R T France thinks that, in looking for links between the story of the raising of Jairus's daughter and the healing of a bleeding woman, recourse to the detail of “12 years” is “a counsel of despair” (page 235, fn 20).
Interesting, Larry Hurtado does not agree. From page 88 of his commentary:
Is it insignificant that the woman had a twelve-year ailment, and that this number has a long biblical significance as symbolizing Israel? And the girl, the twelve-year old daughter of a synagogue leader, is doubly linked with Israel. In other words, the sequence of miracles among those identified with Israel, followed by rejection in Jesus’ own village, affords the informed reader with a glimpse of the outcome of Jesus’ ministry to Israel.
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