What Does Matthew 9:18 Mean?

(18) **While he spake these things.**—The sequence seems so clear as, at first, hardly to admit of doubt; and yet it is no less clear that St. Mark and St. Luke represent what is told as following close upon our Lord’s return to the western side of the lake after the healing of the Gadarene, and place many events between it and the call of Levi. Assuming St. Matthew’s own connection with the Gospel, we may justly, in this case, give greater weight to his order than to the arrangement of the other two, who derived the account from others. **A certain ruler.**—St. Mark and St. Luke give the name Jairus, and state that he was “a ruler of the synagogue,” probably an elder, or one of the *Parnasim* or “pastors.” The fact is interesting as suggesting a coincidence between this narrative and that of the centurion’s servant. As a ruler of the synagogue, Jairus would probably have been among the elders of the Jews who came as a deputation to our Lord, and would thus have been impressed with His power to heal in cases which seemed hopeless. **My daughter is even now dead.**—St. Luke adds, as one who had inquired into details, that she was the ruler’s only child, was twelve years old, and that she “lay a dying,” agreeing with St. Mark’s “is at the point of death,” literally, *in extremis,* “at the last gasp;” and both add that the crowd that followed “thronged” and “pressed” our Lord as He went.