Mark 5:23

and pleaded with Him urgently, “My little daughter is near death. Please come and place Your hands on her, so that she will be healed and live.”

Berean Standard Bible

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Study note

Setting — Jairus, a synagogue leader who just fell at Jesus' feet, urgently pleads with Him while a pressing crowd follows (Mark 5:22-24). He asks Jesus to come to his home and lay hands on his dying daughter.

The words — παρακαλεῖ (parakalei) means "he begs" and is intensified by πολλὰ (polla), "much," indicating urgent pleading. θυγάτριόν (thugatrion) literally translates to "little daughter," specifying the exact person in need.

The thread — The request to place hands on the sick appears in Luke 4:40, where Jesus lays hands on many and heals them, and in Mark 16:18, which notes hands placed on the afflicted. Jairus's plea also parallels the healing touch later described in Luke 13:13.

Why it lands — The text records a desperate father's direct request for physical intervention to save his child. It asks a reader to recognize that faith often begins with a specific, urgent appeal for divine action in a concrete situation.

Drafted by a language model from the text, its original words and its cross-references, then checked against them. It can still be wrong: open the verse in the app to report it.

The Greek words

King James Version

And besought him greatly, saying, My little daughter lieth at the point of death: I pray thee, come and lay thy hands on her, that she may be healed; and she shall live.

Cross-references

Luke 13:13 Then He placed His hands on her, and immediately she straightened up and began to glorify God.
Mark 16:18 they will pick up snakes with their hands, and if they drink any deadly poison, it will not harm them; they will lay their hands on the sick, and they will be made well.”
Luke 4:40 At sunset, all who were ill with various diseases were brought to Jesus, and laying His hands on each one, He healed them.
Acts 28:8 The father of Publius was sick in bed, suffering from fever and dysentery. Paul went in to see him, and after praying and placing his hands on him, he healed the man.
2 Samuel 12:15 After Nathan had gone home, the LORD struck the child that Uriah’s wife had borne to David, and he became ill.
2 Kings 5:11 But Naaman went away angry, saying, “I thought that he would surely come out, stand and call on the name of the LORD his God, and wave his hand over the spot to cure my leprosy.
Psalms 50:15 Call upon Me in the day of trouble; I will deliver you, and you will honor Me.”
Psalms 107:19 Then they cried out to the LORD in their trouble, and He saved them from their distress.
Mark 7:32 Some people brought to Him a man who was deaf and hardly able to speak, and they begged Jesus to place His hand on him.
Mark 8:23 So He took the blind man by the hand and led him out of the village. Then He spit on the man’s eyes and placed His hands on him. “Can you see anything?” He asked.