We now come to the encounter with the demon-possessed man. The man lived among the tombs and went about naked. He was someone whom no one would want to have anything to do with. As well as being ritually unclean because of his various activities, he is definitely someone you hope not to meet.
When he saw Jesus he fell at his feet, pleading not to be tortured. He also recognised who Jesus was. It seems that Jesus had commanded the evil spirit to come out of the man. The demon had given the man supernatural strength and even chains could not restrain him.
Jesus asks the demon its name. So it seems that it was the demon who was controlling the man and speaking through him, rather than the man himself. We see here a demonstration of James' words that even the demons recognise who Jesus is and tremble with fear (James 2:19). The spirit then declares his name to be Legion because there were lots of him
The demons knew their ultimate destiny was to be thrown into the abyss, and so pleaded to be sent into the pigs. Since pork was an unclean food the pigs probably shouldn't have been there. Jesus acquiesced to their request, but it didn't do any good as the pigs proceeded to throw themselves into the sea.
There are two interesting and differing outcomes to this. The man himself is restored. He was now dressed and in his right mind. He went around telling people what Jesus had done for him. The townsfolk pleaded with Jesus to go away. Maybe they felt condemned because of their keeping of pigs (in contravention of the Jewish law).
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