Mark 5:5-20

[limabeanerson]

Question on this verse:

And always, night and day, he was in the mountains, and in the tombs, crying, and cutting himself with stones.

6But when he saw Jesus afar off, he ran and worshipped him,

7And cried with a loud voice, and said, What have I to do with thee, Jesus, thou Son of the most high God? I adjure thee by God, that thou torment me not.

8For he said unto him, Come out of the man, thou unclean spirit.

9And he asked him, What is thy name? And he answered, saying, My name is Legion: for we are many.

10And he besought him much that he would not send them away out of the country.

11Now there was there nigh unto the mountains a great herd of swine feeding.

12And all the devils besought him, saying, Send us into the swine, that we may enter into them.

13And forthwith Jesus gave them leave. And the unclean spirits went out, and entered into the swine: and the herd ran violently down a steep place into the sea, (they were about two thousand and were choked in the sea.

14And they that fed the swine fled, and told it in the city, and in the country. And they went out to see what it was that was done.

Why did the demons want to go into the pigs? Why did Jesus give them what they wanted?

 

[Nita]

Anything’s better than hell ----- even pigs!!!

 

[rcjones]

In Matthew’s version, the story is a parallel passage to Matt 5:20-22

The demoniacs were like the scribes and Pharisees. They knew who Christ was, but rather than submit to him they chose to kill the swine.

The Pharisees, rather than submitting to Christ chose to kill him. The swine were an abomination representing Christ on the cross who had been made to be sin. Figuratively, the Pharisees were killing the swine when they killed Jesus.

Jesus warns the people around the Pharisees against anger, and the townspeople were angry with Jesus.

Jesus sent the demons into the swine to paint the picture of his own death at the hands of the Pharisees.

 

[NHInsider]

To the demons, the pigs were better than nothing (compare Matt. 12:43). To the Jews, pigs were unclean, so the were no worse off possessed by demons than not. Interesting too that the possessed pigs rush into the sea - the sea represented chaos to the Jews (over which God brought order in Creation).