Charles Ellicott Commentary Matthew 9:18

"While he spake these things unto them, behold, there came a ruler, and worshipped him, saying, My daughter is even now dead: but come and lay thy hand upon her, and she shall live." — Matthew 9:18 (ASV)

While he was speaking these things — At first, the sequence seems so clear that it hardly admits any doubt. Yet it is just as clear that Mark and Luke present this story as following closely after our Lord’s return to the western side of the lake after the healing of the Gadarene, and they place many events between it and the call of Levi. Assuming Matthew’s direct connection with the Gospel, we can justifiably give more weight to his ordering of events than to the arrangement of the other two, who received their accounts from others.

A certain ruler — Mark and Luke give his name as Jairus and state that he was a ruler of the synagogue, probably an elder or one of the Parnasim or “pastors.” This fact is interesting because it suggests a connection between this narrative and the one about 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 that seemed hopeless.

My daughter is even now dead — Luke adds, as one who had investigated the details, that she was the ruler’s only child, was twelve years old, and that she lay a dying. This agrees with Mark’s account that she is at the point of death (literally, in extremis, or “at the last gasp”), and both add that the crowd that followed thronged and pressed our Lord as He went.