Mark 5:26

THE DEMONIZED GADERENE

Mat 8:28-34; Mat 9:1; Mar 5:1-21; and Mar 5:26-40. We visited this country of the Gadarenes, which comes down to the northeast coast of this sea; Gergesa, their capital, situated on a beautiful, rich plain, enjoying a handsome view of this beautiful water, as well as the majestic mountains and fertile valleys of the surrounding countries. Matthew says they came to Gergesa, Mark and Luke say they came to the country of Gadara. This is in perfect harmony, as Gergesa was the city and Gadara the country. You must remember that when our Savior bade the temple adieu, the day before He was arrested, He said, “Behold, your house is left unto you desolate.” Within forty years from the utterance the Roman armies signally verified it. Hence the desolation has been on that country ever since. However, Gadara was a Gentile country; but it was the subject of a terrible Divine retribution, as we will see in this narrative, for rejecting the ministry of Jesus. “And they came to the other side of the sea, into the country of the Gadarenes, and a man with an unclean spirit, from the tombs, met Him immediately having come out of the ship, who had his habitation among the tombs; and no one was able to bind him with chains, because frequently he had been bound with fetters and chains, and the chains had been slipped off by him and the fetters torn to pieces, and no one was able to subdue him.” Matthew says there were two demoniacs, exceedingly fierce, so no one could pass that way. Mark and Luke speak of but one. Luke says that he wore no clothing. It is a notable fact that raging maniacs have an aversion to wearing clothing, and if possible will tear it off. Mark: “And he was all the time, night and day, among the tombs and in the mountains; was crying, and cutting himself with stones. Seeing Jesus a great way off, he ran and fell down before Him, and crying, with a great voice, said, What is there to me and to Thee, O Jesus, the Son of the Most High God? I adjure Thee, in the name of God, that you torment me not; for He said to him, Unclean spirit, come out from the man.” Luke says: “For a long time he had possessed him, and he was kept bound with fetters and chains; and smashing his fetters, he was driven by the demon into the wilderness. And Jesus asked him, saying, What is thy name? and he said, Legion, because many demons had entered into him. And he continued to exhort Him that He may not command them to depart into the abyss;” i.e., the bottomless pit.

God never created the devil, a sinner, nor a snake. The snake originated from the transformation of the Nahash, an intelligent biped, one of the intermediate links between man and the lower animals, and unfortunately used by Satan in the abduction of humanity. Satan is a fallen archangel:

“How thou art fallen, O Lucifer, the morning star!” (Isa 14:12.)

The term “devil” is the ordinary cognomen of Satan, demon being the regular epithet applied to those innumerable evil spirits, swarming up out of the bottomless pit and thronging the atmosphere, their highest aspiration being a habitation in some human spirit, as in the case of this Gadarene, into whom a whole legion — i.e., ten thousand — had crowded together. Nothing is so terrible to these demons as the gloomy dungeons of the bottomless pit. Consequently they importuned Jesus not to send them thither. Originally the intelligences inhabiting the innumerable worlds, constituting the celestial empire, were presumptively all on probation. In the fatal revolt of Lucifer, an immense host, perhaps one-third (Revelation 12), followed the apostate archangel. As this apostasy, in all probability, infected many celestial worlds, we find innumerable hosts of fallen demons roaming round this world, hunting a habitation in some human heart. (Ephesians 6) We have no right to conclude that this Gadarene is the only legionaire in all the earth. It is pertinent to remember how all the demons, with whom Jesus comes in contact, recognize Him. We have no record at what epoch in bygone eternity the angels were created; evidently long before Divinity spoke this world into existence. As Jesus is co-eternal with God Himself, identical with the uncreated Jehovah, the recognition of these demons is doubtless a vivid reminiscence of the bright celestial ages which glided away before the dark period of rebellion and ruin supervened. It is here specified that the legionaire tore his clothing from his person, smashing all the fetters and escaping from all the chains with which they could bind him. The muscular power of these Oriental red men is vastly superior to that of Europeans and Americans. In all probability, he was a natural giant, as were most of the aborigines in that country in the days of Joshua; for you must remember he was not a Hebrew, but a Gentile. It is generally believed that physical strength is located in the muscles. This is a mistake. The muscles are the mere instruments used by the nerves, which are the custodians of physical power. A crowbar is a most potent instrument in the hands of a stalwart man; but left alone, utterly impotent.

