Bible Study series: Luke 8:40-56. Two females needed help. The daughter needed to be raised from the dead.
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In the next link to the original chapter, I comment more and offer the Greek text. At the bottom you will find a “Summary and Conclusion” section geared toward discipleship. Check it out!
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Scripture: Luke 8:40-56
40 While Jesus was returning, the crowd welcomed him, for all of them were waiting for him. 41 And look! a man whose name was Jairus came, and he was a synagogue ruler! He fell before the feet of Jesus and began to beg him to come into his house, 42a because his only daughter, about twelve years old, was dying.
42b While he was leading the way, the crowd was smothering him. 43 And a woman having a flow of blood for twelve years, who, although spending excessively all her living on doctors, was unable to be healed by anyone. 44 When she came up from behind, she touched the edge of his garment, and instantly her flow of blood stopped. 45 And Jesus said, “Who touched me?” While everyone was denying it, Peter said, “Master, the crowd presses in on you and crowds you!” 46 But Jesus said, “Someone touched me, for I perceive power has gone out from me.” 47 When the woman saw that she did not escape notice, she came trembling and fell before him and announced in front of all the people the reason she touched him, and how she was instantly healed. 48 He said to her, “Daughter, your faith has healed you. Go in peace.”
49 While he was speaking, someone from the synagogue ruler’s household came said, “Your daughter has died. Don’t bother the teacher anymore.” 50 When Jesus heard, he responded to Jairus, “Don’t fear! Only believe, and she shall be saved! 51 After he got to the house, he did not permit anyone to go in with him, except Peter, John, and James and the child’s father and mother. 52 Everyone was weeping and mourning for her. But he said, “Don’t cry, for she has not died, but she is sleeping!” 53 Knowing she was dead, they began to laugh at him. 54 But he took her hand and called out, saying, “Child, get up!” 55 And her spirit returned and she instantly got up. He ordered something be given her to eat. 56 And her parents were stunned. But he ordered them to tell no one what had happened. (Luke 8:40-56)
Comments:
From here to the end of the chapter, Luke is about to interlock the stories of two very different people. On the one side stands Jairus the synagogue ruler, who was rich and powerful, but his daughter is dying. And on the one side stands an unnamed, unclean woman, who was socially degraded and rejected in her unclean status. This fulfills Luke’s theme introduced in 2:34 of the falling and raising of many. Jairus has to fall at the feet of Jesus, and he has his plea answered. He was raised up. Even the rich can be accepted if they humble themselves. A real lesson there. The unclean woman was already very humble and needy and also fell at the feet of Jesus. She too was healed and raised up.
40:
The Jews of Galilee were suspicious of the folk on the other side of the lake. Less Jewish. They lived in a slow-moving world, without the worldwide web, so prejudices could form more easily (and prejudices can form even on the web!). A large welcoming “committee” were expecting him to return home.
41:
“look!”: this has often been translated as the older “behold!” I like “behold!” but I updated it. It is the storyteller’s art to draw attention to the people and action that follows. “As you, my audience, sit and listen to me read this Gospel, listen up! Look! A man named Jairus interrupts the flow of Jesus’s progress to his next stop!”
A synagogue ruler was important in this society. He was rich, but what is wealth when your only daughter is dying? Mark’s version preserves the name of the synagogue ruler, and Luke follows him.
“fell before”: this one verb in Greek can often be translated as “worship,” but here he fell before him. He prostrated himself. The ruler was desperate.
42a:
“only”: Luke likes to mention this fact, because it adds drama and it was true (see 7:12 and 9:48). The listener of his story would feel the suspense rising. “We already heard that Jesus can raise the dead. Remarkable! But will Jesus heal the girl? He has to, because she’s the ruler’s only daughter! What will happen next?”
“about twelve years old”: Mark also preserves this small tidbit, indicating that Peter (and Mark) knew the story through Jairus or his daughter, or he could have simply looked at the girl when he was there. But do we have any doubt that Jairus and the girl joined the earliest Messianic community and told their story? I don’t doubt it.
42b:
This half of v. 42 carries on from before. This half of the verse should have started v. 43 here, but oh well. So be it.
“the way”: it was added for clarity.
