And when Jesus had crossed again in the boat to the other side, a great crowd gathered about him, and he was beside the sea. 22 Then came one of the rulers of the synagogue, Jairus by name, and seeing him, he fell at his feet 23 and implored him earnestly, saying, “My little daughter is at the point of death. Come and lay your hands on her, so that she may be made well and live.” 24 And he went with him.
And a great crowd followed him and thronged about him. 25 And there was a woman who had had a discharge of blood for twelve years, 26 and who had suffered much under many physicians, and had spent all that she had, and was no better but rather grew worse. 27 She had heard the reports about Jesus and came up behind him in the crowd and touched his garment. 28 For she said, “If I touch even his garments, I will be made well.” 29 And immediately the flow of blood dried up, and she felt in her body that she was healed of her disease. 30 And Jesus, perceiving in himself that power had gone out from him, immediately turned about in the crowd and said, “Who touched my garments?” 31 And his disciples said to him, “You see the crowd pressing around you, and yet you say, ‘Who touched me?’” 32 And he looked around to see who had done it. 33 But the woman, knowing what had happened to her, came in fear and trembling and fell down before him and told him the whole truth. 34 And he said to her, “Daughter, your faith has made you well; go in peace, and be healed of your disease.”
35 While he was still speaking, there came from the ruler's house some who said, “Your daughter is dead. Why trouble the Teacher any further?” 36 But overhearing what they said, Jesus said to the ruler of the synagogue, “Do not fear, only believe.” 37 And he allowed no one to follow him except Peter and James and John the brother of James. 38 They came to the house of the ruler of the synagogue, and Jesus saw a commotion, people weeping and wailing loudly. 39 And when he had entered, he said to them, “Why are you making a commotion and weeping? The child is not dead but sleeping.” 40 And they laughed at him. But he put them all outside and took the child's father and mother and those who were with him and went in where the child was. 41 Taking her by the hand he said to her, “Talitha cumi,” which means, “Little girl, I say to you, arise.” 42 And immediately the girl got up and began walking (for she was twelve years of age), and they were immediately overcome with amazement. 43 And he strictly charged them that no one should know this, and told them to give her something to eat.
Mark 5:21-43
When studying Scripture we need to take note when we see things repeated; this leads to treasure. Usually, we will notice things repeated several times but in this case, it's only twice; but those two times stands out.
When reading the text, I found a problem with the number twelve. Isn't it odd, and quite coincidental, that both females in this story would have the number twelve linked to them. We have a girl who is twelve years old and a woman with an issue of blood for twelve years. These kinds of coincidences often lead to treasure.
As pointed out in Treasure Map of the Bible in my Study Tip section, Jews view numbers as something more than a numerical value. Numbers have symbolic meanings as well as many other things. When we see a coincidence in numbers like this, let's step away and find out what the meaning of the number is in their view.
In the Jewish understanding, the number twelve is a representation of the church. We see this based on the twelve disciples, the twelve foundation stones, the 24 elders (12x2), and so forth. Another symbol of the church is a woman. We see this in how God called the children of Israel whores, He called Himself a husband, the church is the bride of Christ, etc.
When we see these two symbols within the story we start to look a little deeper at what the author is trying to paint.
Y'shua is going to a young woman that is twelve and who is dying and an older woman who has been bleeding for twelve years comes up behind Him and the bleeding stops.
What we call the Old Covenant was based around a series of sacrifices that should have led the people of God to repentance but they did not respond to the sacrifices in the way God intended (Psalms 50; Psalm 51:16-17; Hosea 6:1-7; Isaiah 1:11-31). Because of this lack of response, the blood of sacrifices flowed from the temple continuously. It was this old system that Christ came to do away with. We see this symbol in the woman with an issue of blood. The older woman, coming up behind Y'shua had the flow stopped just as the flow stopped when the veil was tore from top to bottom.
We move to the girl. We notice in the story that she was not dead when Messiah Y'shua was told about her but she was dead upon her arrival. This girl represents both the church to come and the covenant of Abraham.
In the study of Galatians 3 and the study of New or Renewed, we see how we are in a RENEWED Covenant with God, and we see this being painted here. As you will study further in the previous mentioned articles, God made a covenant with Abraham and his seed, which is Christ, but brought the covenant with Moses 430 years later due to transgression. That covenant with Moses would continue until the promise came, which is Christ. In this story, we have Christ on the scene.
We have this young, twelve year old, girl who had not grown up. She was sick and died until Messiah Y'shua showed up on the scene and He raised her up. Like Y'shua fulfilling the Law and the Prophets, He has come to show us what was meant by God in the original covenant. Being the promised seed, He came to re-establish that which God intended from the beginning. He raised up this dead girl and then told those around Him to feed her; a representation of John 21:17.
So we see this painting by Mark of how Christ came to do away with the Old Covenant, the covenant of Moses, with a constant flow of blood from the temple in order to raise up a covenant that had died, a renewing of the covenant with Abraham, and telling His people to feed it, feed His sheep.
What an amazing painting if we can get into this type of textual study.