Deeper Commentary

5:1- see on Mk. 10:28. For a detailed study on this incident, see my discussion of it in The Real Devil. See too commentary on Matthew 8 and Luke 8.

And they came to the other side of the sea- The Gospel records, Mark especially, often paint a broad scene and then zoom in upon the person of Jesus. Mark does this by using a plural verb without an explicit subject to paint a picture of the disciples or crowd generally; and then follows this by a singular verb or pronoun referring specifically to Jesus. Here are some examples: "They came to the other side... and when He had stepped out of the boat" (Mk. 5:1,2); "when they came from Bethany, he was hungry" (Mk. 8:22); "they went to a place called Gethsemane; and he said to his disciples..." (Mk. 14:32). The grammatical feature is more evident in Greek than in English. If the writer of Mark had been a cameraman, he'd have taken a broad sweep, and then suddenly hit the zoom to focus right up close upon Jesus Himself. This is what is being done with words, and it reflects the Christ-centredness of the whole narrative and preaching of the Gospel, of which the Gospels are transcripts.

Into the country of the Gerasenes- The "Girgashites" of Dt. 7:1, some of the original inhabitants of Canaan who had never been cast out of the land as intended by God. These men stopped anyone passing along the way or road. The point may be that those whom Israel should've 'cast out' to secure their inheritance of the Kingdom were finally cast out by Christ. This lays the basis for the language of 'casting out' the demons into the lake.

5:2 And when he got out of the boat, immediately there met him out of the tombs a man with an unclean spirit- "Immediately" suggests the man was waiting for Him; although :6 says that Legion ran to the Lord from far away, which would make the "immediately" here relative, and intended to create an impression of fast moving action. From his isolated hideouts on the cliffs, he had seen the boat traversing the lake so many times. And he was convinced that within it there was the Son of God. "With an unclean spirit" appears to contradict the idea that he had a legion of such spirits within him- until we accept that this is just the language of the day for mental illness. We are not reading here about literal spirits. See on :7. But when we meet a similar situation in Acts 8:7 of unclean spirits crying out, the Eastern (Aramaic) text reads: "Many who were mentally afflicted cried out". This is because, according to George Lamsa, ""Unclean spirits" is an Aramaic term used to describe lunatics" (George Lamsa, New Testament Commentary (Philadelphia: A.J. Holman, 1945) pp. 57,58). It should be noted that Lamsa was a native Aramaic speaker with a fine understanding of Aramaic terms. He grew up in a remote part of Kurdistan which had maintained the Aramaic language almost unchanged since the time of Jesus. It's significant that Lamsa's extensive writings indicate that he failed to see in the teachings of Jesus and Paul any support for the popular conception of the devil and demons- he insisted that the Semitic and Aramaic terms used by them have been misunderstood by Western readers and misused in order to lend support for their conceptions of a personal Devil and demons.

5:3 Who had his dwelling in the tombs; no one could any more bind him, even with a chain- A fairly detailed case can be made that the man Legion was to be understood as representative of Judah in captivity, suffering for their sins, who despite initially opposing Christ (Legion ran up to Jesus just as he had 'run upon' people in aggressive fits earlier), could still repent as Legion did, be healed of their sins and be His witnesses to the world. This fits in with the whole theme which the Lord had- that the restoration of Israel's fortunes would not be by violent opposition to the Legions of Rome but by repentance and spiritual witness to the world. The point is, Israel were bound in fetters and beaten by the Gentiles because of their sins, which they were culpable of, for which they had responsibility and from which they could repent; rather than because they had been taken over by powerful demons against their will. Here then are reasons for understanding Legion as representative of Judah under Gentile oppression:

- Israel were “A people... which remain among the tombs, and lodge in the monuments” (Is. 65:3-4).

- Legion was always “in the mountains”- the "high places" where Israel sinned (Is. 65:7; Hos. 4:13).

- The man's name, Legion, suggests he was under the ownership of Rome. The miracle occurred in Gentile territory, suggesting Judah in the Gentile dominated world.

- ‘What is your name?’ is the same question asked of Jacob

- Legion's comment that ‘we are many’ is identical to the words of Ez. 33:24 about Israel: “Son of man, they that inhabit those wastes of the land of Israel speak, saying, Abraham was one, and he inherited the land: but we are many; the land is given us for inheritance. Wherefore say unto them, Thus saith the Lord God; Ye eat with the blood, and lift up your eyes toward your idols, and shed blood: and shall ye possess the land?”.

- Legion had often been bound with fetters and chains (Mk 5:3,4)- just as God's people had so often been taken into captivity in "fetters and chains” (2 Chron. 33:11; 36:6, 2 Kings 24:7).

- When the sick man asks that the unclean spirits not be sent "out of the country" (Mk. 5:10), I take this as his resisting the healing. But he later repents and asks for them to be sent into the herd of pigs. This recalls a prophecy about the restoration of Judah in Zech. 13:2: “And it shall come to pass in that day, saith the Lord of hosts, that I will cut off the names of the idols out of the land, and they shall no more be remembered: and also I will cause the prophets and the unclean spirit to pass out of the land”.

- The herd of pigs being "destroyed" in the water recalls the Egyptians being “destroyed” in the Red Sea when Israel were delivered from Gentile power before. The Gadarene Gentiles "were afraid", just as the Gentile world was at the time of the Exodus (Ex. 15:14). The curing of Legion is termed “great things” (Mk. 5:19); and Israel's exodus from Gentile power and the destruction of the Egyptians is likewise called “great things” (Ps. 106:21).

5:4 For he had often been bound with shackles and chains, but he wrenched the chains apart, and he broke the shackles in pieces. No one had the strength to subdue him- See on :3 for the connection between Legion and Judah. He had "often" been restrained, in efforts to cure him. He therefore needed some assurance that the cure from the Lord Jesus was going to be permanent, and the rushing of the pigs over the cliff to their permanent destruction would have been a reminder of that.

5:5 Always, night and day, in the tombs and in the mountains, he was crying out and cutting himself with stones- A psychological approach to the self-mutilation [which is a classic symptom of mental illness] would be to understand it as him trying to stone himself, convinced he was unworthy and deserving of condemnation. No surprise, in this case, that the presence of Jesus lifted that sense of condemnation from him, and the miracle of the pigs was therefore performed to assure him that his sin really had been removed and condemned by drowning in the sea [a figure of condemnation in Mt. 18:6 and Rev. 18:21. 33]. The French social scientist René Girard commented at length upon the curing of the demoniac. He took the gashing of himself with stones as being representative of the man's desire to stone himself, and he observes the phenomena of "autolapidation" (self-stoning) as being common within the mentally disturbed. But he observes further that the pigs running over the cliff has "ritual and penal connotations" in that both stoning and being thrown over a cliff were common methods of execution in primitive societies (René Girard, The Scapegoat (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1986) p. 176. The same points are made in Jean Starobinski, "The Gerasene Demoniac", in Roland Barthes et al, eds., Structural Analysis and Biblical Exegesis (Pittsburgh: Pickwick, 1974) pp. 57-84). We recall how the townspeople tried to execute Jesus by throwing Him off a cliff (Lk. 4:29). And yet Jesus turned the man's fears on their head; for the pigs, representing the crowd who wished to stone the man and throw him off the cliff, are the ones who are thrown over the cliff by Jesus. The crowd therefore suffer the execution which they wished to inflict upon the victim. Thus "the miracle of Gerasa reverses the universal schema of violence fundamental to all societies" (Ibid p. 179). Now we understand why Jesus declined Legion's request to follow Him on His mission, but insisted he instead return to his own society and live at peace with them. For Jesus had taught the man that the crowd he feared were no more, the lynch mob he obsessively feared had themselves been lynched over the cliff. The man begged that the demons not be cast into the sea (Lk. 8:31) in the sense that he himself feared being cast over the cliff into the sea by the mob. But that fear was taken away by Jesus; for it was the demons, the lynch mob which he feared, the Roman Legions, which he saw represented by the pigs, hurtling to their own destruction over the cliff.