“smothering him”: Luke shows the background to the woman’s act of faith. Everyone is touching him, but only one person, out of her desperation, exercised her faith and got her miracle.
43:
“blood”: what caused her inability to stop the blood flow? A cyst? A lesion? We don’t know, but God did. Read the laws in Lev. 15:19-30.
19 “‘When a woman has her regular flow of blood, the impurity of her monthly period will last seven days, and anyone who touches her will be unclean till evening.
20 “‘Anything she lies on during her period will be unclean, and anything she sits on will be unclean. 21 Anyone who touches her bed will be unclean; they must wash their clothes and bathe with water, and they will be unclean till evening. 22 Anyone who touches anything she sits on will be unclean; they must wash their clothes and bathe with water, and they will be unclean till evening. 23 Whether it is the bed or anything she was sitting on, when anyone touches it, they will be unclean till evening.
24 “‘If a man has sexual relations with her and her monthly flow touches him, he will be unclean for seven days; any bed he lies on will be unclean.
25 “‘When a woman has a discharge of blood for many days at a time other than her monthly period or has a discharge that continues beyond her period, she will be unclean as long as she has the discharge, just as in the days of her period. 26 Any bed she lies on while her discharge continues will be unclean, as is her bed during her monthly period, and anything she sits on will be unclean, as during her period. 27 Anyone who touches them will be unclean; they must wash their clothes and bathe with water, and they will be unclean till evening.
28 “‘When she is cleansed from her discharge, she must count off seven days, and after that she will be ceremonially clean. 29 On the eighth day she must take two doves or two young pigeons and bring them to the priest at the entrance to the tent of meeting. 30 The priest is to sacrifice one for a sin offering and the other for a burnt offering. In this way he will make atonement for her before the Lord for the uncleanness of her discharge. (Lev. 15:19-30, NIV)
Childbirth, Bodily Discharges in Leviticus 12, 15 from a NT Perspective
She herself was unclean. Anything she sat on was unclean. Anyone who touched her was unclean. If anyone touches her or anything she touched, then he shall have to rinse his hands, but if he does not, then he has to take a bath and wash his clothes. The rituals go on. I can understand the law from a sanitation point of view. Bodily fluids from a man (Lev. 15:3-6, 16-17) or woman can spread disease, without proper washing. Good law. Yet it is still remarkable that he did not mind one bit about her touching him. He was clean, and she was unclean. When the story finishes, she was made clean.
Grammarians teach us that spending “excessively” is implied in the verb. So Luke adds the further bit that she spent her entire living on doctors. Yes, there were doctors back then, but all they could prescribe is herbal remedies and purges and straighten out broken bones, and so on. Internal problems like this were beyond their abilities.
For your information, in Mark’s version (5:26), the woman spent everything she had, as in Luke’s version, but Mark adds that she was suffering by many doctors and was getting worse at their hands. Dr. Luke omits those tiny tidbits.
44:
She must have squeezed and forced her way through the crowd. But would she, an unclean woman, allow people to touch her and themselves become unclean? Was she that desperate to withhold this information from them? Or did she wait until an opening came up in the people? Then she must have knelt down behind him and reached out her hand to touch the edge of his garment. The edge probably refers to the four tassels that hung from the garment, two in front and two in back, to remember God’s command (Num. 15:37-40; Deut. 22:12). Or it may refer to the edge of his garment, as it literally says in Greek. She sneaked up behind him because she was afraid, in her own mind, that he would not heal or touch her in her unclean condition. Then she withdrew from his presence and was absorbed back in the crowd. She may have been walking away by now.
She got her healing, instantly. Healings can come instantly, and we all celebrate that. But sometimes they come gradually. And let’s support people who have to go through gradual healings and celebrate when they get a positive doctor’s report.
One interesting side note: Neither Jesus nor Luke the storyteller denounced her for going to doctors. She spent too much because she was desperate, but that doesn’t mean visiting doctors was wrong then or now.
Additional sidebar comment: I wonder where she got her money. She must have come from a well-to-do family. Was she married to a wealthy man? Maybe, but if she had her uncleanness when she reached puberty, then no man would marry her.
