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be bartered to the Romans, who were admirers of swine’s flesh. Christ may have permitted the loss of the swine, also, for the conviction of the Sadducees, Vho were then among the Jews and who denied the existence of spirits. He would also show what a hellish crew, they were delivered from, which, if He had permitted it, would have choked them as they did their swine.—Henry. He suffered them. If this granting of the request of the evil spirits helped in any way the cure of the man, caused them to resign their hold on him more easily, mitigated the paroxysms of their going forth (Mk. 9:26), this would have been motive enough. It may have been necessary for the perma nent healing of the man that he should have an outward evidence that the hell ish powers which had held him in bond age had quitted him.— Trench. v. 33. Went tHe devils out. We have just seen how the wind and sea were subject to our Lord’s word. Now we see demons subject to His word. They did not even dare to enter a hog without His permission. Some are deep ly concerned because Jesus did not exer cise His authority by refusing to permit them to enter the hogs and -thus to save the hogs. They lose sight of the- fact that He did exercise His authority to save the man. Men are more than hogs in our Lord’s sight, but men are not as important as hogs in the sight of some today. Hog-raising, which our Lord did not think it necessary to pro tect by the exercise of supernatural pow er, was itself an illicit business.—-Torrey. They were choked. The drowning of the herd does not appear to have en tered into the calculations of the spirits. They desired houses to live in after their expulsion and for them to plunge the swine into the lake would have de feated their purpose. The stampede was an unexpected effect of the commin gling of the demoniacal with the animal nature and outwitted the demons. There
wherever his dominion reaches.— Trench. Which had demons. The suf ferer whom Christ healed was not mere ly a maniac, but a demoniac. He is not a man ■at "war with himself, but a man at war with other beings, who have forced themeselyes into his house of life.—Willcock. Abode in the tombs. The poor man was somehow attracted to the graveyards, where the demons within him kept him continually con fronted with the spectacle of death as if already he dwelt among the dead,-f-x Sel. v. 28. Cried with a loud voice. That horrible condition of a double or, as in this case, a manifold personality speak ing through human organs, and over whelming the proper self, mysterious as it is, is. the very essence of the awful misery of demoniacs. The.mere pres ence of Christ lashes the demons tcf paroxysms.—Horn. Com. I beseech thee. There is a remarkable feature in this story which may help to mark off ‘its stages. The word “ beseech” occurs four times in it, (28, 31, 37, 38).— Sel. V. 29. He brake the bands. So too on the moral side of things the evil habit often cannot be controlled by con siderations of propriety or any re straints which reason, conscience and public opinion would impose, yet no evil habit is too strong for the power of Christ to give deliverance. v. 30. Legion. A legion is six thou sand soldiers. What capacity for devil try a man must have to contain six thousand demons and still have rooms to let. Why cannot a man hold as much deity as demons? We must either be filled with self, Satan or God. When the powers of darkness control men they are powerless, outside of aid from Jesus.—‘Farr. v. 32. Herd of swine. What had these Jews T:o do with swine, which by the,Levitical law were unclean and for bidden to Jews, and not to be eaten or touched? Probably they kept them to
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