Mark 5:22-24
He fell at his feet
A ruler of the synagogue kneels in the road in front of a crowd. The request is specific and physical: come and lay your hands on her.
People of the Bible
Jairus
A synagogue ruler who fell at the feet of a man his colleagues were watching, because his daughter was twelve and dying.
He is named, which is unusual for a person who appears in one episode, and his office is given: ruler of the synagogue at Capernaum. That made him responsible for the building, the readings and the respectability of the place, at a time when the synagogues were already arguing about this teacher. He comes anyway, falls down at his feet and asks him to come and lay hands on his little daughter. Mark says she was at the point of death, and adds at the end that she was twelve years old.
Scroll down to the storyThe movements, in the order the text gives them.
The story of Jairus
- 01
- 02
Mark 5:25-34
The twelve years in between
The woman who touches his garment has been ill as long as the girl has been alive. Jairus waits through the whole exchange with his daughter dying.
- 03
Luke 8:49-50
Trouble not the master
The news arrives with advice attached: it is over, do not bother him. The reply cuts across it before Jairus can answer.
- 04
Mark 5:38-40
They laughed him to scorn
The house is already full of professional mourners. Told the child is only sleeping, they laugh, and are put out of the house.
- 05
Mark 5:41-43
Talitha cumi
The words are kept in Aramaic, the child walks, and the last instruction is that something should be given her to eat.
Why it matters
His story is interrupted, and the interruption is the hardest part of it. On the way, a woman who had been bleeding twelve years touches the hem and the whole procession stops while she is found and spoken to gently. Only then does the message arrive: your daughter is dead, trouble not the master. What he is told in that gap is the sentence the episode exists for, be not afraid, only believe. In the house the mourners laugh at him, and the child gets up and is given something to eat.
7 songs
The music
Every song in the catalogue whose passage falls inside these chapters.