I thought the muscles were the custodians of physical strength till, in 1884, a stroke of partial paralysis demonstrated the utter impotency of the muscles without nervous stimuli. From a human standpoint, the exegesis of Samson’s paradoxical strength was the induement of the Holy Ghost, who operated through his nerves, thus imparting miraculous physical dynamics. Now remember, this Gadarene had ten thousand demons, ready in a moment to electrify his nerves, thus imparting an incredible muscular power. I have seen epileptics whom it took a half-dozen strong men to manage. You have all witnessed the extraordinary feats of strength and activity performed by maniacs, lunatics, and epileptics. This man was doubtless a combination of them all, so many demons, ready at any moment to turn loose the very galvanic batteries of the pandemonium on their poor victim, thus making them instrumental in the most paradoxical feats of agility and power. Why did he dwell among the tombs? Satan is king of death and hell. He sways his leaden scepter over every graveyard, holding fast every human body in the dark sepulcher, as their souls in the regions of woe. Hence these demons found congeniality among the tombs.

Mar 5:11. “And there was at the mountain a great herd of swine, feeding. And all the demons entreated him saying, Send us into the swine, that we may go into them. And Jesus immediately permitted them. And the unclean spirits, having come out, went into the swine, and the herd rushed down a steep place into the sea, and there were about two thousand, and they perished in the sea.” These heathen Gentiles set great store on the hog, a notoriously unclean animal, which God’s people were forbidden to raise, heavy interdictions being laid on the eating of the same. When I visited that country last November, our dragoman showed us the mountain traditionally recognized as the pasture of the swine, and the cliff down which the whole herd stampeded into the sea; thus transmitting to us a most monitory lesson against demoniacal possession, which is so common in all ages, the present day being no exception to the rule. Here we see these hogs unhesitatingly choosing suicide rather than demoniacal possession. This verdict of the swine should put millions to the blush this day, who go over the earth, full of demons, and claiming a place among the bon tons of society. “And those herding them fled, and proclaimed in the city and in the country; and they came out to see what is that which has been done. And they come to Jesus, and see the demonized man sitting down, clothed, and in his right mind, him who was called Legion; and they were afraid. And those seeing, explained to them how it occurred to the demonized man, and concerning the swine. And they began to entreat Him to depart from their coasts.” Luk 8:36 : “And those seeing, explained to them how the demonized man was saved; and the whole multitude of the surrounding country of the Gadarenes entreated Him to depart from them, because they were possessed with great fear.” Here we have the united testimony of Matthew, Mark, and Luke to the unanimous and importunate verdict of all the Gadarenes, requesting Jesus to leave their country. That this awful and hopeless demoniac had been wonderfully saved, all admitted. But there was another phase to the matter — they had lost their swine. Now a pertinent question looks them all in the face. Will they have Jesus or bacon? If they keep Jesus, they can have all of the sick healed, all the devils cast out, all the people saved, soul and body, and turn their country into a little heaven, so they can live on angels’ food instead of “hog and hominy.” The popular verdict comes quickly, and without a dissenting voice: they all decide to let Jesus go, and save their bacon to eat and sell for the money.

DOOM OF GADARA

“And embarking into the ship, He returned;” i.e., went back to Capernaum, the center of His evangelistic work in the North, thus throwing a dark shadow over all of that country of the Gadarenes, which has wrapped it in gloom and withered it with desolation these eighteen hundred years. When I visited that country, with its beautiful, fertile plains, bordering on the sea; majestic, rich mountains, with innumerable valleys and coves — all, at the time of our Savior’s visit, flourishing as the gardens of the Lord, cultivated by a thriving and enterprising people, whose temporal needs a gracious Providence had most abundantly supplied. So they needed nothing but the Savior, whom, in loving, Fatherly affection, He so kindly sent them. O what a grand introductory He made among them in saving the worst man they had! How all hell rallied to hold their grip tight on Gadara! Jesus comes to all people, even uninvited, thus pitying their blindness and ignorance, and giving all a chance for salvation. But when He turns the light on them, if, instead of rejoicing in it, they prefer darkness, and, like these besotted Gadarenes, even have the impudence to ask Him to leave, He always goes, leaving them to their choice, with the devil and hell, world without end. Jesus saves none against their will; neither does He stay where He is not wanted. When I stood upon the old walls of Gergesa, the capital of Gadara, to which Jesus went, and looked around upon the ruins of the city, without an inhabitant except the wandering Arabs, then on the spot, grazing their herds and flocks, and saw their country, which has lain desolate eighteen hundred years, I saw in panorama, as I look out over the sea, Jesus embarking on the ship, which sails away, appearing smaller and smaller, till she passes out of sight, thus leaving poor Gadara doomed and ruined. How signally has this been verified in the dismal fate of that country! The Gadarenes have literally faded from the face of the earth, not one to be found; their capital desolate, their cities and villages depopulated and destroyed; their country in the hands of the nomadic Bedonins, the wild sons of Ishmael, in reference to whom God said, “His hand shall be against every man’s hand, and every man’s hand against him.” They are born robbers. If you would visit the land of Gadara this day, you would need an armed escort to save you from robbery and murder. What a warning to the people who request Jesus to depart from them!