5:6 And when he saw Jesus from afar, he ran and worshiped him- Yet the man is described as "immediately" meeting the Lord; see on :2. His worship suggests He had heard and processed the works and teaching of the Lord, and come to the conclusion which the Lord never stated in so many words- that He was the Son of God. The Lord's style was to let His audience join the dots and come to that conclusion; and this mentally disturbed homeless man was one of the few who did so and saw the picture. It was His illness which stopped Him credibly and usefully proclaiming that; and so the Lord cured that dimension of the man.

5:7 And crying out with a loud voice, he said: What have I to do with you, Jesus, you Son of the Most High God? I solemnly implore you by God, do not torment me- See on :6. He was one of the few who joined the dots and saw that the Lord was God's Son; yet he feared condemnation, which is what "torment" spoke of. It was his mental illness which was largely responsible for that paranoia about condemnation; and the Lord healed him of it.

A comparison of the records indicates that the voice of the individual man is paralleled with that of the 'demons' (see on :2)- the man was called Legion, because he believed and spoke as if he were inhabited by hundreds of 'demons':

"Torment me not" (Mk. 5:7) = “Are you come to torment us?” (Mt. 8:29).
“He [singular] besought him” (Mk. 5:9) = "the demons besought him" (Mk. 5:12)
The man's own words explain his self-perception: "My name [singular] is Legion: for we are many (Mk. 5:9)". This is classic schizophrenic behaviour and language. Thus Lk. 8:30 explains that Legion spoke as he did because [he thought that] many demons had entered into him.

Another case of 'proving too much' arises from reflection upon the fact that the 'demon possessed' Legion clearly recognized Jesus as the Son of God (Mk. 5:7); Mark seems to emphasize that demon possessed' people perceived Jesus as God's Son (Mk. 1:24,34; 3:11). Yet Mark and the other Gospel writers likewise emphasize the slowness or refusal of many other groups in the Gospels to arrive at the same perception. And so we are forced to deal with the question: Since when do 'demons' bring people to accept Jesus as God's Son? Surely, according to the classical schema of understanding them, they and the Devil supposedly behind them are leading people to unbelief rather than to belief? But once we accept the language of 'demon possession' as referring to mental illness without requiring the actual physical existence of demons, then everything falls into place. For it's so often the case that the mentally ill have a very fine and accurate perception of spiritual things. And we see a clear pattern developed in the Gospels: the poor, the marginalized, women, slaves, the mentally ill ['demon possessed'], the disenfranchised, the lepers, the prostitutes, are the ones who perceive Jesus as God's Son and believe in Him.

5:8 For Jesus had said to him: Unclean spirit, come out of the man!- The man's fear of condemnation ["torment"] was triggered or restimulated by the command to the 'unclean spirit' to come out of the man. Legion assumed that he personally was going to be condemned if the "unclean spirit" was condemned which he supposed was within him. But the Lord was seeking to help the man see a difference between himself personally, and his mental illness, the "spirit" or mind within him which was paranoid about condemnation. And so the Lord went along with the man's self perception, and in terms the man understood, showed beyond doubt that that spirit of fear had been cast out. Perhaps John reflects on this incident when he writes that perfect love casts out fear, because fear is associated with "torment" (1 Jn. 4:18), which is just what the man was obsessed with fearing (:7).

5:9 And he asked the spirit: What is your name?- The Lord focused the man's attention upon the man's beliefs about himself- by asking him "What is your name?", to which he replies "Legion! For we are many!". Thus the man was brought to realize on later reflection that the pig stampede was a miracle by the Lord, and a judgment against illegal keeping of unclean animals- rather than an action performed by the demons he thought inhabited him. The idea of transference of disease from one to another was a common Semitic perception, and it’s an idea used by God. And thus God went along with the peoples' idea of disease transference, and the result is recorded in terms of demons [which was how they understood illness] going from one person to another. Likewise the leprosy of Naaman clave to Gehazi (2 Kings 5:27). God threatened to make the diseases of the inhabitants of Canaan and Egypt to cleave to Israel if they were disobedient (Dt. 28:21,60). Here too, God is accommodating the ideas of disease transference which people had at the time.

And the spirit replied: My name is Legion. For we are many- I have outlined in :3 how Legion could be seen as representative of Israel in their weakness. Mark records how Jesus asked the man his name- as if He wished the man to reflect upon who he thought he was. He replied: "Legion". And of course the word "legion" referred to a division of Roman soldiers, usually five or six thousand. The man felt possessed by Roman legions. Through the incident with the pigs, Jesus helped him understand that He alone had the power to rid the man, and all Israel, of the Roman legions. The observation has been made that the incidents of 'driving out demons' nearly all occur in "militarized zones", areas where the Roman army was highly visible and resented (Shane Claiborne and Chris Haw, Jesus for President (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2008) p. 115). The man wished the "demons" he imagined to be possessing him to be identified with the pigs. And Jesus empowered that desire. The ‘band’ of pigs is described using the same original word as used for a group of military cadets. And the pig was the mascot of Rome’s Tenth Fretensis Legion which was stationed nearby; indeed, "pigs" were used as symbols for Romans in non-Roman literature of the time (Warren Carter, Matthew and Empire: Initial Explorations (Harrisburg, PA: Trinity Press International, 2001) p. 71; Warren Carter, Matthew and the Margins: A Sociopolitical and Religious Reading (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 2000) pp. 212,213). William Harwood comes to the same conclusion: "Jerusalem had been occupied by the Roman Tenth Legion [X Fretensis], whose emblem was a pig. Mark's reference to about two thousand pigs, the size of the occupying Legion, combined with his blatant designation of the evil beings as Legion, left no doubt in Jewish minds that the pigs in the fable represented the army of occupation. Mark's fable in effect promised that the messiah, when he returned, would drive the Romans into the sea as he had earlier driven their four-legged surrogates" (William Harwood, Mythology's Last Gods: Yahweh and Jesus (New York: Prometheus Books, 1990) p. 48). The claim has been made by Joachim Jeremias that the Aramaic word for "soldiers" was in fact translated "Legion" (The same point is made in Gerd Theissen, Sociology of Earliest Palestinian Christianity (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1978) pp. 101,102). Jesus elsewhere taught that through faith in Him, "this mountain" could be cast into the sea (Mt. 21:21; Mk. 11:23). Seeing that mountains are symbolic in Scripture of empires, it could be that He was referring to how the empire contemporary with Him as He spoke those words, the Roman empire, could be cast into the sea through faith in Him. The acted parable of the Legion of pigs running into the sea was surely teaching the same thing. In passing, I note the apparent discrepancy between the fact that a Roman Legion contained five or six thousand people and yet there were two thousand pigs drowned. I found the comment on an internet forum, by an unbeliever, that "the governor of Judaea only had 2000 legionaries at his disposal". I have searched Josephus and other sources for confirmation of this, but can't find any. If it were to be found, it would be marvellous confirmation of the thesis I'm presenting here- that the pigs were to be understood as representative of the Roman Legions, who in their turn were responsible for the man's mental illness. In any case, there is evidence to believe that there were Roman troops stationed in Gadara, and the pigs were likely being kept in order to provide food for them (Michael Willett Newheart, "My name is Legion": The Story and Soul of the Gerasene Demoniac (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 2004) p. 14). "Pigs for the pigs" would've been the common quip about that herd of swine.

