TRANSLATION MATTHEW 9 :18

While he was saying these things to them, -see this!- a ruler came, bowed before him, and said, “My daughter has just died; but come, lay your hand upon her and she will live.” Then Jesus and his pupils got up and followed him. And -see this!- a woman who had suffered a discharge of blood for twelve years came from behind him and touched the fringe of his cloak. For she was saying to herself, ‘if only I touch his cloak, I will be rescued.’But Jesus swung around and seeing her, said, “Courage, daughter! Your faith has rescued you.”And the woman was healed from that hour.

When Jesus came to the ruler’s house and saw the flute players and a wailing crowd, he said,”Get out of here, for the girl is not dead but sleeping.“ And they made fun of him. When the crowd had been driven out, Jesus went in and lifted her by the hand, and the girl rose up. And the fame of this went out over all that land.

The reader who wants to know what Matthew is doing should go to his source in Mark 5. Again they will read there a masterpiece of storytelling which creates profounder meanings than Matthew’s abridgement of it. My guess is that Matthew simply did not understand Mark’s subtleties. Whatever the reason, Matthew botches the narration by starting off with the announcement that the girl is dead, thus throwing away the tension Mark creates by stating that she is still, barely, alive. The delay caused by the woman loses its force. Matthew also omits the age of the girl (12) and the quotation of Jesus’ words in his own language, “Talitha Coum” ( “Time to get up, my wee dove) since these are serious but deliberate losses we have to ask what Matthew is doing here. 1. He is shortening the story. He has more material than Mark and he wants to keep moving. 2. He is simplifying so that the main elements are clear: Jesus is dealing with women, one whose bleeding makes her altogether unclean, and who desperately breaks taboo by touching a man, making him unclean also, and another who is also unclean because dead. Matthew shows Jesus breaking all these rules of clean and unclean in order to reach the living person. Especially moving is Jesus’ entry into a place of death to bring new life. Matthew doesn’t labour these meanings but his readers would have found them.

Matthew also insists on the active role of those who need help: the ruler declares his faith by announcing that his daughter is dead yet asking Jesus to lay his hand upon her, so that she may live. The woman with the discharge of blood demonstrates her faith by breaking taboo to touch Jesus’ cloak. As with the paralysed man, Jesus encourages her to join the battle against disease. The young girl responds to Jesus’ touch by getting up. All of this is consistent with Matthew’s understanding that Jesus was ‘carrying our diseases.”

The structure of Jesus’ society meant that women were under the rule of men. Of course there were exceptions due to the ability of a woman or the integrity of a man, but the structural inequality determined the lives of many women, not least by the customs and rules of religion. Matthew shows Jesus readily setting social and religious rules aside because the lives of these women were precious to him, and to the Heavenly Father. We see in contemporary USA, Iran, and Afghanistan, how any challenge to rules of this sort can arouse deadly hatred. Jesus was taking risks.