45:
Jesus’s question withholds vital clues, and Peter does not catch on. The only reason Jesus would ask such a question is not that he wanted to know why everyone was pressing in on him, but because something extraordinary happened. The deliberate ambiguity lies in the verb “touch.” Peter took it in the ordinary sense, but Jesus meant it in the extraordinary sense, as the next verse explains.
It is interesting that the crowd misinterpreted what he meant and lied. “Not me! I didn’t do it!” Little kids. But they were nearly smothering him.
“Master”: see my comments at v. 24.
46:
Renewalists believe that the healing power of God can flow out of a person. Jesus was walking through another crowd, and when they touched him, healing came from him, and the people were healed (Luke 6:19). That is a remarkable phenomenon. Here the people do not seem to have the same level of faith in him. But she did.
“perceived”:
“power”: it is the noun dunamis (pronounced doo-nah-mees): It is often translated as “power,” but also “miracle” or “miraculous power.” It means power in action, not static, but kinetic. It moves. Yes, we get our word dynamite from it, but God is never out of control, like dynamite is. Its purpose is to usher in the kingdom of God and repair and restore broken humanity, both in body and soul.
For nearly all the references of that word and a developed theology, please click on my post here:
What Are Signs and Wonders and Miracles?
47:
Here Luke compresses her story, because he told it already. She simply repeats what Luke wrote, so he omits it here. Based on what he had already recounted, she probably said something like this in front of all the people: “Pardon me, my Lord. I couldn’t stop an issue of blood!” (One can imagine some in the crowd backing away from her. Did Jairus, or was he so needy that he no longer cared about such quibbles?) She continues: “I spent all I had on doctors, and I couldn’t get healed. Pardon me, my Lord, but I was desperate, and I was afraid you wouldn’t touch an unclean woman like myself. So I reached out my hand, and touched the edge of your garment—just the edge. I broke purity laws, but I meant no harm. I was that desperate!” She pauses. “But now I am healed! I can sense it! I felt something! Thank you, my Lord. Thank you!”
Jesus stopped her with the word “daughter” in the next verse.
No doubt the women who followed Jesus (vv. 2-3) intervened and helped her.
“healed”: this verb means, unsurprisingly, “healed, cure, restore.” The noun, incidentally, means “healing, cure.” The noun is used three times: Luke 13:22; Acts 4:22, 30. In other words, only Luke uses the noun.
48:
“daughter”: Jesus used a kind term here. He was only in his early thirties. Let’s say she reached puberty at age twelve. When did she get her blood flow that did not stop for twelve years? At fourteen or fifteen years old? Twenty? Whatever her age, we have to add twelve years on to it. So she was at least in her mid-twenties, maybe in her thirties. So when Jesus called her “daughter,” he was showing, yes, authority, but also compassion. He sees himself as a minister-Rabbi, not an older brother. To be frank, he was her spiritual father of sorts. Further, he calls her “daughter” to invite her into his new family of the kingdom. “To address an older person as ‘daughter’ reflects the practice of Jewish teachers, but it may also function to highlight the authority of Jesus as the Messiah … In light of the discussion of Jesus’ true family in 8:19-21, this address may also point to the creation of the new family based on a person’s response of faith. The one who is not allowed to worship in the temple because of her ‘impurity’ can now worship and praise the Son of God” (Liefeld and Pao, comment on v. 48)
“has healed”: the verb is sōzō (pronounced soh-zoh and used 106 times in the NT), which means “save, rescue, heal” in a variety of contexts, but mostly it is used of saving the soul. Here it means saving or healing the body. See v. 12 for more comments.
“faith”: the noun is pistis (pronounced peace-teace), and see v. 25 for more comments. In this verse she had faith to be healed, directed at Jesus.
Word Study on Faith and Faithfulness
“peace”: It speaks of more than just the absence of war. It can mean prosperity and well-being. It can mean peace in your heart and peace with your neighbor. Best of all, it means peace with God, because he reconciled us to him. Here it means peace in her heart. What a great good-bye word. He not only heals her body but calms her soul.
Do I Really Know God? He Is the God of Peace
In this pericope (pronounced puh-RIH-koh-pea), both physical and spiritual healing or salvation is in mind. Her affliction excluded her from participation in Israel’s worship, but not in God’s new family. Further, for all we know, she either had been married but her husband divorced her, or she was never married because of her affliction. The text is silent, but let’s face it. She was not marriageable or worthy to remain happily married, by the standards of society back then. But Jesus made her “undamaged” goods.
