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Jairus

Jairus [Grk. Iairos]. A personal name.

Jairus was a Galilean synagogue official who fell before Jesus and begged Him to come touch his daughter so that she would live. Along the way, a woman who had been hemorrhaging for twelve years touched Jesus' clothes and was healed. Jesus continued to Jairus' house and raised his dead daughter to life. This story is found in Matthew 9:18-26 (the official is not named), Mark 5:21-43, and Luke 8:40-56. As it begins in Mark, the girl "lies at the point of death" (cf. Luke: "was dying"). In Matthew, the official tells Jesus that she "has just died." Following the embedded narrative of the hemorrhaging woman, Matthew understandably does not include the episode of a report from Jairus' house announcing his daughter's death.

Warren Trenchard

Citation

Footnote:

Warren Trenchard, “Jairus,“ Seventh-day Adventist International Biblical-Theological Dictionary (2026-), ed. Daniel K. Bediako and Keldie Paroschi, https://dictionary.adventist.org/jairus, accessed November 15, 2026

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