William B. Godbey, Commentary on the New Testament (1896–1900) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Mar 5:26 . Details about the case, similarly in Lk., not in Mt.: either they expand or Mt. abbreviates. πολλὰ παθοῦσα : no wonder, remarks Lightfoot, in view of the endless prescriptions for such a case, of which he gives samples ( Hor. Heb. ); physicians of the empiric or prescientific type. τὰ παρʼ αὐτῆς , her means, cf. οἱ παρʼ αὐτοῦ , Mar 3:21 . μηδὲν ὠφελ : nothing profited, the subjective negative, μηδὲν , implies disappointed expectation.

The Expositor's Greek Testament, edited by W. Robertson Nicoll (1897–1910) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Verse 26. Had suffered many things of many physicians, - and was nothing bettered, but rather grew worse] No person will wonder at this account, when he considers the therapeutics of the Jewish physicians in reference to hemorrhages, especially of the kind with which this woman was afflicted.

Rabbi Jochanan says: "Take of gum Alexandria, of alum, and of crocus hortensis, the weight of a zuzee each; let them be bruised together, and given in wine to the woman that hath an issue of blood. But if this fail,

"Take of Persian onions nine logs, boil them in wine, and give it to her to drink: and say, Arise from thy flux. But should this fail,

"Set her in a place where two ways meet, and let her hold a cup of wine in her hand; and let somebody come behind and affright her, and say, Arise from thy flux. But should this do no good,

"Take a handful of cummin and a handful of crocus, and a handful of faenu-greek; let these be boiled, and given her to drink, and say, Arise from thy flux. But should this also fail,

"Dig seven trenches, and burn in them some cuttings of vines not yet circumcised (vines not four years old;) and let her take in her hand a cup of wine, and let her be led from this trench and set down over that, and let her be removed from that, and set down over another: and in each removal say unto her, Arise from thy flux." Dr. Lightfoot gives these as a sample, out of many others, extracted from Bab. Shabb. fol. 110.

And from some of these nostrums it is evident the woman could not be bettered, and from some others it is as evident that she must be made worse; and from all together it is indubitably certain that she must have suffered many things; - and from the persons employed, the expense of the medicaments, and the number of years she was afflicted, as she was not a person of great opulence, it is most perfectly credible that she spent all that she had. She was therefore a fit patient for the Great Physician.

The case of this woman was, a very afflicting one:

1. Because of the nature of her malady; it was such as could not be made public, without exposing her to shame and contempt.

2. It was an inveterate disorder; it had lasted twelve years.

3. It was continual; she appears to have had no interval of health.

4. Her disorder was aggravated by the medicines she used - she suffered much, c.

5. Her malady was ruinous both to her health and circumstances - she spent all that she had.

6. She was now brought to the last point of wretchedness, want, and despair she was growing worse, and had neither money nor goods to make another experiment to procure her health.

7. She was brought so low by her disorder as to be incapable of earning any thing to support her wretched life a little longer.

It has been said, and the saying is a good one, "Man's extremity is God's opportunity." Never could the power and goodness of God be shown in a more difficult and distressful case. And now Jesus comes, and she is healed.

Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

(26) Was nothing bettered, but rather grew worse.—The fact is the same as in St. Luk_8:43, who, however, does not mention that she grew worse, but it is, as usual, expressed more graphically.

A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

And had suffered many things of many physicians,.... She took many a nauseous medicine, and had gone through courses of physic with different physicians; for there were many among the Jews that pretended to the cure of fluxes; and various are the prescriptions the Jewish doctors give for such a disorder, as may be seen in their Talmud (q); and many of which Dr. Lightfoot (r) has transcribed: and among the rest, they direct to the use of gum of Alexandria, alum, saffron, Persian onions, cummin, and "faenum graecum", put into wine and drank.

