Bible Study series: Mark 5:1-20. Jesus went out of his way, across the lake, to get to him. This is the compassion of God.
Friendly greetings and a warm welcome to this Bible study! I write to learn, so let’s learn together how to apply these truths to our lives.
I also translate to learn. The translations are mine, unless otherwise noted. If you would like to see many others, please click here:
If you would like to see the original Greek, please click here:
At that link, I also offer more commentary and a Summary and Conclusion, geared towards discipleship. Scroll down to the bottom and check it out!
Let’s begin.
Scripture: Mark 5:1-20
1 He went to the other side of the lake to the region of the Gerasenes. 2 As he was getting out of the boat, a man coming out of the tombs, having an unclean spirit, met him. 3 He made his home in the tombs. No one was able tie him down with a chain anymore 4 because, after he was often bound with chains and shackles, the chains were broken by him and the shackles shattered; no one had the strength to subdue him. 5 Day and night he was crying out in the tombs and hills and cutting himself with stones.
6 Seeing Jesus from a distance, he ran and knelt before him. 7 He cried out with a loud voice, “Mind your own business, Jesus, Son of God Most High! I implore you! Don’t torment me!” 8 (For he was saying to him, “Unclean spirit, come out of the man!”) 9 Then he asked him, “What is your name?” And he said to him, “My name is Legion, because we are many!” 10 And he begged him earnestly that he would not send him out of the region.
11 A huge herd of pigs was there on the hillside, feeding. 12 They begged him, saying, “Send us into the pigs, so that we may go into them!” 13 He permitted them, and the unclean spirits left and went into the pigs. The herd of about two thousand rushed headlong from a crest into the lake and drowned in the lake. 14 The ones tending them fled and reported this in the town and the fields.
They came to see what it is that happened. 15 They came to Jesus and observed the demoniac sitting clothed and sound-minded—the one having Legion—and they were frightened. 16 The ones who saw this recounted to them what had happened to the demonized man and about the pigs. 17 And they begged him to depart from their district.
18 As he was getting in the boat, the one who had been demonized begged him that he may be with him. 19 He did not allow him, but instead told him, “Go to your house and your family and report to them everything the Lord has done for you and how much mercy he showed you.”
20 And so he departed and began to proclaim in the Decapolis everything Jesus had done for him. Everyone was amazed. (Mark 5:1-20)
Comments
Don’t forget that Jesus calmed the storm at the end of the previous chapter. Some interpret the storm as a satanic attack, so that Jesus could not set this man from from many demons.
This passage can be analyzed in five parts:
First confrontation between the demoniac and Jesus (1-3; 6-10)
Description of the demoniac plight (3-5)
Demons expelled into pigs (11-15)
Report to and reaction of the people (16-17)
Final interaction between the formerly demonized man and Jesus (18-20)
Let’s take the section in those stages.
1-3; 6-10:
As for the geography and location, you can google it. Craig Keener says in his commentary on Matthew: “As for Mark’s “Gerasenes” (Mark 5:1) and Matthew’s “Gadarenes,” “Gerasa was larger and more powerful in Mark’s time; hence Mark used the more prominent city to identify the region …; Matthew, probably writing to Christians in Syria who knew the region better, clarifies the matter by naming the prominent city near the lake itself … In both Gospels, the writer is simply identifying the region; Gadara and Gerasa were both parts of the Decapolis, a primarily Gentile area with a large Jewish population” (A Commentary on Matthew’s Gospel [Eerdmans, 1999] Keener, p. 282).
See these posts in a fifteen-part series on the reliability of the Gospels:
13. Are There Contradictions in the Gospels?
14. Similarities among John’s Gospel and the Synoptic Gospels (celebrate the countless numbers of similarities in the arc of the storyline!)
15. The Historical Reliability of the Gospels: Conclusion (start here for summaries of each part with links back to them)
In any case, this was a region where Gentiles lived, on the southeastern side of the lake of Galilee, for Jews considered pigs to be unclean (Lev. 11:7; Deut. 14:8). It is not likely that a community of Jews would allow so many pigs. Wessel and Strauss point out that limestone rock was in the region, where people cut out tombs. So these enclosures provided a home (of sorts).
It is not possible to know whether the crew arrived in the evening or morning. But it was light enough for people to see.
The disciples were with him, and they needed training in taking authority over demons. They may have been baffled as to why Jesus was called to go over to this Gentile region, but now they are no longer mystified. The man needed a large-scale deliverance session.
“unclean”: this means that the demon defiled the man, so it was a “defiling” spirit (Strauss).
“met”: A clearer picture comes into focus. The word means (1) “to come opposite to, meet face to face, meet with”; (2) “to meet in battle” (Liddell and Scott). So the demonized man met up with Jesus, and a battle was about to take place.
What did the demonized man do when he saw Jesus? Of course he screamed. The demons’ number one enemy just got on shore. The demons were preparing to resist Jesus’s command to leave their poor victim. The man through the demons, however, fell down before the Son of the Most High.
His disciples have a difficult time knowing who Jesus was fully (4:41), but the demon knew!
