The messengers believed the matter was closed. The girl had died, so there seemed no reason to keep Jesus walking to the house. Gill says "they thought it was in vain to give Christ any further trouble" and "imagined it was wholly out of his power to raise one from the dead." Barnes agrees: "It seems that the people had not yet confidence that Jesus could raise the dead." Matthew Henry captures their reasoning: "While there is life, there is hope." Their question may even have been meant kindly, to spare the Master a useless trip. But it assumed that death was the limit of what Jesus could do.

Jesus did not answer the messengers. He spoke to the father: "As soon as Jesus heard the word that was spoken, he saith unto the ruler of the synagogue, Be not afraid, only believe" (Mark 5:36). Luke adds the promise, "and she shall be made whole" (Luke 8:50). Jesus took Peter, James, and John to the house (Mark 5:37), put the mourners out, took the girl by the hand, and said, "Talitha cumi." She "arose, and walked" (Mark 5:40-42). The question "why troublest thou the Master any further?" was answered by what the Master did.

The word "troublest" translates skyllo. Thayer gives its root meaning as "to skin, flay," and figuratively "to vex, trouble, annoy." The messengers meant: why keep bothering Him? Luke's parallel uses the same verb: "trouble not the Master" (Luke 8:49). "Master" here is didaskalos, teacher, which is why the ESV says "the Teacher."

Jairus was "one of the rulers of the synagogue" (Mark 5:22), a leader of the local Jewish meeting place for prayer and the reading of Scripture. His daughter was "of the age of twelve years" (Mark 5:42). Luke adds that she was his "one only daughter" (Luke 8:42).

This question marks the point where human hope runs out, and it is exactly where Jesus speaks. Jairus had come asking for healing (Mark 5:23). Now the request seemed too late, and the delay for the woman seemed costly. Gill notes that Jesus' pause to draw out the woman served "for the strengthening the faith of Jairus," who had just watched a twelve-year illness healed by faith.

Jesus' reply, "Be not afraid, only believe," shows that death is not a boundary for Him. Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary says, "Faith is the only remedy against grief and fear at such a time." What the messengers thought was the end of the story became the setting for Jesus' greatest work in the chapter.