There is a strange flip of the tail in all this. Josephus records how the Romans massacred many Jewish rebels in Gadara, the very place of the Legion miracle, in AD69: "Vespasian sent Placidus with 500 horse and 3000 foot to pursue those who had fled from Gadara... Placidus, relying on his cavalry and emboldened by his previous success, pursued the Gadarenes, killing all whom he overtook, as far as the Jordan. Having driven the whole multitude up to the river, where they were blocked by the stream, which being swollen by the rain was unfordable, he drew up his troops in line opposite them. Necessity goaded them to battle, flight being impossible... Fifteen thousand perished by the enemy's hands, while the number of those who were driven to fling themselves into the Jordan was incalculable; about two thousand two hundred were captured..." (Wars of the Jews, Book 4, Chapter 7). This is all very similar to the picture of the [Roman] legions being driven into the water, as Jesus had implied would happen. Perhaps we are to understand that what was made potentially possible for the Jews by the work of Jesus was in fact turned around against them- they suffered the very punishment and judgment which was potentially prepared for Rome, because they refused their Messiah. This is possibly why the destruction of Rome / Babylon predicted in the Apocalypse is described in terms of Jerusalem's destruction in the Old Testament. The judgment intended for Babylon / Rome actually came upon Jerusalem and the Jews.

I suggest that the man's mental illness was related to the possession of his country by the Roman Legions. Perhaps he found huge power within himself to smash the chains with which he was restrained because he imagined them as symbolizing the Roman grip upon his soul and his country. In this case, his self-mutilation, gashing himself with stones (Mk. 5:5), would've been from a desire to kill the Legions within him, the 'demons' of Rome whom he perceived as having possessed him. He saw himself as representative of his people; Walter Wink sees the man's gashing himself with stones as a result of how he had "internalized [Judah's] captivity and the utter futility of resistance" (Walter Wink, Unmasking the Powers (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1986) Vol. 2 p. 46). So often the mentally ill internalize their abusers; they act and speak as if their abusers are actually them, within them. This is why the abused so often end up abusing others; it's why Israel treat some Palestinians in a way strangely similar to how they were treated at the hands of the Nazis; and it's why Jesus urges us to pray for those who persecute us, to the end we might place a psychological distance between them and us, be ourselves, and not become like them. Jesus recognized this long before modern psychiatry did; hence he asks the sick man his name, "Legion". The man's reply really says it all- as if to say 'I am my abusers. I have internalized them'. Hence one commentator writes of how Legion "carries his persecutors inside him in the classic mode of the victim who internalizes his tormentors" (Robert G. Hammerton-Kelley, The Gospel and the Sacred: Poetics of Violence in Mark (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1994) p. 93).

Frantz Fanon was a psychiatrist who analyzed the psychological damage done to those living under repressive regimes. Taking case studies from the French colonization of Martinique and Algeria, Fanon demonstrated that many darker skinned local people came to see themselves as second rate and dirty, and that when these darker skinned natives interacted with the white colonizers, they often experienced a tension between who they really were, and who they had to act as in secular life with the white masters. One of his books says it all in its title: Black Skin, White Masks. Having listed the various types of mental illness and multiple personality disorders which he attributed to French colonialism, Fanon concluded that there was brought about "this disintegrating of personality, this splitting and dissolution... in the organism of the colonized world" (Frantz Fanon, The Wretched of the Earth (New York: Grove Press, 1963) p. 57. See too his Black Skin, White Masks (New York: Grove Press, 1967)). Similar observations have been made, in a white-on-white context, about the psychological damage done by the Soviet occupation to the ethnic Baltic population, perhaps explaining why the tiny countries of Latvia and Lithuania have some of the highest suicide and mental illness rates in the world. The point is, however exaggerated these studies may be in some areas, there is indeed huge psychological damage caused by occupying, colonial powers; and this was the case in first century Palestine, and I submit that Legion with his multiple personalities was an example of mental illness caused by such a scenario. Paul Hollenbach likewise interprets the case of Legion, commenting in that context that "mental illness can be seen as a socially acceptable form of oblique protest against, or escape from, oppressions... his very madness permitted him to do what he could not do as sane, namely express his total hostility to the Romans; he did this by identifying the Roman legions with demons. His possession was thus at once both the result of oppression and an expression of his resistance to it" (Paul Hollenbach, "Jesus, Demoniacs and Public Authorities", Journal of the American Academy of Religion, Vol. 99 (1981) p. 575). Richard Horsley takes the idea further: "The demon possession of the manically violent man among the Gerasenes can be understood as a combination of the effect of Roman imperial violence, a displaced protest against it" (Richard Horsley, Hearing the Whole Story: The Politics of Plot in Mark's Gospel (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2001) p. 145). By asking the sick man for his name, the Lord Jesus was surely seeking to help the man clarify the fact that his real issue was with Rome, and the man actually need not fear supposed 'demons'. This refocusing upon the real problem is a common feature of how the Bible deals with the whole subject of Satan and demons, as we've often seen in the course of this book. Horsley is right on target in his conclusion: "The casting out and naming of "Legion" is a demystification of demons and demon possession. It is now evident to Jesus' followers and to the hearers of Mark's story that the struggle is really against the rulers, the Romans" (Ibid p. 147). Newheart writes in very similar terms: "Jesus... demystified the demons, showing that the real culprit was Rome" (Newheart, op cit p. 84).

 5:10 And he pleaded earnestly with him not to send them out of the country- This is the man's fear of condemnation, noted on :8. Note that the sick man is paralleled with the demons. "He begged him earnestly not to send them out of the country" (Mk. 5:10) parallels "he", the man, with "them", the demons. And the parallel record speaks as if it were the demons who did the begging: "They begged him not to order them to go into the abyss" (Lk. 8:31). This is significant in that the record doesn't suggest that demons were manipulating the man to speak and be mad; rather are they made parallel with the man himself. This indicates, on the level of linguistics at least, that the language of "demons" is being used as a synonym for the mentally ill man. There's another example of this, in Mark 3:11: "Whenever the unclean spirits saw him, they fell down before him and shouted, “You are the Son of God!”". Who fell down on their knees and who shouted? The mentally disturbed people. But they are called "unclean spirits". James 2:19 likewise: "The demons believe and tremble". This is surely an allusion to the trembling of those people whom Jesus cured, and 'belief' is appropriate to persons not [supposed] eternally damned agents of Satan. Clearly James is putting "demons" for 'mentally disturbed people who believed and were cured'. And thus we can better understand why in Mk. 5:8 Jesus addresses Himself not to these supposed spirits; but to the man himself: "Jesus said to him, Come out of the man, you unclean spirit". He doesn't say to the unclean spirit "Come out of the man". Jesus addresses Himself to "the man". The demons / unclean spirits never actually say anything in the records; it's always the man himself who speaks. Josephus records that when the first century Rabbis cast out demons [as they supposed], they first had to ask for the name of the demon. The Lord Jesus doesn't do this; He asks the man for his personal name. The difference is instructive- the Lord wasn't speaking to demons, He was speaking to the mentally sick man, and going along with the man's belief that he had demons within him. The 'demons' plead with Jesus not to torment them, and back this up by invoking God. 'They' believed in God and honoured Him to the point of believing He was the ultimate authenticator of oaths. 'They' hardly fit the classical idea that demons are anti-God and in conflict with Him. Clearly enough, when we read of demons and spirits in this passage we are not reading of the actual existence of 'demons' as they are classically understood, but simply of the mentally ill man himself.