“Mind your own business!”: Grammarian Decker says that the Greek idiom literally reads: “What is it to me and you?” Rhetorically it asks, “What have we to do with you?” That is, “What business is it of yours to interfere with us?” These demons were arrogant smart Aleks, but they had to acknowledge that he was the Son of God. In the spirit world, they saw Jesus rebuke Satan in the Great Temptation (Matt. 4:1-12). Decker: “This is a statement of ‘defensive hostility’ [NET note]; or as Danker puts it, ‘A diplomatic way of saying “mind your own business.”’”
Apparently these demons understood what their ultimate fate was. No, Jesus was not going to torment them personally, but he was going to send them into hell, which was prepared for Satan and his angels (demons), and that state was going to be torment enough (Matt. 25:41). The legion of demons understood that Jesus had authority to command them.
In his name, we also have authority to command demons.
Verse 8 is a narrative aside, telling us that Jesus had already told the demon to go, but before it left, it implored Jesus to allow it to remain. Apparently, demons are assigned territories. In Luke’s version, the demon begs Jesus not to send him into the abyss to await judgment (2 Pet. 2:4; Jude 6), which may be the same meaning. That is, to leave an assigned area means defeat (Matt. 12:43-45; Luke 11:24-26), so the demons implore Jesus to let them enter the pigs, who are part of the local area (Wessel and Strauss). Little did they know what was about to happen! One thing is for certain: to command the demons to leave the human is a sure sign that Satan and his kingdom is being pushed back.
Jesus was saying to the demon that he should go. But something didn’t work. The tension in this real-life, spiritual confrontation story is building in the audience. Then Jesus found out the demon’s name, and the fuller truth. His name was Legion, for “we are many.” It is amazing to me how calm Jesus was in asking for the name of the demons. Authority and calm go together.
“Legion”: many demons entered him. A Roman legion was 3000-6000 foot soldiers with a cavalry. And Mark says the herd of pigs numbered about 2000 (v. 13). However, the number in the word legion should not be taken overly literally. Many demons had overtaken him.
A real battle is taking place.
Evidently the commands were not working, so Jesus had to dig more deeply. Some critics say this was an embarrassment for Jesus because he could not instantly make the demons go. In reply, however, people have to want to be set free. The demon in this man was defiant and had so deceived their human host that the man himself did not want to let them go. He ran right up to Jesus to scare the Lord, but Jesus stood his ground. Also, these demons, we come to learn, were deeply entrenched. Learning a demon’s name means you have authority over it. On the other hand, some commentators say this is unnecessary, for Jesus already had authority over it. I favor the view that we, his people, may sometimes have to learn a demon’s name to have authority over it. But don’t turn that “sometimes truth” into a necessary part of a ritual; just cast it out in Jesus’s name.
Some teachers say they can converse with demons, in order to find out why they refuse to go, why they have a root in the human, since Jesus asked the demon or demons for his or their name. I would never say no to this part of deliverance. I believe the mature believer must not follow a formula or ritual. However, do we have to take it so far and have a detailed conversation? No. But if it is necessary to ask an authoritative question, then do it.
3-5:
Mark backtracks and informs us that they were so dangerous—again indicating total possession—that people could not pass along the road by the tombs, an appropriate place for a demonized man. The seven sons of Sceva found out how dangerous demons could be. The demon-possessed man pounced on the seven men, overpowered them, and beat them up (Acts 19:11-17). Demons have super-human strength, enough to break chains and shackles (or literally “foot shackles”). I wonder how they put them on him since no one was strong enough to subdue him. Probably the answer is that the demons grew in strength. Or maybe the demons were toying with the men who put him in chains, and then the demons broke them, in mockery and as a sign of power.
The demon was powerful and moved the man’s muscles to break the chains. The demon used to drive him out into the tombs and hills. The possession went deep. The story is startling and scary to Mark’s ordinary readers. How would it end? We know Jesus will handle things, but how? And how do his methods relate to us?
Lane’s comment on these verses is right:
In the several features of the description, the purpose of demonic possession to distort and destroy the divine likeness of man according to creation is made indelibly clear. The attitude and actions of the people of the town were an added cruelty based on popular misunderstanding. But ultimate responsibility for the wretchedness of the man and brutal treatment he had endured rested with the demons who had taken possession of the center of his personality (p. 182)
I like this excerpt because it insightfully reveals that demon possession destroys God’s image in a person.
11-15:
Evidently demons don’t like to be without a physical body to possess (Matt. 12:43-45; Luke 11:24-26). So they made a deal with Jesus. Send us into two thousand pigs. He allowed it, but they must not have realized that the pigs would do a swan dive—a pig dive—into the lake, where they died. Did they escape the pigs’ bodies upon their deaths? Unknown (to me at least). But it seems that when the pigs dissolved into nothing by now, they escaped the bodies. Yet let’s not speculate like this. Let’s move on.