And had spent all that she had; had wasted her substance, and brought herself to poverty, by pursuing the directions given her; so that she was not in circumstances now to employ a physician;

and was nothing bettered, but rather grew worse: the several medicines she had taken had done her no good, had not, in the least, restrained and checked the disorder, but it was rather increased thereby. This is often the case of persons who are, in some measure, sensible of the disease of sin, but are ignorant of the proper methods to be taken for the cure of it. They apply to their own works of righteousness, moral and civil, to the duties of religion, private and public, to a legal repentance, external humiliation and tears, and an outward reformation of life, hoping hereby, in process of time, to be rid of their disorder, and be in good health; whereas these are physicians of no value, and of no real service in their case: they are so far from being the better, that they are rather worse and worse, there being so much impurity, imperfection, and sin, in all these things, and which is increased by a dependence on them; that their iniquities grow upon them, and the score of their transgressions is become greater, and their distemper the more inveterate, and less easy to be cured; yea, not only they spend their money for that which does not bring them a cure, and exhaust all the stock of nature's power to no purpose, but they also suffer much hereby. For such a course of action, such conduct and methods as these bring them into a spirit of bondage; for when they fail in their duties, do not come up to the rules prescribed them, what terror of mind possesses them! what horror and wrath does the law work in their consciences! what a fearful looking for is there of fiery indignation, to consume them! It cannot be expressed what some have suffered by following such prescriptions.

(q) T. Bab. Sabbat, fol. 110. 1, 2. (r) Hor. Heb. in loc.

John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

26 And had suffered many things of many physicians, and had spent all that she had, and was nothing bettered, but rather grew worse,

Ver. 26. And had spent all that she had] Physicians are many of them crumenimulgae, et sordida poscinummia. (Plaut.) They call their drugs δοσεις, gifts; yet we pay dear for them, besides that they sometimes give their patient a "decipe" for a "recipe," which made Chaucer say, Farewell, physic.

" Iurisconsultorum idem status et Medicorum:

Damna quibus licito sunt aliena lucro,

Hi morbis aegrorum, agrorum litibus ill;

Dant Tatienter opem, dum potiantur opum."

(Owen Epigr.)

Howbeit their greedy desire of money seldom prospereth with them.

" Dicis te medicum, nos te plus esse fatemur;

Una tibi plus est littera quam medico."

(Mendico sc.)

John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

26. Suffered many things of many physicians. The medical art in Judea in that age was in a very crude condition. Lightfoot gives, from the Rabbinical books, the remedy for a female hemorrhage: “Let them dig seven ditches, in which let them burn some cuttings of vines under four years old. Let her take in her hand a cup of wine; let them lead her away from this ditch and make her sit over that. Let them remove her from that and sit her over another. At each removal you must say to her, 'Arise for thy flux.'” This is an illustration of what this woman suffered.

B. W. Johnson's The People's New Testament with Notes (1889–1891) — public domain. Electronic text from the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (CCEL) ThML edition.

26. πολλὰ παθοῦσα ὑπὸ πολλῶν. Elegant classical Greek. Multa perpessa a compluribus (Vulg.) does not reproduce the effective repetition. Here probably πολλά is cogn. acc. rather than adverbial; many things of many physicians (A.V., R.V.). The remedies employed by Jewish doctors, some severe, and others silly and disgusting, are given by John Lightfoot. This verse is peculiar to Mk. The beloved physician, in consideration to the profession, tones it down to οὐκ ἴσχυσεν ὑπʼ οὐδενὸς θεραπευθῆναι, for ἰατροῖς προσαναλώσασα ὅλον τὸν βίον αὐτῆς are omitted in [1080][1081] Syr-Sin. and are of doubtful authority. Even if they are admitted, there is no mention of her sufferings at the hands of the doctors, or of her having been made worse by them, and the cause of failure is her want of strength to profit by treatment rather than their want of skill. In the [1082] text of Tob 2:10, it is said that he went (every morning, Chal.) to the physicians to be treated for his eyesight, and that the more they anointed him with their drugs, the worse the white films became, until he was totally blind. Wetstein quotes Menander, πολλῶν ἰατρῶν εἴσοδός μʼ ἀπώλεσε. Plin. Hist. Nat. xxix. 5, Hinc illa infelicis monumenti inscriptio, turba se medicorum periisse. Petronius 42, Plures medici illum perdiderunt.