 5:11 Now there was there on the mountain side a great herd of pigs feeding- Mt. 8:30 "Now there was afar off from them a herd of many pigs feeding". The term is used about those 'far off' from Christ, the unsaved (Lk. 15:20; Acts 2:39; 22:21; Eph. 2:13,17). The man saw himself as far from Christ, with nothing in common between them (Mt. 8:29). His response was to say that OK, let's get the condemnation over and done with- and you yourselves shall be saved. See on :8 for the man's paranoia about condemnation, although he believed in the Lord as God's Son and worshipped Him as such. This is very much the kind of teaching which John's Gospel records as being specifically on the Lord's lips.

5:12 And they pleaded with him, saying: Send us into the pigs, let us enter into them- Mt. 8:31 adds: "And the demons begged him, saying: If you cast us out". The word is used about 'casting out' to condemnation at the last day (Mt. 8:12; 22:13; 25:30; Lk. 13:28; Jn. 6:37). Legion was obsessed with the thought of condemnation at the last day, being 'tormented' at the last day (Mt. 8:28), being 'far off' from Christ and His salvation (see on Mt. 8:30), 'going away' into condemnation (s.w. Mt. 25:46), plunged into the sea of condemnation (see on Mt. 8:32). He correctly perceived that meeting Jesus in this life was in effect a meeting of Him in judgment, for even then, even now, He is the judge of all. The Lord was assuring Legion that his fear of condemnation was well and truly 'cast out'; His destruction of the pigs was an acted parable of final condemnation at the last day; and this addressed the man's paranoia about condemnation noted on :8. John's Gospel doesn't record this incident but as so often, he records the essential teaching in spiritual terms. In John's terms, we need have no fear of future condemnation, for we have received it now, and have passed from judgment to life and salvation. Legion had a fine understanding of the Lord Jesus. He realized that meeting Him was meeting his judge. And he ask that the pigs bear his condemnation. And the Lord agrees- which meant that once Legion had as it were received his condemnation, he had passed from death into life. 

Legion believed he was demon possessed. But the Lord didn’t correct him regarding this before healing him; indeed, one assumes the man probably had some faith for the miracle to be performed (Mt. 13:58). Lk. 8:29 says that Legion “was driven of the devil into the wilderness”, in the same way as the Lord had been driven into the wilderness by the spirit (Mk. 1:12) and yet overcame the ‘devil’ in whatever form at this time. The man was surely intended to reflect on these more subtle things and see that whatever he had once believed in was immaterial and irrelevant compared to the Spirit power of the Lord. And yet the Lord ‘went along’ with his request for the demons he thought were within him to be cast into ‘the deep’, thoroughly rooted as it was in misunderstanding of demons and sinners being thrown into the abyss. This was in keeping with the kind of healing styles people were used to at the time – e.g. Josephus records how Eleazar cast demons out of people and placed a cup of water nearby, which was then [supposedly] tipped over by the demons as they left the sick person [Antiquities of the Jews 8.46–48]. It seems to me that the Lord ‘went along with’ that kind of need for reassurance, and so He made the pigs stampede over the cliff to symbolize to the healed man how his disease had really left him.

Mark 5 records three prayers to Jesus: "The demons besought him", and "Jesus gave them leave" (:12,13); the Gadarenes "began to beg him to depart out of their coasts" (:17); and He obliged. And yet when the cured, earnestly zealous man "begged him that he might be with him... Jesus suffered him not" (:18,19). After the fascination, physically and intellectually, had worn off, very few of the crowds continued their interest. The Lord scarcely converted more than 100 people in the course of His ministry. We are familiar, from our own experience of sin and failure, with the pure grace of the Lord Jesus. We see that largeness and generosity of spirit within Him, that manifestation of the God of love, that willingness to concede to our weakness; and therefore we can tend to overlook the fact that the Lord Jesus set uncompromisingly high standards. I would even use the word "demanding" about His attitude.

5:13 So he gave them permission- Why did the pigs run over the cliff, and why did the Lord Jesus agree to the man's request for this? Because mental illness features intermittent episodes, it's understandable that the Lord sought to comfort those cured that the change He had brought was permanent. Thus the Lord tells the 'spirit' assumed to be tormenting the mentally afflicted child: "I command you, come out of him, and enter no more into him" (Mk. 9:25). It's in the same vein that He drove the pigs into the lake as a sign that Legion's cure was permanent. I suggest that it was a kind of visual aide memoire, of the kind often used in the Bible to impress a point upon illiterate people. I suggest that's why in the ritual of the Day of Atonement, the scapegoat ran off into the wilderness bearing Israel's sins. As the bobbing animal was watched by thousands of eyes, thousands of minds would've reflected that their sins were being cast out. And the same principle was in the curing of the schizophrenic Legion- the pigs were made to run into the lake by the Lord Jesus, not because they were actually possessed by demons in reality, but as an aide memoire to the cured Legion that his illness, all his perceived personalities, were now no more. Mental illness is typically intermittent. Legion had met Jesus, for he recognized Him afar off, and knew that He was God's Son (Mk. 5:6); indeed, one assumes the man probably had some faith for the miracle to be performed (Mt. 13:58). He comes to meet Jesus "from out of the city" (Lk. 8:27) and yet Mt. 8:28 speaks of him living in the tombs outside the city. He pleads with the Lord not to torment him (Mk. 5:7)- full of memories of how the local folk had tied him up and beaten him to try to exorcise the demons. Probably Legion's greatest fear was that he would relapse into madness again; that the cure which he believed Jesus could offer him might not be permanent. And so the Lord agreed to the man's request that the demons he perceived as within him should be permanently cast out; and the sight of the herd of pigs running over the cliff to permanent death below, with the awful sound this would've made, would have remained an abiding memory for the man. Note how the 'demon possessed' man in Mk. 1:23 sits in the synagogue and then suddenly screams out (Mk. 1:23)- showing he was likewise afflicted by intermittent fits.

The madness may have been an infection in the brain of the trichina parasite, commonly found infecting the muscles of pigs - and transmissible to humans in undercooked pork.  The infected man would likely have been forced by poverty to eat this kind of food, and likely associated his "problem" with it because of the prohibition of pork under the Mosaic Law.  This approach is confirmed by medical observations such as the following:

“Neurocysticercosis is the most common parasitic disease in the world which affects the central nervous system… A 25 year old, illiterate married Hindu male… presented with a three month history of gradual change in behavior in the form of irrelevant talk … On mental status examination, he was well oriented to time, place and person, cooperative, communicative and responded well to questions asked… Delusions of persecution and reference were present… he accepted the illness but attributed the cause to evil spirits… histopathology report of subcutaneous nodule confirmed the diagnosis of cysticercosis cellulosae…. Significant improvement in psychiatric symptoms was also observed following albendazole (an anti-parasitic drug) therapy. Delusions of persecution and delusions of reference were not found on mental status examination. Insight also improved; instead of attributing the illness to evil spirits, the patient accepted having a physical illness.” (“Neurocysticercosis Presenting as Schizophrenia: A Case Report”, B. Bhatia, S. Mishra, A.S. Srivastava, Indian Journal of Psychiatry 1994, Vol. 36(4), pp. 187-189).

The desire to see the disease return to the herds of swine probably stemmed from a need to know that his affliction had been cured in a rather permanent sort of way. And the Lord went along with this. The idea of transference of disease from one to another was a common Semitic perception, and it’s an idea used by God. And thus God went along with the peoples' idea of disease transference, and the result is recorded in terms of demons [which was how they understood illness] going from one person to another. Likewise the leprosy of Naaman clave to Gehazi (2 Kings 5:27). God threatened to make the diseases of the inhabitants of Canaan and Egypt to cleave to Israel if they were disobedient (Dt. 28:21,60). Here too, as with Legion, there is Divine accommodation to the ideas of disease transference which people had at the time.

