Jesus questioned the loud mourning because He knew the girl's death would not last. His next words explain the question: "the damsel is not dead, but sleepeth." He was not denying that she had died. Barnes says on Matthew's account, "Every possible evidence of her death had been given." Gill explains Jesus' meaning: "not but that she was truly dead, but not so as to remain under the power of death." The question challenged mourning that left no room for what Jesus was about to do. Barnes describes the scene Jesus walked into as "This tumult, this bustle or confusion."

"They laughed him to scorn" (Mark 5:40). Luke gives the reason: "knowing that she was dead" (Luke 8:53). Jesus put them all out and took only the girl's father and mother and the three disciples into the room. He took her by the hand and said, "Talitha cumi; which is, being interpreted, Damsel, I say unto thee, arise." "Straightway the damsel arose, and walked," and they "were astonished with a great astonishment" (Mark 5:40-42). The mourners answered with scorn; Jesus answered with life.

Mourning in Jesus' day was loud and public. Matthew mentions "the minstrels and the people making a noise" (Matthew 9:23). Barnes explains that "Minstrels" are persons who play on instruments of music, and that people would "hire persons of both sexes, whose employment it is to mourn for the dead." Gill likewise describes the mourning women, "the same with the 'preficae' of the Romans, who sung mournful songs."

The phrase "make ye this ado" translates thorubeo, which Thayer defines as "to make a noise or uproar, be turbulent." The same verb appears in Matthew 9:23 ("making a noise") and in Acts 20:10, where Paul, embracing the young man Eutychus, says, "Trouble not yourselves; for his life is in him."

This question shows how Jesus sees death. He calls it sleep, something He can wake a person from. He used the same picture for Lazarus: "Our friend Lazarus sleepeth; but I go, that I may awake him out of sleep," and then said plainly, "Lazarus is dead" (John 11:11, 14). Barnes explains that her spirit still lived and she slept "in the hope of the resurrection."

The mourners laughed because, from where they stood, death was final. Jesus' question was not cruel to grief. He did not send the parents away; He took them with Him into the room (Mark 5:40). What He set aside was hopeless commotion, and what He brought was His own word, "arise."