Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Matthew 8:32
And he said unto them, Go. And when they were come out, they went into the herd of swine: and, behold, the whole herd of swine ran violently down a steep place into the sea, and perished in the waters.
32. a steep place ] Translate, the steep place. The slope of Gergesa, familiar to Matthew and to the readers of his Gospel.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
Verse 32. They went into the herd of swine] Instead of , the herd of swine, Griesbach reads , the swine, on the authority of many MSS. and versions.
The whole herd of swine] , of swine, is omitted by many MSS. and versions. See Griesbach, and See Clarke on Lu 8:20, c.
Ran violently down a steep place, c.] The prayer of these demons is heard and answered! Strange! But let it be noted, that God only hears demons and certain sinners when their prayer is the echo of his own justice. Here is an emblem of the final impenitence and ruin into which the swinish sinners, the habitually unpure, more commonly fall than other sinners. Christ permits the demons to do that in the swine which he did not permit them to do in the possessed, on purpose to show us what rage they would exercise on us if left to their liberty and malice. Many are the Divine favours which we do not consider, or know only in general. “But the owners of the swine lost their property.” Yes and learn from this of how small value temporal riches, are in the estimation of God. He suffers them to be lost, sometimes to disengage us from them through mercy sometimes out of justice, to punish us for having acquired or preserved them either by covetousness or injustice.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
Mark gives us much the same account, Mar 5:13, only adding, they were about two thousand. Luke differeth not, only what Matthew calls a sea Luke calls a lake; but the Jews called all great gatherings together of waters seas. The devil is naturally so fond of doing mischief, that he will rather play at a small game than stand out. This way of executing his malice, upon the beasts, we have often had experience of in the practice of witchcraft. And it may teach husbandmen, and those that trade in much cattle, to whom they are beholden for the preservation of their cattle, and how rightly God is styled, he that preserveth both man and beast; and what need they have to keep up daily prayer in their families, and to live so as they may not make God their enemy, who hath legions of devils, as well as many legions of less hurtful creatures, to revenge his quarrels.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
And he said unto them, go, c]. He gave them leave, as God did to Satan, in the case of Job for without divine permission, these evil spirits cannot do anything to the bodies, souls, or estates of men: they could not enter into the swine without leave, and much less do things of greater moment and consequence; and therefore are not to be feared, or dreaded by men, especially by the people of God. It may be asked, why did Christ suffer the devils to enter the herd of swine, and destroy them, which was a considerable loss to the proprietors? To which may be answered, that if the owners were Jews, and these creatures were brought up by them for food, it was a just punishment of their breach of the law of God; or if to be sold to others, for gain and filthy lucre’s sake, it was a proper rebuke, both of the avarice and the contempt of the laws of their own country, which were made to be a hedge or fence for the law of God: or if they were Gentiles, this was suffered to show the malice of the evil spirits, under whose influence they were, and who would, if they had but leave, serve them as they did the swine; and to display the power of Christ over the devils, and his sovereign right to, and disposal of the goods and properties of men; and to evince the truth of the dispossession, and the greatness of the mercy the dispossessed shared in; and to spread the fame of the miracle the more.
And when they were come out of the men that had been possessed by them,
they went into the herd of swine; which shows the real existence of these spirits, the truth of possessions and dispossessions; and that by these devils cannot be meant the sins and corruptions of men’s hearts, such as pride, covetousness, uncleanness, envy, malice, cruelty, c. for these could never be said to enter into a herd of swine, or be the authors of their destruction:
and behold, the whole herd of swine, and which was a very large one, consisting of about two thousand,
ran violently down a steep place a precipice of one of the rocks, by the sea side,
into the sea of “Tiberias”, or lake of Genesareth, which were the same, and over which Christ had just now passed;
and perished in the waters of the sea, or lake, and not any other waters near Gadara, and afar off from hence.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
Rushed down the steep ( ). Down from the cliff (ablative case) into the sea. Constative aorist tense. The influence of mind on matter is now understood better than formerly, but we have the mastery of the mind of the Master on the minds of the maniacs, the power of Christ over the demons, over the herd of hogs. Difficulties in plenty exist for those who see only folk-lore and legend, but plain enough if we take Jesus to be really Lord and Saviour. The incidental destruction of the hogs need not trouble us when we are so familiar with nature’s tragedies which we cannot comprehend.