And the unclean spirits came out, and entered the pigs; and the herd, numbering about two thousand, rushed down the hill into the sea and were drowned in the sea- Death in the sea was seen as condemnation; the same figure is used of Babylon's final condemnation. The Legion incident "proves too much" if we are to insist on reading it on a strictly literal level. Do demons drown? Presumably, no. And yet the story as it stands requires us to believe that demons drown- if we are talking about literal 'demons' here. Clearly, Legion was mentally ill. We therefore have to face the hard question: Was that mental illness caused by demons, or, as I am suggesting, is the language of demon possession merely being used to describe mental illness? If indeed mental illness is caused by demons, the observations of T.S. Huxley are about right: "The belief in demons and demoniacal possession is a mere survival of a once universal superstition, its persistence pretty much in the inverse ratio of the general instruction, intelligence, and sound judgment of the population among whom it prevails. Demonology gave rise through the special influence of Christian ecclesiastics, to the most horrible persecutions and judicial murders of thousands upon thousands of innocent men, women, and children... If the story is true, the medieval theory of the invisible world may be and probably is, quite correct; and the witchfinders, from Sprenger to Hopkins and Mather, are much-maligned men… For the question of the existence of demons and of possession by them, though it lies strictly within the province of science, is also of the deepest moral and religious significance. If physical and mental disorders are caused by demons, Gregory of Tours and his contemporaries rightly considered that relics and exorcists were more useful than doctors; the gravest questions arise as to the legal and moral responsibilities of persons inspired by demoniacal impulses; and our whole conception of the universe and of our relations to it becomes totally different from what it would be on the contrary hypothesis” (T. S. Huxley, Science and Christian Tradition (New York: Appleton, 1899) p. 225).

 5:14 And they that fed them fled and told it in the city and in the country. And they came to see what it was that had happened- "What had happened" was the cure of Legion; they came to investigate, and saw the cured man (:15). As Jews they were not supposed to be keeping pigs; they realized they could say little against the Lord's action, for what they had been doing was illegal. It would have taken some time for the news to spread to "the city and in the country"; so we can assume the Lord sat with the cured Legion for some time, even days, teaching him further.

5:15 And they came to Jesus and saw him who had been possessed with demons, that previously had the legion, sitting, clothed and in his right mind- and they were afraid- When Legion was cured of his 'demons', we read of him as now "clothed and in his right mind". His 'demon possession' therefore referred to a sick state of mind; and the 'casting out' of those demons to the healing of his mental state. People thought that Jesus was mad and said this must be because He had a demon- “He has a demon, and is mad” (Jn. 10:20; 7:19-20; 8:52). They therefore believed that demons caused madness.

The "fear" of the people was perhaps related to their bad conscience about keeping pigs. The parable of the prodigal son associated Jewish pig keepers with those who needed to repent, and for whom the Father was eagerly waiting to welcome back home. Those people were in the same position as Legion; being now aware of the Lord's Divine power, but fearing condemnation. They actually needed the same basic healing which the Lord had given Legion in curing him of his complex about condemnation. Indeed the case of Legion speaks to so many believers today, who believe in and even  worship the Lord as Son of God, but who are obsessed with a fear of final condemnation.

5:16 And they that saw it described to them what had happened to him that was previously possessed with demons, and about what had happened to the pigs- Apart from the loss of their pigs, what had happened was good news. Fear of condemnation, to the point of paranoia, really could be cured by the Lord Jesus; the demons of doubt and fear really could be cast out, and the miracle of the destruction of the pigs was dramatic visual evidence of this. But when faced with this, the people feared and didn't want that good news.

5:17 And they began to beg him to depart from their borders- "Begged" is the very same word used about the demons / mentally ill men 'beseeching' Jesus in Mt. 8:31. As the mentally ill men besought Jesus to send away the demons, so the city dwellers besought Jesus to also 'go away'. As the keepers of the pigs "went their way" (Mt. 8:33), so the same word is used of the demons 'going away' into the pigs (Mt. 8:31,32). As the city dwellers 'came out' to meet Jesus, so the mentally ill men 'came out' of the tombs to meet Jesus (Mt. 8:28) and the demons 'came out' of them (Mt. 8:32). Perhaps the idea is that those unbelievers were spiritually in the same position as the despised mentally ill men whom they had excluded from their society. And the story ends with the mentally ill saved, and the townspeople asking Jesus to depart from them, which will be the exact position of the rejected at the last day (Mt. 25:41; Lk. 13:27). It is they who are condemned, by their own wish; the mentally ill men asked for the pigs to bear their condemnation, which they felt worthy of- and thus were saved. 

Consider how the believers were assembled praying for Peter's release, and then when he turns up on the doorstep, they tell the servant girl that she's mad to think Peter was there. Or how the Lord Jesus did such wonderful miracles- and people asked him to go away. We too have this element within us. We would rather salvation and forgiveness were 'harder' to attain. The popularity of Catholic and Orthodox rituals is proof enough of this. It always touches me to read in the Gospels how the Lord Jesus cured wide eyed spastic children, crippled, wheezing young women, and sent them (and their loved ones) away with a joy and sparkle this world has never known. But the people asked Him to go away, and eventually did Him to death. A voice came from Heaven, validating Him as the Son of God; those who heard it involuntarily fell to the ground. But the people didn't really believe, and plotted to kill him (Jn. 12:37). They turned round and bayed for His blood, and nailed Him to death. He cured poor Legion; and the people told the Lord to go away.  

5:18 And as he was entering into the boat, he that had been possessed with demons pleaded with him that he might go with him- Motivations for involvement in evangelistic work vary. This man was separated from his family and society, for he had been violent and abusive to them. It would have been far more convenient for him to just leave them and join the peripatetic ministry of the Lord Jesus. But the Lord realized that the healing of relationships was a fundamental outcome of acceptance of the Gospel; and He wished this process to at least be given a chance in this case. And so He established a principle which many have struggled to accept: ministry to family and local society is even more important than joining in mobile missionary work.

5:19 But Jesus did not permit him. Instead he said to him: Go to your home, to your family, and tell them how great things the Lord has done for you and how he had mercy on you- See on :18 and :20. We must "do" the Lord's will (Mt. 7:21), but the Lord also 'does' for us by His grace ("mercy"); our 'doing' is in response to His 'doing' for us. The same word is used in Jn. 4:1 (also Acts 15:17) of how the Lord 'did' or "made" disciples. That was the end point in view; the "great things" done were not just the cure, but the making of a disciple.

