Mark 5:1-20--Jesus Heals a Man with a Demon

Mark 5:1-20
English Standard Version

Jesus Heals a Man with a Demon
5 They came to the other side of the sea, to the country of the Gerasenes. 2 And when Jesus had stepped out of the boat, immediately there met him out of the tombs a man with an unclean spirit. 3 He lived among the tombs. And no one could bind him anymore, not even with a chain, 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. 5 Night and day among the tombs and on the mountains he was always crying out and cutting himself with stones. 6 And when he saw Jesus from afar, he ran and fell down before him. 7 And crying out with a loud voice, he said, “What have you to do with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? I adjure you by God, do not torment me.” 8 For he was saying to him, “Come out of the man, you unclean spirit!” 9 And Jesus asked him, “What is your name?” He replied, “My name is Legion, for we are many.” 10 And he begged him earnestly not to send them out of the country. 11 Now a great herd of pigs was feeding there on the hillside, 12 and they begged him, saying, “Send us to the pigs; let us enter them.” 13 So he gave them permission. And the unclean spirits came out and entered the pigs; and the herd, numbering about two thousand, rushed down the steep bank into the sea and drowned in the sea.

​14 The herdsmen fled and told it in the city and in the country. And people came to see what it was that had happened. 15 And they came to Jesus and saw the demon-possessed man, the one who had had the legion, sitting there, clothed and in his right mind, and they were afraid. 16 And those who had seen it described to them what had happened to the demon-possessed man and to the pigs. 17 And they began to beg Jesus to depart from their region. 18 As he was getting into the boat, the man who had been possessed with demons begged him that he might be with him. 19 And he did not permit him but said to him, “Go home to your friends and tell them how much the Lord has done for you, and how he has had mercy on you.” 20 And he went away and began to proclaim in the Decapolis how much Jesus had done for him, and everyone marveled.

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Jesus has had a long day of teaching parables and then got into the boat to go to the other side of the Sea of Galilee, where the Decapolis is, and instead of getting some rest that He was looking forward to, He was awakened by His disciples when they were caught in a fierce windstorm when they cried out for their Lord to save their lives because they were perishing.  Jesus rebuked the wind and the waves telling them, "Peace, be still." [What is translated as "Be still." actually the imperative, "Be muzzled!"].  We will see today that Jesus will speak much the same way to the demons in this demonized man and they will immediately obey in the same way that the wind and the waves did when Jesus calmed the sea.

They got to the other side and they were immediately confronted by a demonized man from the city who had lost his mind after being demonized and now lived among the tombs.  They could not restrain him and he was typically naked and the demons would make him cut himself so that he would come close to the point of death without dying (for if he died, they would lose their host).  He was given super-strength by the demons to break any chains that the people tried to bind him with, and he was active both night and day "crying out" and cutting himself with stones.

When the man saw Jesus, he ran from far away and fell face down to worship him--whether it is the man or the demons that are doing this because they feared Jesus is uncertain, but this worship is out of fear for the words he speaks to Jesus reveal that--though it also reveals that he recognizes Jesus as the Son of God (he says Son of the Most High God).  The demons are afraid that Jesus has come at this time to judge them and throw them into the abyss that we see in the book of Revelation where there are some demons who are so bad that they have been chained up until they are released in the end times as one of the final plagues on the unrepentant, rebellious enemies of God.  Whether these demons were really that bad or just fancied themselves as that bad or wanted to be in the same category of evil as those that were removed from the earth and held in captivity, they begged Jesus that their time not be up yet as they wanted to have even just a little more fun.  They wanted to be cast into the pigs that belonged to the local farmers that were up on a hillside not that far away.

Jesus agrees to cast the "legion" of demons (Legion is what they called themselves, for there were many demons in this man) into the herd of pigs and all the pigs lost their minds and stampeded down the hill and off the cliff and drown in the Sea of Galilee.  There were about two thousand pigs that died that day so it's possible this man had 2,000 or more demons inside of him.  If the word "Legion" is to be taken literally than there may have been more like 5,000 to 6,000 demons inside of this one man.

The herdsmen for the pigs told their countrymen what happened--both to the pigs and that Jesus had cast the demons out of this crazy, demonized man.  They went out to see what happened and they found the man clothed and in his right mind there with Jesus and his disciples.  The people were afraid because they knew how much power this demonized man had when the demons controlled him, and they knew Jesus had to have even more power than that to cast the demons out of this man and make him be back in his right mind.  Sure, they are upset about losing their entire herd of pigs--that was no small cost for them as that was probably the entire local economy right there, but they were more afraid of who would be next and how their world would be turned upside down by this one man.  Surely they had heard about Him and all the miracles He had done in Israel.  The crowd begged Jesus and His disciples to leave them and get back in the boat to go back where they came from.  They mean formerly known as Legion who has been healed asked if he could come with Jesus to follow Him, but Jesus said that the man needed to stay there and tell his friends and family (in the city where he used to live) about what had happened and how Jesus had healed him.  With this man's testimony (for everyone local knew of him and probably those in the surrounding area had heard of him) heard his story, Jesus might receive a very different reception the next time He's in the area--if you want to look ahead, see Mark 8 when Jesus is back in the Gentile region again and there is a crowd of a least 4,000 men following Him for three days through the wilderness, standing the whole time while Jesus is preaching through all these Gentile-controlled areas that were once given to the Jewish people.  It is possible that this one man's testimony was instrumental in getting the word out to those 4,000 or so men who were following after Jesus in Mark 8 as it says the man went away and proclaimed Jesus not just in his own city, but in all ten cities of the Decapolis and that everyone who heard the story marveled (much like the reaction of the disciples after they saw Jesus calm the storm).​