Matthew 8:28-34: Two Demoniacs and the Pigs
Hover over the references to see the Biblical text
Matthew 8:28-34 (Parallel in Mark 5:1-20 and Luke 8:26-39)
Matthew takes great pains to point out how scary and dangerous these men were (demon possessed, living in tombs, and extremely violent to the point at which no one could travel through the location), but the demons react with fear: “Have you come to torment us before it’s time?” Their expectation of Jesus was that he would torment them because they are know that day is coming, hence their words, "Have you come here to torture us before the appointed time?" (NIV).
A few verses back (Matthew 8:16) it said that "many who were demon-possessed were brought to him, and he drove out the spirits with a word." Here we see Jesus doing that literally: "Go!" he says, and they go.
I don’t understand why the demons wanted to be sent into the pigs. That has always seemed weird to me. At other times (I think), Jesus just cast demons out. Do demons prefer to be in a living thing? Why would he (or we) care what the demons wanted? I guess it only matters in this narrative because the pigs then drown themselves. There are three points of interest in regard to the pigs:
Matthew 8:28-34 (Parallel in Mark 5:1-20 and Luke 8:26-39)
Matthew takes great pains to point out how scary and dangerous these men were (demon possessed, living in tombs, and extremely violent to the point at which no one could travel through the location), but the demons react with fear: “Have you come to torment us before it’s time?” Their expectation of Jesus was that he would torment them because they are know that day is coming, hence their words, "Have you come here to torture us before the appointed time?" (NIV).
A few verses back (Matthew 8:16) it said that "many who were demon-possessed were brought to him, and he drove out the spirits with a word." Here we see Jesus doing that literally: "Go!" he says, and they go.
I don’t understand why the demons wanted to be sent into the pigs. That has always seemed weird to me. At other times (I think), Jesus just cast demons out. Do demons prefer to be in a living thing? Why would he (or we) care what the demons wanted? I guess it only matters in this narrative because the pigs then drown themselves. There are three points of interest in regard to the pigs:
- Either the pigs (an unclean animal) preferred death to being demonized, or the demons didn’t want to be in a living thing, they just wanted to kill a living thing (which makes more sense to me as “the enemy come to steal, kill, and destroy – John 10:10).
- The Legio X Fretensis (see this Wikipedia article) was a Roman legion stationed in the vicinity or Jerusalem after the destruction of the temple (but could possibly have been there earlier) who marched under four emblems, one of which was a boar. In fact, the pigs in the narrative could have been there to provide meat for the Romans, who ate a lot of bacon (here is a reference to that). I have heard it suggested that one reason for including the event in the Gospels was to subversively (because of ongoing persecution) provide a commentary on the Roman occupation and persecution of Christians and of Jesus sufficiency in that situation.
- The economic impact of losing the pigs as well as the possible fear of Roman displeasure at the loss of the whole heard may explain why the local populace begged Jesus to go away rather than rejoicing in the miracle and asking him to do more of the same.
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