5:20 And he went his way and began to publish in Decapolis the great things Jesus had done for him, and all men marvelled- This preaching in Decapolis rather than to his family could be read as disobedience. The Gospels are transcripts of the twelve disciples’ own preaching and obedience to the Lord’s commission for them to go into all the world and tell the news of what they had seen and heard of Him. Yet there is a theme in the Gospels, consciously included by the writers and speakers, of men being disobedient to the preaching commission which the Lord gave them. When some were told to say nothing, they went and told many others (Mk. 7:36). And as Acts makes clear, the disciples themselves were disobedient, initially, to the commission to go tell the Gentiles the good news of their salvation. Legion’s disobedience is especially instructive for us:

 

The record of the commission given him and his obedience to it are clearly intended to be compared. The man went to strange cities, indeed he organized a whole preaching tour of ten cities- rather than going home and telling his immediate friends / family. And how true this is of us. It’s so much easier to embark upon a campaign to strangers, to do ‘mission work’, to ‘publish’ the Gospel loudly, rather than tell and show it to our immediate personal contacts. And we notice too how he omits to tell others of the Lord’s merciful grace to him personally. Rather does he speak only of the material, the literality of the healing. And he tells others what Jesus had done for him, rather than take the Lord Jesus’ invitation to perceive the bigger picture in all this- that this was the hand of God. One wonders whether the disciples were commenting upon their own sense of inadequacy in their initial personal witness. The Lord told the cured demoniac to go back to his friends (Mk. 5:19) and family (Lk. 8:39) and witness to them. Clearly enough, the man didn’t have any friends- for he had a history of violence and lived alone, many having tried unsuccessfully to bind him due to the grievous harm he must have inflicted upon many. Yet the man went out and preached to the whole area (Mk. 5:20). Was this just rank disobedience to what His Saviour Lord had just told him? Perhaps, due to unrestrained enthusiasm. But more likely is that the man now considered the whole world around him to be his family and friends, and therefore he witnessed to them. His care for others in desiring to witness to them flowed quite naturally from his experience of conversion at the Lord’s hands.

5:21 And when Jesus had crossed over again by boat to the other side, a great crowd was gathered to him; and he was by the sea- Just as Legion "immediately" met the Lord on His arrival on the shore (:2), so on going back to "the other side", there was a great crowd waiting for the Lord "by the sea", on the shore. Jairus must have had to push himself to the front of that crowd (:22). According to the parallel in Mt. 9:18, the Lord began teaching the crowd immediately. Again we see that teaching was the primary focus of His ministry, for surely the crowds were expecting healings. The impression is given in Matthew that the ruler was begging the Lord for the healing of his daughter, but instead the Lord delayed responding in order to complete the teaching He was giving about the vital need for total transformation if we have received the new wine. He felt His message was that important. We also notice something which we see several times in the Gospel records- the Lord appears to not respond to human need, to even be deaf to it. For a while. The reason for that, both then and now, was surely to pique the intensity and urgency of the requests.

5:22 And there came one of the rulers of the synagogue, Jairus by name-

Matthew omits his name- perhaps because his Gospel first circulated in areas local to Jairus where the mention of his name could've led to persecution? The Orthodox Jewish opposition claimed that none of the rulers [i.e. rulers of the synagogues] had believed on Jesus (Jn. 7:48), and yet Jn. 12:42 notes that "Among the chief rulers also many believed on Him; but because of the Pharisees they did not confess Him, lest they should be cast out of the synagogue". Jairus clearly was one such ruler, and yet he didn't confess Jesus for fear of consequence and disfellowship. Remember that Jairus had come to Jesus whilst He had been teaching John's disciples the need to totally accept His new wine and not compromise with Judaism and the Pharisees who were standing with them. But whilst He was teaching that, Jairus had been clamouring for Jesus to come and heal his daughter (see on :21). He rather missed the essential spiritual point because he was distracted by his human need. The Lord's sermon on the mount taught that we are a city set on a hill which cannot be hid, and that if we seek to hide our light under a bucket, then we will lose the light altogether. The omission of Jairus' name in Matthew leads me to fear that perhaps Jairus drifted away from faith, although his great faith at this particular moment in time is recorded positively.

And seeing him, he fell at his feet- This kneeling (Mt.) was in worship; just as Legion had done on the sea shore the other side of the lake. The same formula is used in Mt. 8:2- the leper worshipped Jesus in that he expressed faith in His power to cleanse (also in Mt. 15:25). The Greek proskuneo is not used (as some Trinitarians wrongly claim) exclusively of worship of God. It is used in the LXX, classical Greek and in the later New Testament for worship of men- e.g. Cornelius worshipped Peter (Acts 10:25), men will worship faithful Christians (Rev. 3:9), the beast is worshipped (Rev. 13:4). 

5:23 And implored him earnestly, saying: My little daughter is at the point of death- Mt. 9:18 "My daughter is even now dead". The Greek could carry the idea of 'for now, she is dead' (see the usage in Mt. 3:15; Jn. 13:7; 16:12,31; 1 Cor. 13:12 etc.); in this case, the man believed her death state was only temporary, until the resurrection he believed Jesus would achieve.

I beg you to come and lay your hands on her, that she may be made whole and live- The man "came" to Jesus, and now Jesus 'comes' to the man; the same Greek word is used twice. The impression is given of a mutuality between the Lord and those who come to Him in faith.

 5:24 And Jesus went with him; and a great crowd followed him, and they pressed upon him- This verse zooms in close on the body language and physical movement of the characters, as if the author was the cameraman on the scene. Truly we have eye witness accounts in places like this. The image of the Lord Jesus following a man [stressed in Matthew] is unusual, as readers are accustomed to the disciples following the Lord, not Him following men. The point perhaps is that He is responsive to human need and prayer in a sense controls Him, according to His will of course. The picture is of the man racing ahead, so eager to get home. This sets the scene for the interruption to the journey, and serves to heighten the sense we get of his frustration with the woman who is taking up the Lord's time, when for him, every second counted so crucially.

 5:25 And a woman, who for twelve years had an issue of blood- Exactly how old the child was. Clearly the hand of providence had been at work in both these lives according to some defined sense of timing.

5:26 And had suffered many things of many physicians, and had spent all that she had and was nothing bettered but rather grew worse- This is another similarity with Legion, who had suffered from many failed attempts to cure his conditions. Getting 'worse and worse' is the picture of all people outside of Christ, and specifically of the spiritual state of Israel at the time (Mt. 9:16; 12:45; 2 Tim. 3:13; 2 Pet. 2:20). The Mosaic system of Judaism could not "better" humanity (s.w. Jn. 6:63; Rom. 2:25; Gal. 5:2; Heb. 4:2; 13:9). Perhaos the implication is that the woman represented Israel, who like Asa had trusted in physicians rather than the Lord (2 Chron. 16:12). Job's 'friends' had many Judaist characteristics and reasoned in the same way as orthodox Judaism; and they were "physicians of no value" (Job 13:4). The woman was bankrupt and desperate. This was how all were under the Law; the only answer was to throw themselves upon the Lord Jesus.

5:27 Having heard the things about Jesus, came from the crowd behind him- The scene is being developed from :24, where the Lord and the disciples are following the rushing man; and now we 'see' the woman coming behind Jesus, as if she in this sense was also one of the disciples who followed behind Him.

And touched his garment- Mt. "the hem". Her example inspired the many others who later sought to do this in Mt. 14:36. It has been suggested that the hem of the garment referred to the blue band which was to be worn by Jews to remind them of their commitment to obedience to God. In this case she would have been seeking to associate herself with the righteousness of Christ and be healed / saved [the same Greek word is used] thereby. In essence, this is what faith and baptism into Christ is all about. But the simpler reading is that she thought that if she associated herself even with the Lord's periphery, she would thereby be saved / healed. Given Jewish phobia about blood and the fact that any touching her would have been ritually unclean, she surely disguised her condition. And yet she didn't consider that her uncleanness could make the Lord unclean. Her view of His righteousness was correct- it can be shared with us, but our uncleanness cannot negate His purity. She was driven to this insight by her desperation, just as Job's desperation led him to understand doctrinal truths that were beyond his time and place.

The Lord allowed this interruption when the man was so earnest that the Lord would haste to his home. The Lord, and the hand of providence, wanted to teach the man that how long a person has been dead is no barrier to resurrection; his faith needed to be developed further. And it fits in with the apparent silence of the Lord, always to develop the intensity of our desire for Him and our focus upon Him. Jesus focused on the essential whilst still being human enough to be involved in the irrelevancies which cloud the lives of all other men. Just glancing through a few random chapters from the Gospels reveals this tremendous sense of focus which He had, and His refusal to be distracted by self-justification. In all of the following examples I suspect we would have become caught up with justifying ourselves and answering the distractions to the point that our initial aim was paralyzed. 

