5:9,10
The demon having failed to gain any power over Jesus, despite knowing His name, Jesus then told the demon to reveal its name. The demon replied “My name is Legion for we are many”. So there were actually many demons in the man. This could explain why there was such a battle. Interestingly in v7 the demon had sought to use the name of God to stop Jesus “tormenting” them. It was believed that demons, somewhat like soldiers, were attached to certain geographical locations. Note it says “he begged them ...” While there are many spirits in this man, it seems that they speak as a single entity.
5:11,12
Pigs, of course, were unclean animals (Lev 11:7,8), but as noted earlier this was a largely Gentile area. The spirits begged to be allowed to go into the pigs. Note that it is now the spirits speaking as a group. It may be that some the “he” sentences are the man speaking under the control of the demons.
5:13
This is not a good verse for animal lovers! Jesus gave the demons permission to enter the pigs. There were about two thousand pigs, so the succeeding events would seem to imply that there were about two thousand spirits, unless some of the pigs were just following a herd instinct. Anyway, the move into the pigs did not end well for the spirits, nor for the pigs. They rushed down a steep bank and into the sea, where the pigs drowned. Exactly what happened to the spirits isn’t made clear, but presumably it didn’t do them any good.
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