Bible Dictionaries
Jairus

　　JAIRUS.—1. The name Ἰάιρος, [Note: SS Manuscripts.] . It cannot be positively identified with the Heb. name Ἰαήρ, יָאִיר, the father of Mordecai (Cod. A, by a curious slip, has יָאִיר, and yet he does not hesitate to explain it by reference to εἶς τῶν ἀρχισυναγώγων (Mark 5:22) and similarly afterwards as ἄρχων alone (Matthew 9:18); but there is no need to suppose that this is intended to represent Jairus as a member of the Sanhedrin, or in any other capacity than that indicated in the other Gospels. The brevity and conciseness of the form in which Mt. gives the story probably explain this loose use of רא̇הַכּנֵסֵח, and the office held by Jairus had well-defined functions. Pre-eminently the ‘ruler’ (al. ‘president’ or ‘leader’) was the director of public worship. Schürer holds that generally there was ‘but one archisynagogus for each synagogue’ (HJPἐσχάτως ἔχει), and Lk. that she ‘was dying’ (ἔτι αὐτοῦ λαλοῦντος, with a bearing on this point.

　　Cheyne thinks the Mt. form of the story the most original, and explains the representation in Mk. on this point as due to the feeling of a later time that no one would have had a sufficiently bold faith to ask Jesus to restore one who was already dead. So far as that goes, however, the Markan account is parallel with the situation in the story of Lazarus (John 11); and we have no other instance in the Gospels besides this in Mt. of a request that one dead should be restored to life. Compression still best accounts for the form in Matthew. The account of the actual restoration to life is also given with the greatest brevity.

　　The effort to explain this incident as a case of restoration from trance is not quite successful. Mk.’s narrative would admit of such an interpretation, but Lk.’s definite phrases in vv. 53, 55 distinctly fix the sense otherwise. In the primitive tradition the daughter of Jairus was believed to have been brought back from death to life. The story as a whole is full of grace and beauty, and ‘belongs to the earliest stratum of the Gospel tradition’ (Cheyne, Ency. Bibl. ut supra).

　　J. S. Clemens.