In the NT, a resurrection takes place after someone has died, and he is raised to new life with a transformed and glorified body which will never die. Here, the girl was dead, but on her being made alive again, her body was not transformed. So it is more accurate to call it a resuscitation and not a resurrection.
49:
The timing is that while Jesus was speaking to the healed woman, “Daughter, your faith has healed you. Go in peace,” the messenger interrupted that scene and yanked them back to the original mission.
50:
A bad report came. A worse report than before, because she had been dying. She wasn’t dead yet. There was still hope. Then the ultimate bad report arrived. She was dead. Stop the whole plea and procession. He no longer needs to come to Jairus’s house. No more hope.
Maybe Jairus said to himself that if that unclean woman had not interfered, then Jesus would have been to his house already. But Jesus had a call and mission. He was going to his house to heal her (v. 42b).
Jesus instantly countered the bad report with faith. “Don’t fear!” Jesus spoke to the fear that paralyzes you and stops your faith. But Jesus told him not to fear. That’s exactly what those with the gift of healing must do. They must speak words of faith after the doctor speaks (accurate) words of science. Natural and medical facts do not have the last word. God does.
“believe”: See v. 12 for a deeper look.
“saved”: it could be translated as healed, for it is the verb sōzō, and see v. 12 for further comments.
51:
Jesus could not allow the whole crowd to enter the house, but only the Inner Three: Peter, John, and James. I wonder what the nine were doing. No doubt they were keeping the crowd back. “Now people! Just back away from the house. You aren’t allowed in! Let the Teacher handle this!” Crowd control is important, too. Apparently this crowd did not have much faith, unlike the one in Luke 6:19, who touched the Lord, and they were healed. This crowd on this day was a distraction. Crowds are fickle. Don’t listen to them.
The child’s mother is mentioned for the first time. She may have gone outside to greet the Lord and the twelve disciples. (I wonder if the women mentioned in vv. 2-3 were there too. Why wouldn’t they be?). But the parents have ultimate authority over the twelve-year-old, so they had to be in their own house with their only child.
52-53:
Were the weepers and mourners in the house—no doubt a big house to host all the people who were there? Mark says that when they got to the house the crowd was outside weeping and wailing. Luke assumes that the readers would guess that the crowd would be outside too, in his version. It is not good to allow in doubters and skeptics.
He was about to teach the crowd a lesson by speaking words of irony, a deeper truth. Yes, the girl really was dead, but it is as if she were sleeping, as far as his limitless perspective was concerned. To them, she really was dead. To him, she was only asleep. Sleeping is a common metaphor for death (John 11:11-14; 1 Cor. 15:21; 1 Thess. 4:13-14). Jesus was about to interrupt the girl’s temporary pause in her mortal life. This means that Jesus gave them hope. But rather than celebrate, they laughed, because they were operating according to what they saw. The Greek word for laugh has a sharp edge to it, implying “laughed him to scorn, mocked him. They used their own eyes and tested her breath and concluded, correctly, that she was dead. But Jesus sized up the true and higher situation—he was the resurrection and the life (John 11:17-27)—and concluded that raising her from the dead was easy for him. She was merely sleeping. Now all he had to do was wake her up. So the lesson he was teaching the crowd was that nothing is impossible with God. He didn’t defend himself or give a theology lesson. He acted. He healed her. That quieted the mockery.
See your situation from a God’s-eye view. Have faith. Don’t doubt or fear. Your perspective and ability are limited. God’s perspective is infinite and his power to heal when his Son is on the scene speaking words of faith is strong.
54-55:
Now Jesus initiates action because he knew the results.
First, he took her by the hand. That act takes faith in his Father, who was about to work a miracle.
Second, he did something unusual or unexpected (for me at least). Luke used the verb phōneō (pronounced foh-neh-oh, and we get our word phone from it). He called out into the Other World and commanded her to get up. This getting up implies that she had to come back from somewhere.
