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MARK 5:39 — KING JAMES VERSION 0
Mark 5:38Mark 5:40
“And when he was come in, he saith unto them, Why make ye this ado, and weep? the damsel is not dead, but sleepeth.”
He went in and said to them, why all this commotion and wailing? The child is not dead but asleep — the statement that the child is not dead but asleep is simultaneously true and confusing. Jesus is not denying the biological death that has occurred; he is speaking from his own perspective about what is about to happen: for Jesus, this death is temporary, a sleep from which he is about to wake her. The mourners' inability to understand this (they laugh at him in verse 40) communicates the gap between their frame (death is permanent) and Jesus' frame (death is temporary when the Son of God is present).

Church Fathers on Mark 5:39

Those who were about the ruler of the synagogue, thought that Christ was one of the prophets, and for this reason they thought that they should beg of Him to come and pray over the damsel. But because she had already expired, they thought that He ought not to be asked to do so.

Theophylact · 11th century

It is not said that he assented to his friends who brought the tidings and wished to prevent the Master from coming, so that our Lord’s saying, 'Fear not, only believe,' is not a rebuke for his want of faith, but was intended to strengthen the belief which he had already. But if the Evangelist had related, that the ruler of the synagogue joined the friends who came from his house, in saying that Jesus should not be troubled, the words which Matthew relates him to have said,…

Augustine · 4th century

It was told the ruler of the synagogue, Thy daughter is dead. But Jesus said to him, She is not dead, but sleepeth. Bother are true, for the meaning is, She is dead to you, but to Me she is asleep.

Pseudo-Jerome · 5th century
Read all 10 entries in the readerCatena Aurea · St. Thomas Aquinas, tr. J. H. Newman · public domain
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