[1080] Codex Vaticanus. 4th cent., but perhaps a little later than א. In the Vatican Library almost since its foundation by Pope Nicolas V., and one of its greatest treasures. The whole Gospel, ending at Mar 16:8. Photographic facsimile, 1889.

[1081] Codex Bezae. 6th cent. Has a Latin translation (d) side by side with the Greek text, and the two do not quite always agree. Presented by Beza to the University Library of Cambridge in 1581. Remarkable for its frequent divergences from other texts. Contains Mark, except Mar 16:15-20, which has been added by a later hand. Photographic facsimile, 1899.

[1082] Codex Sinaiticus. 4th cent. Discovered by Tischendorf in 1859 at the Monastery of St Katharine on Mount Sinai. Now at St Petersburg. The whole Gospel, ending at Mar 16:8. Photographic facsimile, 1911.

δαπανήσασα. This verb of simple meaning occurs five times in N.T., and Vulg. uses four different words in translating it, erogo here, dissipo Luk 15:14, inpendo Act 21:24 and 2Co 12:15, insumo Jas 4:3. Note the combination of participles.

τὰ παρʼ αὐτῆς. Cf. τὰ παρʼ αὐτῶν Luk 10:7, τὰ παρʼ ὑμῶν Php 4:18. In each case παρά indicates the passage of something from one to another: τό or τά before prepositions is freq. in Lk. and Acts, rare in Mk and Mt., and nowhere in Jn.

μηδὲν ὠφεληθεῖσα. The μηδέν (not οὐδέν) does not prove that this is given as her conviction rather than as an actual fact; in N.T., μή with participles is usual, even when facts are stated. See on Mar 2:4.

Cambridge Greek Testament for Schools and Colleges (Cambridge University Press, 1896; 21 vols, various authors incl. Carr, Maclear, Plummer, Farrar, Lumby, Moule, M. R. James, Simcox) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

26. πολλὰ παθοῦσα ὑπὸ πολλῶν ἱατρῶν—having suffered many things at the hands of many physicians.1 δαπανήσασα τὰ παρʼ ἑαυτῆς πάντα—having spent all that she had.2

μηδὲν ὠφεληθεῖσα—seeing that she was no way benefited.3 μηδὲν is used, instead of οὐδὲν, because of the writer’s way of conceiving what is nevertheless stated as a fact. He is giving here not only the facts, but the facts as they lay in the woman’s mind and became her reasons for coming to Jesus. He suggests that she knew all this, and reasoned it out this way, and this subjective view is implied in the use of μηδὲν. Win. 55, g, β

International Critical Commentary — older volumes (1896–1929), various authors — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Mark is much fuller and more vivid than Matthew or Luke.

Had suffered [παθουσα] . To be taken, as everywhere in the New Testament, in the sense of suffering pain, not merely subjected to treatment. What she may have suffered will appear from the prescription for the medical treatment of such a complaint given in the Talmud. "Take of the gum of Alexandria the weight of a zuzee (a fractional silver coin); of alum the same; of crocus the same. Let them be bruised together, and given in wine to the woman that has an issue of blood. If this does not benefit, take of Persian onions three logs [πιντσ] ; boil them in wine, and give her to drink, and say, 'Arise from thy flux. ' If this does not cure her, set her in a place where two ways meet, and let her hold a cup of wine in her right hand, and let some one come behind and frighten her; and say, ' Arise from thy flux. ' But if that do no good, take a handful of cummin (a kind of fennel), a handful of crocus, and a handful of fenugreek (another kind of fennel). Let these be boiled in wine and give them her to drink, and say, 'Arise from thy flux!'" If these do no good, other doses, over ten in number, are prescribed, among them this : "Let them dig seven ditches, in which let them burn some cuttings of vines, not yet four years old. Let her take in her hand a cup of wine, and let them lead her away from this ditch, and make her sit down over that. And let them remove her from that, and make her sit down over another, saying to her at each remove, 'Arise from thy flux!'" (Quoted from Lightfoot by Geikie, " Life and Words of Christ ").

Of many physicians [υπο] . Lit., under; i e., under the hands of.

And was nothing bettered, but rather grew worse. Luke's professional pride as a physician kept him from such a statement. Compare Luk 8:43.

Marvin R. Vincent, Word Studies in the New Testament (1887–1900) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.