Even professional grammarians, so reserved in their comments, add these nuggets:
The verb here [phōneō] could either be used in the sense of ‘to speak with considerable volume or loudness’ … or ‘to communicate directly or indirectly to someone who is presumably at a distance, in order to tell such a person to come.’ On the one hand, the former fits with the notion that the girl is ‘sleeping (v. 52) and needs to be roused from her sleep’ … On the other hand, the context also suggests that Jesus is summoning the girl back from death. (Culy, Parsons, Stigall, p. 294)
That’s profound. In other words, Jesus used a loud voice to rouse her from “sleep” or to call her back from the dead. He spoke into the Other World and ordered her back home into her body. Wow. A deep lesson there.
Third, while he took her hand and called out, her spirit returned to her. It had been absent from her body. Where was it while she was dead? We don’t know for sure, but it was probably heading towards God.
What Happens to Children after They Die?
Fourth, while he took her hand, he helped her get up. He pulled her up. She “instantly” got up.
Fifth, he ordered those in the household to give her something to eat. Apparently he perceived she needed strength. She had not eaten for a time. Dying does that to someone!
In a related episode, Peter will raise Tabitha-Dorcas from the dead, and he shooed the weepers and mourners out of the room (Acts 9:36-43). He too will also command the girl to get up, and she will. Peter learned from his Lord and was in fact filled with the Spirit of the Lord (Acts 2:1-4), who empowered him to work the same miracle.
Other accounts of resuscitation are recorded in the OT. In contrast to Jesus, who moved with more authority, Elijah stretched himself over a boy and raised him from the dead (1 Kings 17:21), and Elisha touched a child with his staff and then later lay over him (2 Kings 4:31, 34-35). Jesus issued a command and took the girl by the hand to get her up.
As noted, this girl’s resuscitation is not the same as Jesus’s resurrection, for his body was transformed and glorified. Her body simply recovered from the dead and when she was older she died, like everyone else of her generation. So we should call it a resuscitation from the dead.
56:
Jesus then gives a seemingly odd command. So many people witnessed the results—the girl was dead; now she is alive—but he orders or instructs the parents not to tell anyone what happened. He often downplayed the miracles and his Messianic title before people outside of the twelve (Luke 4:35, 41; 5:14; 8:56; Matt. 9:30; 12:16; Mark 1:34; 3:12; 5:43; 7:36; 8:26). He wanted to teach them, not dazzle and thrill them with signs and wonders.
This seemingly useless order meant three possible things, with the third one being the most likely:
First, Jesus had a conversation with Jairus on the way to his house, which v. 50 hints at, in compressed form. He assured him that she would live. In an expanded conversation, not recorded here, he may have even said that he was the resurrection (John 11:25). He did not want the fuller message to get out. But this possible reason draws much from the silence of the text, so let’s be cautious with this one.
Second, he did not want the parents to reveal the details of what happened, outlined in those five actions he took raise her from the dead (vv. 54-55). As noted with Peter’s story in Acts, Jesus is the one who raised this only child from the dead. No one should believe that he can also work miracles outside of the Father’s authority, much like the seven sons of Sceva thought they could cast out demons (Acts 19:14) (though Jesus didn’t mind when someone else tried to cast out demons [Luke 9:49-50], but that was when he was still ministering on earth. The man may have followed Jesus for a time and learned some things and then went out on his own).
Third, Jairus the synagogue ruler would have had enough knowledge to make the connection that raising the dead was the sign of the Messiah, and Jesus did not want this fact to be announced by an authority figure like Jairus. At this early stage in his ministry, Jesus preferred the people to just be happy with the miracle and be rebuked for laughing him to scorn.
Maybe all three reasons are possible at the same time, but the third one is the strongest.
GrowApp for Luke 8:40-56
1. Jairus expressed great need, falling before the feet of Jesus. How have you humbled yourself before the Lord, in your desperation?
2. Jesus said to the woman to go in peace. Study John 16:33. When has he spoken that word to you, either through Scripture or in your heart? How did you respond?
3. Study Eph. 2:1-10 (which would take a lifetime!) How has God raised you from the dead, spiritually speaking or even physically?
RELATED
11. Eyewitness Testimony in Luke’s Gospel
3. Church Fathers and Luke’s Gospel
2. Archaeology and the Synoptic Gospels
1. The Historical Reliability of the Gospels: Introduction to Series
SOURCES
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