Biblical commentary on the New Testament - The Christian ...

Matthew IX. 23. 389
The miracles of our Lord need no adjuncts from human hands ;
the very absence of ostentation adds to their grandeur. The addi-
tion, "but sleepeth," does not permit us to understand the first ex-
pression, as if it meant " she is not dead, because I have the inten-
tion of raising her, or, inasmuch as what I intend to do must be
regarded as ah-eady accomplished." The contrast, " she is not dead,
but sleepeth," which all the three Evangelists repeat verbatim, ad-
mits of no prevarication. We have here, consequently, no raising
from the dead in the true sense of the tvords. It is likely that the
child was in a deep trance ;* but viewed even in this light, the act
performed by our Lord is not less significant. He presents himself,
in such a plain declaration, in the purest moral grandeur. The real
moment of death, which man can never ascertain, is perfectly known
to Jesus ; and of this he declares that it has not yet arrived ; but
the very circumstance that he knew this—that he knew it before he
came—that he knew how to fix the time and circumstances—all
these constitute the miraculous part of this act. What was unknown
to all of them (Luke viii. 53 has the words eldoreg un drrtdaveVj
Icnoiving that she luas dead, because they had tried every means
to restore her) he knew, without having even seen the child ; and
he openly declared what he knew, and produced thereby life and
faith. His miracle was not diminished, by this open declaration, in
the eyes of those present, but was, on the contrary, rendered great
and glorious. (Mark v. 42 ; Luke xiii. 56.) Having here again in
^^ew the moral imj)ression, Jesus collected from among the rude
mass (who are as prone to mockery as to stupid amazement) a small
number of susceptible souls ; to them he permitted the undisturbed
enjoyment of beholding the returning life of the damsel, in all its
manifestations, in order that thereby they might be excited to solemn
and sacred thankfulness to God. This impression, however, our
that they laughed Jesus to scorn, and it was at most not until after they saw the child
living and healed that they could become doubtful whether the death had been a real or
only apparent one. The enlightened must have recognized in the words of Jesus the
meaning that /or him and his power death was but a sleep, and that for these mourning
women there is at hand no dead body to be the object of their waihngs, but a sleeping
child, that is on the point of being awakened.— [E. That Ebrard is right as to the /ac<
I cannot doubt. His correctness in assi;,'ning the cause of the Saviour's language, is more
questionable. It seems clear that the Evangelists intend to describe a raising from the
dead ; and the words of the Saviour, interpreted according to his ordinary modes of speech,
interpose no difficulty to this view. Strictly speaking, she was dead, but viewed with reference
to the result she was only asleep. There was one present to whom her death was
the same as the state of sleep, and this ia expressed in the Saviour's sharp and terse man-
ner by the language, " She is not dead, but sleepeth."— [K.
* Physicians distiuguish s?/«co/)e from asphyxia; by the latter they understand the
suspension of all the vital functions; and it is this which must here be supposed. The
history of Eutychus (Acts xx. 7, seq.) is quite similar to this. Of the youth mentioned
Paul says, 7; ipi'xv avrov tv avru earLv, which words explain the expressions inecrpeij'e rd
yrvevua in our narrative (Luke viiL 65.)