Why did Jesus allow the swine to enter the pigs? Lane gives two reasons. First, Jesus recognized that the ultimate destruction of the demons had not yet come. His victory over these demons do not put an end to Satan’s power and authority. This waits for a future time. Jesus therefore allows the demons to work their destruction, but not on the man. Second, Jesus intended to show that demons was the total destruction of their host, and what they did to the pigs demonstrates it. They were doing to the pigs what they had been doing to the man.
It is amazing to me how calm Jesus was. Authority and calm go together. Flashy Renewalists who nervously beg the demon during their deliverance ministries are probably just insecure.
Jesus gave them permission—showing his authority—to lunge headlong into the lake. I translate the word as “crest,” but most other translations have “bank” or “cliff.” It’s hard to believe that the pigs just waded out into the water, so I envision a crest or cliff, and they were thrown out—leapt out—into the deep. This loss of two thousand pigs was costly to the swineherds.
They fled out of fear. The swineherds must have run back to the scene of deliverance and recounted what they saw. Also, maybe some of the people who saw the original event stayed around and then reported to the townsmen who came out to see what had happened. The man was delivered, clothed, and in his right mind.
16-17:
“fields”: it could be translated as “countryside,” but “fields” makes it seem like farming communities. Decker has the term “hamlets.”
“they were frightened”: Mark says they literally “feared a great fear,” which works out to “greatly, doubly feared” (Mark 4:41)
It always surprises me that the townspeople and agrarians chose the pigs over Jesus and the delivered man. Yes, the swine was their livelihood or business, but honestly! People first!
They ask him to leave their vicinity or district or borders. We don’t want a miracle worker! How deceived can these people be? That deceived.
Wessel and Strauss on v. 17:
They recognized that a mighty force was at work in Jesus and that they could neither understand nor control it. If it destroyed an entire herd of pigs, might not this power strike again with even more serious consequences? Fear, ignorance, and selfishness because material loss through the destruction of the pigs dominated their considerations rather than compassion for the former demoniac.
Garland has an insight on v. 17:
The demons begged Jesus to let them stay in the region (5:10); the townspeople now beg Jesus to leave the region. They are more comfortable with the malevolent forces that take captive human beings and destroy animals than they are with the one who can expel them. They can cope with the odd demon-possessed wild man who terrorizes the neighborhood with random acts of violence. But they want to keep someone with Jesus’ power at lake’s length.
18-20:
The healed man wanted to remain with Jesus (literally “be with,” which is how I translated it). This is understandable because no one had shown him more love and compassion and power to deliver him than Jesus. He contrasts the townspeople’s over-reaction. “The kingdom either attracts or repels, depending on whether one has eyes to see and ears to hear (4:12)” (Wessel and Strauss). Nonetheless, Jesus told him to go back home and narrate his story of what the Lord did for him.
Jesus now has an emissary to speak to his own people, the Gentiles. France is insightful in his comment on v. 19:
The reason for refusal is rather the positive one that this man has an opportunity, which is uniquely his, to spread the news of what God is doing through Jesus of Nazareth among those who have known what he was before, and who therefore cannot ignore the dramatic change which has resulted from his encounter with Jesus. In emphasising this motivation Mark no doubt expects his readers to understand that the same principle applies to others whose lives Jesus has changed, even in less dramatic circumstances.
Jesus is expanding his outreach to Gentiles, by this emissary. He told his story. You too can tell your story of how God set you free.
Meanwhile, the man told the people what great things Jesus did for him. Of course the people were amazed, given Mark’s description of him before his deliverance. The people lived with his unpredictability and threats. He cried out day and night, which must have haunted the people in the area. Why does Jesus permit the man to go out and tell everyone, but in v. 43 he tells Jairus and his family not to let anyone know the resurrection of the girl? Here Jesus is in Gentile territory, where Messianism would not be a threat, but back in Capernaum (most likely), he will be in Israel, where misunderstanding about Messianic expectations can emerge.
Please see my posts about Satan in the area of systematic theology and a little practical theology (deliverance):
Bible Basics about Satan and Demons and Victory Over Them
Bible Basics about Deliverance
Magic, Witchcraft, Sorcery, and Fortunetelling
The whole point to this long pericope is that Jesus has power over the Satan’s kingdom. From then to now, God’s kingdom is reducing and diminishing Satan’s kingdom, being chipped away. We need more men and women anointed with power to push back the evil spirit beings.
Some insightfully argue that this is Jesus’s first full outreach to Gentiles. It foreshadows the proclamation of the Gospel to all nations (Wessel and Strauss on v. 20).
In v. 7, since this pericope contains an element of demons recognizing Jesus and who he was, the Son of God Most High, let’s discuss what his Sonship means with a brief excursus into systematic theology.
GrowApp for Mark 5:1-20
A.. Read Ephesians 6:10-12. How do you overcome Satan’s attack on your life?
RELATED
10. Eyewitness Testimony in Mark’s Gospel
2. Church Fathers and Mark’s Gospel
2. Archaeology and the Synoptic Gospels
14. Similarities among John’s Gospel and the Synoptic Gospels
1. The Historical Reliability of the Gospels: Introduction to Series
SOURCES
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