Fuente: Robertson’s Word Pictures in the New Testament
A steep place [ ] . Much better the steep (Rev.). Not an overhanding precipice, but a steep, almost perpendicular declivity, between the base of which and the water was a narrow margin of ground, in which there was not room for the swine to recover from their headlong rush. Dr. Thomson (” Land and Book “) says : “Farther south the plain becomes so broad that the herd might have recovered and recoiled from the lake.” The article localizes the steep as in the vicinity of the pasture.
Fuente: Vincent’s Word Studies in the New Testament
1) “And he said unto them, Go.” (kai eipen autois
hupagete) “And he said to them, Go ye” get out of the two men. It appears that demons may make either men or beasts their habitat, only by the permissive will of God; See also Job 1:1-22; Job 21:14.
2) “And when they were come out,” (hoi de ekselthontes) “Then the demons (upon) coming out,” of the two men, or had, obeyed the Lord and come out of the men, left them unpossessed.
3) “They went into the herd of swine:” (apelthon eis tous choirous) “Went away into the pigs:” as they had requested and chosen to do, Mat 8:31.
4) “And behold, the whole herd of swine ran violently down a steep place,” (kai idou hormesen pasa he agele kata tou kremnou) “And behold all the herd rushed (wildly) down the precipice:” Demons cause both clean men and unclean men to act violently. Men choose liquor, narcotics, and illicit moral courses in life, that lead them no less to destruction, Heb 4:7; Pro 29:1.
5) “Into the sea,” (eis ten thalassan) “Into the sea,” of Galilee, at the Southeast side of the Sea, in self-destruction.
6) “And perished in the waters.” (kai apethanon en tois hudasin) “And they died (drowned) in the waters,” of the sea, as a result of their own request and choosing. In like manner sinners are doomed in hell, as a result of their own calloused choice in unbelief, Pro 1:21-28.
Fuente: Garner-Howes Baptist Commentary
(32) He said unto them, Go.Men have asked sometimes, in scorn, why the word was spoken; why permission was given for a destructive work which seemed alike needless and fruitless. The so-called rationalistic explanation, that the demoniacs drove the swine down the cliff in a last paroxysm of frenzy, is no solution of the difficulty, for, even if that hypothesis were on other grounds tenable, it is clear that our Lords words sanctioned what they did. We are at least on the right track in suggesting that only in some such way could the man be delivered from the inextricable confusion between himself and the unclean spirits in which he had been involved. Not till he saw the demoniac forces that had oppressed him transferred to the bodies of other creatures, and working on them the effects which they had wrought on him, could he believe in his own deliverance. Those who measure rightly the worth of a human spirit thus restored to itself, to its fellow-men, and to God, will not think that the destruction of brute life was too dear a price to pay for its restoration. Other subordinate endssuch, e.g., as that it was a penalty on those who kept the unclean beasts for their violation of the Law, or that it taught men that it was through their indulgence of the swinish nature in themselves that they became subject to the darker and more demoniac passionshave been suggested with more or less plausibility.
Down a steep place.Literally, down the cliff.
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
‘And he said to them, “Go.” And they came out, and went into the swine, and behold, the whole herd rushed down the steep into the sea, and perished in the waters.”
With a word of power Jesus told them to do what they had asked and go, and enter the swine, and, unable to resist, they left the two persons involved and entered the pigs, with the result that the whole herd ran down a slope into the sea. Jesus may well not have expected this outcome. He would be aware of the evil spirits’ desire for self-preservation. Alternately He may have wanted His disciples to recognise that what they had been saved from (the raging sea), was the destiny of those demons instead. It was their rightful place. For the disciples life, for the demons destruction. In Heaven and earth there will be no more sea (Rev 21:21). This is because the sea in its ferocity was seen as an enemy of man, and there all enemies will have ceased. Perhaps, indeed, these demons were so desperate to get away from Jesus that they thought that they could hide from Jesus at the bottom of the sea (Amo 9:3).