 

5:28 For she said: If I touch but his garments- Mt. 'she said within herself'. She had the same wrong notion as many Orthodox and Catholic believers have today- that some physical item can give healing. The Lord corrected her by telling her that it was her faith- not the touch of His garment- that had made her whole (Mt. 9:21,22). As so often, He had focused on what was positive in her, rather than the negative. We know that usually the Lord looked for faith in people before healing them. Yet after this incident there are examples of where those who merely sought to touch His garment were healed (Mk. 6:56; Lk. 6:19). They were probably hopeful that they would have a similar experience to the woman. One could argue they were mere opportunists, as were their relatives who got them near enough to Jesus’ clothes. And probably there was a large element of this in them. But the Lord saw through all this to what faith there was, and responded to it. It is perhaps not accidental that Mark records the link between faith and Jesus’ decision to heal in the same chapter (Mk. 6:5). When we fear there is interest in our message only for what material benefit there may be for the hearers, we need to remember this. To identify wrong motives doesn’t mean that we turn away; we must look deeper, and hope more strongly.

I shall be made whole- The Greek sozo is that usually used for 'saved'. She had a wider desire for not only healing (for which other Greek words could have been used) but for salvation on a wider level.

5:29 And immediately the fountain of her blood was dried up, and she felt in her body that she was healed of her illness- The immediacy of the Lord's cure contrasted sharply with all human attempts at curing an internal disease. "Healed of her illness" is literally "healed of her flogging". For that is how the Greek translated "illness" here is usually translated. We sense an allusion to the prophecy that by the Lord's floggings / stripes we are healed (Is. 53:5; 1 Pet. 2:24). The woman becomes thereby typical of us all. Our stripes / floggings become His; and thereby, through the representational nature of His life and sacrifice, we are healed.

 5:30 And immediately Jesus, perceiving in himself that the power proceeding from him had gone forth, turned towards the crowd and said: Who touched my garments?- This gives an insight into the huge outflow of energy from the Lord when He healed people. As noted on :29, His healing of people was on account of His total identification with them; and each healing was a living out in essence of the cross even during His life. The Lord of course knew the woman had touched Him; but He didn't want her to just have a secret faith. He wanted her to 'come out'; and He engineers circumstance in our lives likewise, so that we have to become a city that is set on a hill.

5:31- see on Mk. 14:70.

And his disciples said to him: You saw the crowd pressing upon you and you ask, Who touched me?- The gospels are transcripts of how the disciples spoke the gospel message. And yet they are shot through with thee disciples' recognition of their own weakness, and thereby their message was the more appealing and convicting to their hearers. Here, they paint themselves as foolish and inappropriate; they record their mocking of the Lord in the same section in which they record the scorning of the Lord by unbelievers in :40.

 5:32 And he looked around to see who had done this thing- Mt. 9:22 "But Jesus turning and seeing her...". Again the emphasis is upon recording the physical movement of the persons involved in the scene, so that we can visually reconstruct it. The Gospel records, Luke especially, often record how the Lord turned and spoke to His followers- as if He was in the habit of walking ahead of them, with them following (Lk. 7:9,44,55; 10:23; 14:25; 23:28; Mt. 9:22; Jn. 1:38). Peter thought that following the Lord was not so hard, because he was literally following Jesus around first century Israel, and identifying himself with His cause. But he simply failed to make the connection between following and cross carrying. And we too can agree to follow the Lord without realizing that it means laying down our lives.  

 5:33 But the woman, fearing and trembling, knowing what had been done to her, came and fell down before him and told him all the truth- We see another connection with Legion, who feared condemnation and yet also fell before the Lord in worship. The Lord knew her history; but "the truth" to be told forth is a personal confession of our hopeless spiritual history, and the Lord's saving by grace.

 5:34 And he said to her: Daughter- Perhaps the Lord was using the term in the Hebraic sense of 'descendant', seeing her as a daughter of Abraham because of her faith in Him.

Your faith has made you whole- The faith of the sick woman is commended by the Lord (Mk. 5:34; Mt. 9:20)- when it was due to her understanding of the significance of the hem of the Lord's robe that she had touched Him. She had perceived the connection with the High Priest's hem; perhaps too she had added Job's comment about our touching but the hem of God's garment into the equation. And certainly she perceived that the sun of righteousness of Mal. 4 had healing in his hems / wings of his garment.

The Centurion’s servant was healed for the sake of his faith; Jairus’ daughter was healed because of his faith (Mk. 5:36). Hence the Lord told them to believe and stop wavering, so that she would be made whole, or “saved” (Lk. 8:50). This comes straight after the Lord’s commendation of the woman with “an issue of blood” whose faith hath made her whole [or, saved]. It’s as if the two healings are similar in their result- being made whole, or saved- and both required faith. But the woman’s own personal faith which led to her healing is paralleled with the faith of the family of the girl who was resurrected.

Go in peace and be free of your illness- The woman was fearful of condemnation, and so the Lord wished her peace, with God. Her full healing was only now pronounced, although she had felt it already within herself. The Lord required public confession from her; and so He does today.

5:35 While he was still speaking, some came from the ruler of the synagogue's house, saying: Your daughter is dead. Why do you trouble the Teacher any further?- Luke adds: “There comes one from the ruler of the synagogue’s house, saying to him, Your daughter is dead, trouble not the Master” (Lk. 8:49). We naturally ask: who was this “one” along with the "some" mentioned by Mark who came with this message? In the Gospels, it is often the disciples who term Jesus “the Master”, which is how Matthew records the form of address. And it is the disciples who ever show themselves concerned at others 'troubling the master'; every time they try to turn people away from Him on this basis [the children, their mothers, the Phoenician woman etc.], He makes a point of accepting and working with those whom they sought to bar from Him. The implication is that it was they who thought that Jesus wouldn’t have the power to raise the dead, perhaps connecting with their own studied lack of faith in His resurrection later.

5:36 But Jesus, not heeding the word spoken, said to the ruler of the synagogue: Fear not, only believe- The implication could be that the Lord, just like us, was momentarily tempted to heed that bad news and falter in faith. But as so often, His words to Jairus were spoken effectively to Himself. This shows the power of fear- it is fear which stops faith, fear is the opposite of faith. If we know the love that casts out fear, then a whole new style of relationships becomes possible. In so many relationships there is a balance of power which is more realistically a balance of fear- a fear of losing, of being made to look small, a fighting back with self-affirmation against the fear of being subsumed by the other. Be it parents and kids, teachers and students, pastor and flock, so often both sides fear the other. Yet if we are truly affirmed in Christ, no longer seeking victory because we have found victory in Him, His victories become ours… then our whole positioning in relationships becomes so different. For example, our fear of rejection becomes less significant if we believe firmly in our acceptance in the eyes of the Lord, the only one whose judgment has ultimate value. If we can say with Paul that for us the judgment of others has very little value, because we only have one judge… then we will no longer worrying about acting in such a way as to impress others. No longer will it be so important to not express our inner thoughts about people or situations for fear of not using the constant ‘nicespeak’ which results in judgment from others unless it’s used. There will be a congruence between what we feel and think within us, and what we actually show. And thus we will avoid the dysfunction which is so apparent in so many, as they forever struggle to control their outward expressions, hiding their real self, with the real self and the external self struggling against each other in a painful dis-ease.

 5:37- see on Mt. 17:1.

