Luke 8:40-42

The Request.

The term ἀποδέχεσθαι indicates a warm welcome.

Mark and Luke mention the age of the young girl, which Matthew omits.

The circumstance of her being an only daughter, added by Luke, more fully explains the father's distress. Criticism, of course, does not fail to draw its own conclusions from the same circumstance being found already in Luke 7:12. As if an only son and an only daughter could not both be found in Israel! According to Mark and Luke, the young girl was dying; in Matthew, she is already dead. This evangelist tells the story here, as elsewhere, in a summary manner; he combines in a single message the arrival of the father, and the subsequent arrival of the messenger announcing her death. The process is precisely similar to that already noticed in the account of the healing of the centurion's servant. Matthew is interested simply in the fact of the miracle and the word of Jesus.