Luke 8:53

And they laughed him to scorn, knowing that she was dead.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

8:41-56 Let us not complain of a crowd, and a throng, and a hurry, as long as we are in the way of our duty, and doing good; but otherwise every wise man will keep himself out of it as much as he can. And many a poor soul is healed, and helped, and saved by Christ, that is hidden in a crowd, and nobody notices it. This woman came trembling, yet her faith saved her. There may be trembling, where yet there is saving faith. Observe Christ's comfortable words to Jairus, Fear not, believe only, and thy daughter shall be made whole. No less hard was it not to grieve for the loss of an only child, than not to fear the continuance of that grief. But in perfect faith there is no fear; the more we fear, the less we believe. The hand of Christ's grace goes with the calls of his word, to make them effectual. Christ commanded to give her meat. As babes new born, so those newly raised from sin, desire spiritual food, that they may grow thereby.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

See this passage explained in the notes at Matthew 9:18-26, and Mark 5:21-43.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

47. declared … before all—This, though a great trial to the shrinking modesty of the believing woman, was just what Christ wanted in dragging her forth, her public testimony to the facts of her case—both her disease, with her abortive efforts at a cure, and the instantaneous and perfect relief which her touch of the Great Healer had brought her.

Matthew Poole's Commentary

See Poole on "Luke 8:41"

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

And they laughed him to scorn,.... The servants, neighbours, and relations, the pipers, and mourning women: these, from weeping for the dead, fell to laughing at Christ, having him and his words in the utmost derision:

knowing that she was dead: some of them having been employed in laying her out, and all of them having seen her, and were satisfied, and thoroughly assured, that she was actually dead, as ever any person was, as she doubtless was; but they were ignorant in what sense Christ meant she was not dead, but asleep; See Gill on Matthew 9:24. See Gill on Mark 5:39.

Geneva Study Bible

And they laughed him to scorn, knowing that she was dead.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Expositor's Greek Testament

Luke 8:53. εἰδότες ὅτι ἀπέθανεν: Lk. is careful to add this remark to exclude the idea that it was not a case of real death; his aim here, as always, to magnify the power as well as the benevolence of Jesus.

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

53. laughed him to scorn] Literally, “were utterly deriding Him” ‘To laugh to scorn’ is used by Shakespeare, e.g.

“Our castle’s strength

Will laugh a siege to scorn.”

Macbeth, v. 5.

Bengel's Gnomen

Luke 8:53. Εἰδότες knowing) Therefore all of these persons must have recognised the reality of the miracle.

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 53. - They laughed him to scorn. These were, no doubt, the hired mourners. Familiar as they were with death, they ridiculed the idea of one whom they knew had passed away, awaking again as from a sleep. These public mourners were customary figures in all Jewish homes, even in the poorest where a death had occurred. They are still usual throughout the Levant. The expression, "laughed him to scorn," is found in Shakespeare -

"Our castle's strength
Will laugh a siege to scorn."

(Macbeth,' act 5. sc. 5.) The Aramaic words, Talitha, kumi! "Maid, arise!" were just homely words, spoken in the language which the little girl was in the habit of hearing and using. The Master's tender care for the child was shown not merely in the choice of the language and the words, but in his loving thought after her resurrection, for we read how - Luke 8:53