And he permitted no one to follow him- We see here the Lord's amazing force of personality when He wished to use it, just as He walked through the crowd in Nazareth who wished to throw Him off the cliff. He sent away the inquisitive crowd, just as He sent away the crowd after the miarculous feeding. He used the same power in commanding the mourners to leave the home (:40; Mt. "Leave!").

Save Peter, James and John the brother of James- These were clearly the inner three whom He especially sought to educate further.

5:38 And they came to the house of the ruler of the synagogue- Again we have the impression of the camerman following Him, shooting from behind. Mt. 9:23 "When Jesus came into... He saw...He said". This is the process of usual human experience, perception and response to perception. It's yet another evidence of the Lord's humanity. The Greek phrase for "came into" is used so often in the Synoptics. Just in Matthew 9, Jesus came into His own city (9:1), came into the ruler's house (9:23) and came into a house (9:28). Consider the other usages of the phrase in Matthew alone: He came into Israel (Mt. 2:21), came into Nazareth (2:23), came into Capernaum (4:13), came into Peter's house (8:14), came into the land of the Gergesenes (8:28); came into a synagogue (12:9), came into a house (13:36), came into His own region (13:54), came into the land of Gennesaret (14:34), came into Magdala (15:39), came into Caesarea (16:13, came into Capernaum (17:24), came into the borders of Judea (19:1), came into Bethphage (21:1), came into the temple (21:23), came into Gethsemane (26:36), came into the place called Golgotha (27:33). Mark and Luke record even other cases of His 'coming into' various towns, areas and situations. It is a huge emphasis. John's Gospel uses the term, but frequently in the more abstract sense of the Lord Jesus 'coming into' the (Jewish) world. The prologue uses the Greek phrase three times alone in describing how Jesus 'came into' the world and into "His own" (Jn. 1:7,9,11). He was the light and prophet that "came into the world" (Jn. 3:19; 6:14). John's references to the Lord Jesus coming "into the world" (Jn. 12:46; 16:28; 18:37) are therefore not to be read as implying that He literally came down out of Heaven into the world; but rather they are John's more abstract equivalent of the Synoptics' direct and repeated statements that the Lord came into the Jewish world of His day, into human situations. His sending of us out "into" the world is therefore inviting us to go forth and enter into our world and its various situations just as He did. We are to replicate His ministry in our world and situations.

And he saw a tumult, and many weeping and wailing greatly- Mt. 9:23 "The flute-players and the crowd making a tumult". if the flute players had already been called, the implication is that the girl had been dead for some time. This places a question mark over the ruler's claim that his daughter had only just died (Mt. 9:18 Gk.). All through these accounts we see the Lord's grace. The man exaggerated, just as the woman thought that merely touching Christ's clothes was all that was needed for a miracle- and yet the Lord graciously worked with all these people and situations to bless them. On the other hand, embalming would've been done quickly, and perhaps the intensity of the tumult and weeping was because she had indeed just died, and the minstrels would have only just arrived. The Lord in this case would've arrived at the very peak of human distress and need. This is why He was 'delayed' on the way, in order for that peak of need to be reached. Mk. 5:38,39 emphasizes the extraordinary agitation.

5:39- see on Acts 21:13.

And when he had entered, he said to them: Why make you a tumult and weep? The child is not dead but sleeps- The Lord dismissed the noise of the flute players as a mere "tumult". The Angel repeated the same words to the women at the Lord's grave, as did the Lord to Mary: "Why do you weep?" (Jn. 20:13,15). Surely those women were close to the Lord at this time. The Lord used the same word choice before and after His resurrection, showing the continuity of personality between how we are now in the flesh, and how we shall eternally be. Salvation is personal, and how we are now is of critical importance eternally.

 5:40 And they laughed him to scorn- This is recorded in all three of the Synoptics. It made a deep impression upon them all. The Greek could suggest (although not necessarily) that there was a process of derision here which left the Lord looking somehow scorned ("to scorn"). Perhaps He blushed, or looked at the ground- for He was after all human. Clearly these people were just the hired mourners and flute players. There was an element of anger in their derision because clearly money and payment were at issue if they were to just be sent away.

Luke records how Peter, James, John and the parents of the dead girl entered the house where she was alone; and then "they" laughed Jesus to scorn when He proclaimed she was merely asleep (Lk. 8:51,53). It's psychologically unlikely that the distraught, desperately hopeful parents would've ridiculed Jesus like this at that time. The reference is surely to the three disciples doing this. This is a profound recognition of the disciples' weakness- there, alone with Jesus and the distraught parents, they mocked Jesus' ability to resurrect the girl. And they have the profound humility to tell the world about that in their record of the Gospel.

But he, having put them outside, took the father of the child and her mother and those that were with him, and went to where the child was- The Lord was consciously seeking to reduce the element of hysteria at the miracle He knew He was going to do. Pentecostals need to note this. He wanted as few as possible to see the dead body actually revive. There was perhaps a similar logic in the way His own resurrection was not done publically and His risen body was only seen by a relatively few rather than being displayed publically. This was not His way, nor the Father's way, even during His ministry.

 5:41 And taking the child by the hand, he said to her: Talitha cumi, which means, little girl, I say to you, rise!- The whole scene of putting mourners out of the house, taking her by the hand and raising her up was followed exactly by Peter in raising Tabitha. The Lord's style, language and even body language became the pattern for those who had been with Him, and it must be the same for us. The Gospels are written in such a way, that through the power of inspiration we can as it were be there with the disciples likewise watching Jesus and learning of His Spirit.

"Rise" here isn't from the 'anastasis' group of words which are used about the 'rising up' of dead people in resurrection. It's egeiro, which more literally means 'to get up'. 'Honey, it's time to get up now' was what the Lord was saying- not 'I command you to resurrect'. He had raised her, given her life, and He knew that. In fact, He'd done it a while beforehand. For He told the mourners: "The girl isn't dead, she's only sleeping" (:39). He raised her even before going into the room- and He knew that. And so when He finally saw her, He took her hand and gently asked her to get up out of bed. His gentleness, His faith, His calmness, His certainty that the Father heard Him- are all wondrous.

5:42 And immediately the girl got up and began walking (for she was twelve years of age), and they were immediately overcome with amazement- We note the connection with the woman who had been sick for twelve years. God was at work in parallel in those lives over that period. Their being overcome with amazement reads rather negatively; amazement rather than faith and thanksgiving. The same word is used of the women's amazement at the news of the Lord's resurrection, having again been told not to weep (Mk. 16:8).

 5:43 And he strictly ordered them that no one should know about this- The Lord Jesus, in His ministry, had forbidden the extroverts from publicly preaching about Him, as they naturally wanted to (e.g. Mk. 8:26). To keep silent was an act of the will for them, something against the grain. It is hard to find any other explanation for why He told Jairus not to tell anyone that He had raised his daughter (Lk. 8:56)- for it would have been obvious, surely. For they knew she had died (8:53). By contrast, those who would naturally have preferred to stay quiet were told to go and preach (e.g. Mk. 5:19). Perhaps Paul was in this category. The parallel between the Lord’s words and works is brought out in Lk. 9:43,44: “They wondered at all things which Jesus did…He said…let these sayings sink down into your ears”. There are no distinct ‘sayings’ of Jesus in this context; He wanted them to see that His works were His words. There was perfect congruence between what He said and what He did. Perhaps this was why He told the parents of the girl whom He resurrected to tell nobody what was done, even though it was so obvious; He wanted His self-evident works to speak for themselves, without the need for human words. For His works were essentially His message.

And told them to give her something to eat- We see here a window into His sensitivity and thoughtfulness. Despite the inevitable hysteria of joy experienced by the parents, He realized she was hungry, not having eaten for a long time.