As we consider these pigs we are thus reminded that ‘dumb animals’ are far more sensitive to evil and to strange forces than we often are (compare Balaam’s ass). Dogs will often cower and whine in houses where there are known to be strange phenomena. This sudden inrush of evil clearly terrified the pigs who were fully aware of it, and they ran in panic down the slope, perishing in the waters of the sea. By this event the one time demoniacs would see for themselves that they really had been freed from the demons, while the demons themselves went to their destiny. I have heard many people react against this and ask how Jesus could do such a thing. And then without giving the matter a moment’s thought they would go away and buy their bacon and pork simply for their own enjoyment. What hypocrites we are. It is fine to destroy a herd of pigs for our own enjoyment, but not in order to help two, poor, demented people. Next time you eat bacon, think of this herd of pigs.
‘Go.’ By this Jesus’ supreme authority over demons was revealed. While He was there they could do nothing without His approval. They had to submit to the Kingly Rule of God even though they could not come to enjoy it.
Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett
Mat 8:32 . , . . .] therefore the demons who, quitting those who were possessed, enter the bodies of the swine. The idea that the demoniacs ran away among the swine is opposed to the narrative.
, , . . .] in consequence of the demons taking possession of the animals, and thereby producing in them a state of fury corresponding to that which had been excited in the men.
Fuente: Heinrich August Wilhelm Meyer’s New Testament Commentary
32 And he said unto them, Go. And when they were come out, they went into the herd of swine: and, behold, the whole herd of swine ran violently down a steep place into the sea, and perished in the waters.
Ver. 32. And he said unto them, Go ] 1. To show his sovereignty over the creatures. He is the great proprietary of all, and may do with his own as he wisheth. 2. To punish their sensuality in feeding upon swine’s flesh, against the express letter of the law. Ex uno sue quinquaginta prope sapores excogitantur, saith Pliny. And there was a jolly pope (some kin, belike, to Pope Sergius, surnamed Os porci, the mouth of a pig) that being, for his gout, forbidden swine’s flesh by his physician, cried out to his steward, Bring me my pork, al dispito di dio, in despite of God. 3. To try whether was dearer to these filthy Gergesites, their swine, or their souls. They showed themselves to be of Cardinal Bourbon’s mind, who would not part with his part in Paris, for his part in Paradise.
They went into the herd of swine ] That thereby Satan might win upon the souls of the citizens (wedded and wedged to their worldly substance), and he failed not in his purpose. A cunning fetch of an old quadruplator. Be not ignorant of his wiles. Divorce the world from the devil, and he can do us no hurt.
Ran violently down a steep place into the sea ] Cornelius Agrippa, the magician, being at point of death, called unto him a dog (a familiar devil) that went about with him, and said, Abi a me perdita bestia quae me perdidisti, Get thee gone, thou cursed creature, thou hast undone me. Whereupon the dog presently departed, and cast himself headlong into the water.
And perished in the waters ] So will detestable drunkards in the bottomless pit; those that, as swine their bellies, so they break their heads with filthy quaffing. These shall have a cup of fire and brimstone poured down their throats, Psa 11:6 , and not obtain one drop of water to cool their flaming tongues. For what reason? Drunkenness, saith one, is a vice so vile, so base, so beastly, as that it transforms the soul, deforms the body, bereaves the brain, betrays the strength, defiles the affection, and metamorphoseth the whole man; making the understanding ignorant, the strong staggering, the trusty trothless, the virtuous vicious, and the precisest person a panderer to the profanest sin. (Huge de Sancto Vict. )
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
32. ] This remarkable narrative brings before us the whole question of DMONIACAL POSSESSIONS in the Gospels, which I shall treat here once for all, and refer to this note hereafter.
