Traditions: Christian Gospel of Mark; Christian Gospel of Matthew Motif: A request for healing interrupted by another sufferer Connection verdict: Related Gospel episode with compression and changed timing Article status: Expanded Date: 2026-10-29
Summary
Mark 5:21–43 and Matthew 9:18–26 interweave a girl’s restoration with a woman’s long bleeding.
Read the two scenes
Mark spends time on the crowd, the woman’s fear, and the delay that seems disastrous for Jairus’s daughter. Matthew condenses the journey and changes the urgency from impending death to immediate death. In both, an unnamed woman’s needs occupy space in the middle of a powerful man’s request. The interwoven structure asks a reader to hold both sufferings at once. The versions need not be forced into a single minute-by-minute chronology to see how interruption, trust, and attention operate in each.
What connects—and what does not
In Mark the girl is initially gravely ill and death is reported during the journey; in Matthew the ruler announces at the outset that she has died.
The same paired sequence establishes narrative relation, while the altered timing should not be disguised.
Why read them side by side?
The altered timing changes how readers experience the cost of stopping for someone else.
Sources and reading notes
- Mark 5:21-43 — NRSVUE passage locator; compare surrounding context and translation.
- Matthew 9:18-26 — NRSVUE passage locator; compare surrounding context and translation.
Research limit
A named parallel can establish literary reuse or related tradition; a general resemblance alone cannot prove borrowing. Linked editions and translations vary. Where a source is identified as secondary orientation, the comparison does not claim direct close reading of that tradition’s primary text.