and demands of the people that would tempt Him away from His Father’s purpose for Him to suffer and die and be restored to life for the salvation of the world.

But when He said this, the crowd began laughing at Him (v 24).

Their laughter was either a scoffing laugh in offense to what He just said, or it showed the hypocrisy of the professional lamenters when they broke character from their "purchased" sorrow at Jesus's comment.

But when the crowd had been sent out, Jesus entered the room where the dead body lay, and took the girl by the hand, and the girl got up (v 25).

She was pronounced dead. Now she was alive. Jesus had raised the girl to resume life.

Luke’s account explicitly states that the girl returned to life. Luke says “and her spirit returned” (Luke 8:55). As a physician, Luke may have taken a professional interest in this fact.

Physical death occurs when a person’s spirit becomes separated from their body. This girl had experienced physical death because her spirit departed from her body—but Jesus restored her to life when He took her by the hand and said: “‘Child arise!’ and her spirit returned” to her body (Luke 8:55).

Jesus’s raising of this girl from the dead was but a glimmer of the eternal resurrection He came to offer the entire world.

The girl got up and walked around (Mark 5:42) when Jesus restored her life. Luke and Mark say that after Jairus’s daughter was restored to life, that Jesus “gave orders for something to be given her to eat” (Luke 8:55b, Mark 5:43).

It is implied that she ate food. Her eating and walking demonstrate that Jairus’s daughter was not just restored to life, but also to health.

Not surprisingly, this news spread throughout all that land (v 26) (Galilee and beyond).