I would then remark in general, (I. 1) that the Gospel narratives are distinctly pledged to the historic truth of these occurrences . Either they are true, or the Gospels are false. For they do not stand in the same, or a similar position, with the discrepancies in detail, so frequent between the Evangelists: but they form part of that general groundwork in which all agree. (2) Nor can it be said that they represent the opinion of the time , and use words in accordance with it. This might have been difficult to answer, but that they not only give such expressions as , (Mar 5:16 ; Luk 8:36 ), and other like ones, but relate to us words spoken by the Lord Jesus , in which the personality and presence of the dmons is distinctly implied . See especially Luk 11:17-26 . Now either our Lord spoke these words, or He did not. If He did not, then we must at once set aside the concurrent testimony of the Evangelists to a plain matter of fact; in other words establish a principle which will overthrow equally every fact related in the Gospels. If He did, it is wholly at variance with any Christian idea of the perfection of truthfulness in Him who was Truth itself, to suppose Him to have used such plain and solemn words repeatedly, before His disciples and the Jews, in encouragement of, and connivance at, a lying superstition. (3) After these remarks it will be unnecessary to refute that view of dmoniacal possession which makes it identical with mere bodily disease , as it is included above; but we may observe, that it is every where in the Gospels distinguished from disease, and in such a way as to shew that, at all events, the two were not in that day confounded. (See ch. Mat 9:32-33 , and compare Mar 7:32 .) (4) The question then arises, Granted the plain historical truth of dmoniacal possession , WHAT WAS IT? This question, in the suspension, or withdrawal, of the gift of ‘discerning of spirits’ in the modern Church, is not easy to answer. But we may gather from the Gospel narratives some important ingredients for our description. The dmoniac was one whose being was strangely interpenetrated (‘ possessed ’ is the most exact word that could be found) by one or more of those fallen spirits, who are constantly asserted in Scripture (under the name of , , , , their chief being or ) to be the enemies and tempters of the souls of men. (See Act 5:3 ; Joh 13:2 and passim.) He stood in a totally different position from the abandoned wicked man, who morally is given over to the devil. This latter would be a subject for punishment; but the dmoniac for deepest compassion. There appears to have been in him a double will and double consciousness sometimes the cruel spirit thinking and speaking in him, sometimes his poor crushed self crying out to the Saviour of men for mercy: a terrible advantage taken, and a personal realization, by the malignant powers of evil, of the fierce struggle between sense and conscience in the man of morally divided life. Hence it has been not improbably supposed, that some of these dmoniacs may have arrived at their dreadful state through various progressive degrees of guilt and sensual abandonment. ‘Lavish sin, and especially indulgence in sensual lusts, superinducing, as it would often, a weakness in the nervous system, which is the especial band between body and soul, may have laid open these unhappy ones to the fearful incursions of the powers of darkness.’ (Trench on the Miracles, p. 160.) (5) The frequently urged objection, How comes it that this malady is not now among us? admits of an easy answer, even if the assumption be granted. The period of our Lord’s being on earth was certainly more than any other in the history of the world under the dominion of evil. The foundations of man’s moral being were broken up, and the ‘hour and power of darkness’ prevailing. Trench excellently remarks, ‘It was exactly the crisis for such soulmaladies as these, in which the spiritual and bodily should be thus strangely interlinked, and it is nothing wonderful that they should have abounded at that time; for the predominance of certain spiritual maladies at certain epochs of the world’s history, which were specially fitted for their generation, with their gradual decline and disappearance in others less congenial to them, is a fact itself admitting no manner of question.’ (pp. 162, 163.) Besides, as the same writer goes on to observe, there can be no doubt that the coming of the Son of God in the flesh, and the continual testimony of Jesus borne by the Church in her preaching and ordinances, have broken and kept down, in some measure, the grosser manifestations of the power of Satan. (See Luk 10:18 .) But (6) the assumption contained in the objection above must not be thus unreservedly granted. We cannot tell in how many cases of insanity the malady may not even now be traced to direct dmoniacal possession. And, finally, (7) the above view, which I am persuaded is the only one honestly consistent with any kind of belief in the truth of the Gospel narratives, will offend none but those who deny the existence of the world of spirits altogether, and who are continually striving to narrow the limits of our belief in that which is invisible; a view which at every step involves difficulties far more serious than those from which it attempts to escape. But (II.) a fresh difficulty is here found in the latter part of the narrative, in which the devils enter into the swine , and their destruction follows . (1) Of the reason of this permission, we surely are not competent judges. Of this however we are sure, that ‘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 paroxysm of their going forth (see Mar 9:26 ), this would have been motive enough. Or still more probably, it may have been necessary, for the permanent healing of the man, that he should have an outward evidence and testimony that the hellish powers which held him in bondage had quitted him.’ (Trench, p. 172.) (2) The destruction of the swine is not for a moment to be thought of in the matter, as if that were an act repugnant to the merciful character of our Lord’s miracles. It finds its parallel in the cursing of the fig-tree (ch. Mat 21:18-22 ); and we may well think that, if God has appointed so many animals daily to be slaughtered for the sustenance of men’s bodies, He may also be pleased to destroy animal life when He sees fit for the liberation or instruction of their souls. Besides, if the confessedly far greater evil of the possession of men by evil spirits, and all the misery thereupon attendant, was permitted in God’s inscrutable purposes, surely much more this lesser one. Whether there may have been special reasons in this case, such as the contempt of the Mosaic law by the keepers of the swine, we have no means of judging: but it is at least possible. (3) The fact itself related raises a question in our minds, which, though we cannot wholly answer, we may yet approximate to the solution of. How can we imagine the bestial nature capable of the reception of dmoniac influence? If what has been cited above be true, and the unchecked indulgence of sensual appetite afforded an inlet for the powers of evil to possess the human dmoniac, then we have their influence joined to that part of man’s nature which he has in common with the brutes that perish, the animal and sensual soul ( ). We may thus conceive that the same animal and sensual soul in the brute may be receptive of similar dmoniacal influence. But with this weighty difference: that whereas in man there is an individual, immortal spirit, to which alone belongs his personality and deliberative will and reason, and there was ever in him, as we have seen, a struggle and a protest against this tyrant power; the oppressed soul, the real ‘I,’ calling out against the usurper this would not be the case with the brute, in whom this personality and reflective consciousness is wanting. And the result in the text confirms our view; for as soon as the dmons enter into the swine, their ferocity, having no self-conserving balance as in the case of man, impels them headlong to their own destruction.
Fuente: Henry Alford’s Greek Testament
Mat 8:32 . : Christ’s laconic reply, usually taken to mean: go into the swine, but not necessarily meaning more than “begone”. So Weiss, who holds that Jesus had no intention of expressing acquiescence in the demoniac’s request. ( Matt. Evan. and Weiss-Meyer, “Hinweg mit euch”.) : the entrance of the demons into the swine could not, of course, be a matter of observation, but only of inference from what followed. , introducing a sudden, startling event the mad downrush of the herd over the precipice into the lake. Assuming the full responsibility of Jesus for the catastrophe, expositors have busied themselves in inventing apologies. Euthy gives four reasons for the transaction, the fourth being that only thereby could it be conclusively shown that the devils had left the demoniacs. Rosenmller suggests that two men are worth more than ever so many swine. The lowest depth of bathos in this line was touched by Wetstein when he suggested that, by cutting up the drowned swine, salting the meat or making smoke-dried hams ( fumosas pernas ), and selling them to Gentiles who did not object to eat suffocated animals, the owners would escape loss. But the learned commentator might be jesting, for he throws out the suggestion for the benefit of men whom he describes as neither Jews, Gentiles, nor Christians.
Fuente: The Expositors Greek Testament by Robertson
Go. Greek. hupago = go forth, i.e. out of the man.
a = the. Evidently, the well-known precipice.
perished = died. Those who defiled the temple (Mat 21:12, Mat 21:12. Joh 2:14-16) lost their trade; and those who defiled Israel (here) lost their animals.
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
32.] This remarkable narrative brings before us the whole question of DMONIACAL POSSESSIONS in the Gospels, which I shall treat here once for all, and refer to this note hereafter.
I would then remark in general, (I. 1) that the Gospel narratives are distinctly pledged to the historic truth of these occurrences. Either they are true, or the Gospels are false. For they do not stand in the same, or a similar position, with the discrepancies in detail, so frequent between the Evangelists: but they form part of that general groundwork in which all agree. (2) Nor can it be said that they represent the opinion of the time, and use words in accordance with it. This might have been difficult to answer, but that they not only give such expressions as , (Mar 5:16; Luk 8:36), and other like ones, but relate to us words spoken by the Lord Jesus, in which the personality and presence of the dmons is distinctly implied. See especially Luk 11:17-26. Now either our Lord spoke these words, or He did not. If He did not, then we must at once set aside the concurrent testimony of the Evangelists to a plain matter of fact; in other words establish a principle which will overthrow equally every fact related in the Gospels. If He did, it is wholly at variance with any Christian idea of the perfection of truthfulness in Him who was Truth itself, to suppose Him to have used such plain and solemn words repeatedly, before His disciples and the Jews, in encouragement of, and connivance at, a lying superstition. (3) After these remarks it will be unnecessary to refute that view of dmoniacal possession which makes it identical with mere bodily disease,-as it is included above; but we may observe, that it is every where in the Gospels distinguished from disease, and in such a way as to shew that, at all events, the two were not in that day confounded. (See ch. Mat 9:32-33, and compare Mar 7:32.) (4) The question then arises, Granted the plain historical truth of dmoniacal possession, WHAT WAS IT? This question, in the suspension, or withdrawal, of the gift of discerning of spirits in the modern Church, is not easy to answer. But we may gather from the Gospel narratives some important ingredients for our description. The dmoniac was one whose being was strangely interpenetrated (possessed is the most exact word that could be found) by one or more of those fallen spirits, who are constantly asserted in Scripture (under the name of , , , , their chief being or ) to be the enemies and tempters of the souls of men. (See Act 5:3; Joh 13:2 and passim.) He stood in a totally different position from the abandoned wicked man, who morally is given over to the devil. This latter would be a subject for punishment; but the dmoniac for deepest compassion. There appears to have been in him a double will and double consciousness-sometimes the cruel spirit thinking and speaking in him, sometimes his poor crushed self crying out to the Saviour of men for mercy: a terrible advantage taken, and a personal realization, by the malignant powers of evil, of the fierce struggle between sense and conscience in the man of morally divided life. Hence it has been not improbably supposed, that some of these dmoniacs may have arrived at their dreadful state through various progressive degrees of guilt and sensual abandonment. Lavish sin, and especially indulgence in sensual lusts, superinducing, as it would often, a weakness in the nervous system, which is the especial band between body and soul, may have laid open these unhappy ones to the fearful incursions of the powers of darkness. (Trench on the Miracles, p. 160.) (5) The frequently urged objection, How comes it that this malady is not now among us? admits of an easy answer, even if the assumption be granted. The period of our Lords being on earth was certainly more than any other in the history of the world under the dominion of evil. The foundations of mans moral being were broken up, and the hour and power of darkness prevailing. Trench excellently remarks, It was exactly the crisis for such soulmaladies as these, in which the spiritual and bodily should be thus strangely interlinked, and it is nothing wonderful that they should have abounded at that time; for the predominance of certain spiritual maladies at certain epochs of the worlds history, which were specially fitted for their generation, with their gradual decline and disappearance in others less congenial to them, is a fact itself admitting no manner of question. (pp. 162, 163.) Besides, as the same writer goes on to observe, there can be no doubt that the coming of the Son of God in the flesh, and the continual testimony of Jesus borne by the Church in her preaching and ordinances, have broken and kept down, in some measure, the grosser manifestations of the power of Satan. (See Luk 10:18.) But (6) the assumption contained in the objection above must not be thus unreservedly granted. We cannot tell in how many cases of insanity the malady may not even now be traced to direct dmoniacal possession. And, finally, (7) the above view, which I am persuaded is the only one honestly consistent with any kind of belief in the truth of the Gospel narratives, will offend none but those who deny the existence of the world of spirits altogether, and who are continually striving to narrow the limits of our belief in that which is invisible; a view which at every step involves difficulties far more serious than those from which it attempts to escape. But (II.) a fresh difficulty is here found in the latter part of the narrative, in which the devils enter into the swine, and their destruction follows. (1) Of the reason of this permission, we surely are not competent judges. Of this however we are sure, that 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 paroxysm of their going forth (see Mar 9:26), this would have been motive enough. Or still more probably, it may have been necessary, for the permanent healing of the man, that he should have an outward evidence and testimony that the hellish powers which held him in bondage had quitted him. (Trench, p. 172.) (2) The destruction of the swine is not for a moment to be thought of in the matter, as if that were an act repugnant to the merciful character of our Lords miracles. It finds its parallel in the cursing of the fig-tree (ch. Mat 21:18-22); and we may well think that, if God has appointed so many animals daily to be slaughtered for the sustenance of mens bodies, He may also be pleased to destroy animal life when He sees fit for the liberation or instruction of their souls. Besides, if the confessedly far greater evil of the possession of men by evil spirits, and all the misery thereupon attendant, was permitted in Gods inscrutable purposes, surely much more this lesser one. Whether there may have been special reasons in this case, such as the contempt of the Mosaic law by the keepers of the swine, we have no means of judging: but it is at least possible. (3) The fact itself related raises a question in our minds, which, though we cannot wholly answer, we may yet approximate to the solution of. How can we imagine the bestial nature capable of the reception of dmoniac influence? If what has been cited above be true, and the unchecked indulgence of sensual appetite afforded an inlet for the powers of evil to possess the human dmoniac, then we have their influence joined to that part of mans nature which he has in common with the brutes that perish, the animal and sensual soul (). We may thus conceive that the same animal and sensual soul in the brute may be receptive of similar dmoniacal influence. But with this weighty difference: that whereas in man there is an individual, immortal spirit, to which alone belongs his personality and deliberative will and reason,-and there was ever in him, as we have seen, a struggle and a protest against this tyrant power; the oppressed soul, the real I, calling out against the usurper-this would not be the case with the brute, in whom this personality and reflective consciousness is wanting. And the result in the text confirms our view; for as soon as the dmons enter into the swine, their ferocity, having no self-conserving balance as in the case of man, impels them headlong to their own destruction.
Fuente: The Greek Testament
Mat 8:32. , they were come out) Our Lord performed one miracle by which He inflicted punishment on a tree, namely, a fig tree; another on swine; another on men buying and selling in the temple. A specimen of future vengeance. His other miracles were full of grace; and even in these benefit was produced, as, for example, in the present case, a road rendered safe, a region freed from spirits to which it was liable, by their being driven into the sea, the possessed liberated, an excessive quantity of animal existence removed which was forbidden to be eaten, and in this case liable to be possessed by devils. And the Gergesenes were guilty, and deserved to lose the herd. The circumstance shows indisputably the right and the authority of Jesus.-, died) It seems that a possessed brute cannot live long. That men who are possessed do not thus perish immediately, is an especial mercy of God.
Fuente: Gnomon of the New Testament
Go: 1Ki 22:22, Job 1:10-12, Job 2:3-6, Act 2:23, Act 4:28, Rev 20:7
the whole: Job 1:13-19, Job 2:7, Job 2:8, Mar 5:13, Luk 8:33
Reciprocal: Mat 17:15 – for ofttimes
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
8:32
Their request was granted but it did not benefit them very long. The possession of devils sometimes caused great physical derangement in men, and here it produced a madness in the swine that caused them to plunge into the water and perish.
Fuente: Combined Bible Commentary
Mat 8:32. Go. Their request was fulfilled, and they went away into the swine. The fact of the possession of the swine is stated. It is not more improbable than that the human body could be under demoniacal control. The animal soul has desires and appetites which could be influenced by the demons.
Behold. An evidence of the reality of the possession.
The whole herd, etc. The simultaneous rush of the whole herd was not a natural movement, but due to the possessed, since few gregarious animals are so marked by individual stubbornness as swine. The distance to the precipice on the lake shore may have been considerable. Man having a rational spirit as well as an animal soul, can be possessed by demons for a long time without physical death resulting, but the same destructive influence quickly kills a lower animal. Mere sensuous life and demoniacal influence stand in some relation; hence this is a warning against sensualism. The permission given by our Lord to enter the herd of swine can be readily justified. It suggests the above warning, it helped to rid the men of the demons; there may have been other reasons growing out of the Mosaic law, which make the loss of property a just punishment; and after all it was but a permission. Criticism of the conduct of Jesus on this occasion only proves His immaculateness.
Fuente: A Popular Commentary on the New Testament
Although Christ seldom wrought any destructive miracle, and although he certainly foresaw that the swine would perish in the waters; yet that the people might see how great the power and malice of the devil would be, if not restrained by Christ, he permitted him to ever into the swine: Christ said unto them, Go; and how glad was Satan of this permission to enter into the swine, in order to their destruction.
Let it teach us our duty, by prayer to commit ourselves, and all that we have, morning and evening, into the hands of God’s care; all that we have in the house, and all that we have in the field, that it may be preserved from the power and malice of evil spirits.
Fuente: Expository Notes with Practical Observations on the New Testament
Verse 32
And when they were come out, &c. The whole of this phraseology seems inconsistent with the supposition that the sacred writers regarded these as cases of insanity produced by ordinary causes, as some contend. And yet it must be admitted, that there are difficulties involved in the other supposition. We should not have expected such a course of action as this from spirits which must have been ration, however depraved. But, notwithstanding these difficulties, it seems impossible to deny that the sacred writers mean to represent these effects as produced by the agency of spirit not human.
Fuente: Abbott’s Illustrated New Testament
Why did Jesus allow the demons to enter the swine, destroy the herd, and cause the owners considerable loss? Some commentators solve this puzzle by saying the owners were disobedient Jews whom Jesus judged. That is possible, but the answers to these questions were outside Matthew’s field of interest. They are probably part to the larger scheme of things involving why God allows evil. As God, Jesus owned everything and could do with His own as He pleased. These details do, however, clarify the reality of the exorcism and the destructive effect of the demons.
We can observe from the reaction of the citizens that "they preferred pigs to persons, swine to the Savior." [Note: Carson, "Matthew," p. 219.] They valued the material above the spiritual. This is the first instance in Matthew of open opposition to the Messiah. Matthew will show it building from here to the Cross. The pigs’ stampede also testified to Jesus’ deliverance of the demoniacs.
"This dramatic incident is most revealing. It shows what Satan does for a man: robs him of sanity and self-control; fills him with fears; robs him of the joys of home and friends; and (if possible) condemns him to an eternity of judgment. It also reveals what society does for a man in need: restrains him, isolates him, threatens him, but society is unable to change him. See, then, what Jesus Christ can do for a man whose whole life-within and without-is bondage and battle. What Jesus did for these two demoniacs, He will do for anyone else who needs Him." [Note: Wiersbe, 1:34.]
This incident shows Jesus fulfilling such kingdom prophecies as Dan 7:25-27; Dan 8:23-25; Dan_11:36 to Dan_12:3; and Zec 3:1-2. As Messiah, He is the Judge of the spirit world as well as humankind. He has all power over demons as well as nature (Mat 8:23-27). This is a story about power, not about mission.