The Gerasene Demoniac (5:1–20)
They went across the lake to the region of the Gerasenes (5:1). Gerasa, modern Jerash, was thirty miles from the lake. That distance from the sea probably prompted the textual variants locating the incident at Gadara or Gergesa. Some have suggested that the original reference was to a town that is now called Kersa or Koursi, which was later mistaken for the better-known Gerasa, a member of the Decapolis. Most likely, however, this is territory controlled by Gerasa, which extends to the Sea of Galilee.
GALILEE
Gergesa and Gadara were located east of the Sea of Galilee. Jerash was about 40 miles southeast of the sea (off this map).
This man lived in the tombs, and no one could bind him any more, not even with a chain (5:3). Mark emphasizes both the fierce strength of the man, who could not be subdued even with chains, and the drastic nature of his possession, which drove him to lacerate himself. In the New Testament, demoniacs are never aggressive, unless one interferes with them. Rather, they are victims who need an external power to liberate them from their thralldom.
This demonized soul, screaming in his tortured isolation, lives in the unclean place of the dead and has become himself a dwelling place for unclean spirits. Tombs were frequently located in caves and were known as haunts for demons.117 The man fits the four characteristics of madness found in rabbinic literature: running about at night, staying overnight in burial places, tearing apart one’s clothes, and destroying what one has been given.118
What do you want with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? Swear to God that you won’t torture me! (5:7). Unlike humans, who never quite fathom the reality of the divine breaking into human history (4:41), the unclean spirits always recognize Jesus’ divine origin and his threat to them (1:24; 3:11; see James 2:19). Ancient listeners to this account would have recognized the irony that these demons attempt to resist exorcism with gimmicks from an exorcist’s bag of tricks. They attempt to control Jesus by pronouncing aloud his holy name. Knowing the names of demons was believed to give one control over them.119 Ironically, they try to invoke the name of God to protect themselves.
“What is your name?” … “My name is Legion” (5:9). Jesus counters these diversionary tactics by asking for the demon’s name. The unclean spirits evade the question by giving a number instead of a name. “Legion” was the term for a Roman regiment commanded by a senator of praetorian rank and generally consisting of 5,400 foot soldiers and 120 horsemen. The man was possessed by an army of demons.
The demons begged Jesus, “Send us among the pigs; allow us to go into them” (5:12). Ancients understood that demons always want to inhabit something rather than wander about aimlessly.120 Some were thought to be land demons, who would be destroyed in water. In the Testament of Solomon 5:11 (see 11:6), a demon about to be exorcised pleads: “Do not condemn me to water.”
The enormously large herd of 2,000 pigs grubbing on the hillside must have belonged to a swine cooperative and marks this as a pagan area. Isaiah lumps pork eaters, tomb dwellers, and demon worshipers together (Isa. 65:3–4). Demons try to destroy whatever they inhabit and never leave their victims quietly (Mark 1:26; 9:26). When Jesus grants the demons’ request to enter into the pigs, these very un-herdlike animals stampede down the bank and into the waters, where Jesus has just demonstrated his dominion (4:39, 41). The text assumes that both animals and demons are destroyed in the sea.
This story would have evoked glee in a Jewish audience. Pigs were unclean animals to them (Lev. 11:7; Deut. 14:8) and were sacrificed in some pagan cults. More significantly, swine called up memories of the torture of martyrs in the days of Antiochus Epiphanes. He had polluted the temple by sacrificing swine on the altar and attempted to eradicate Jewish distinctives with a savage campaign of persecution (1 Macc. 1:41–61). During this time, abstaining from eating pork became compelling proof of loyalty to God.121 Swine were thus associated with pagan attempts to abolish Judaism.
Those reading this story after the destruction of Jerusalem may have made another connection. The Tenth Roman Legion (Fretensis) took part in the sieges of Jerusalem and Masada and was stationed in Jerusalem after its fall. Its standards bore the image of a wild boar. According to Josephus, it had a complement of a thousand horses and two thousand foot soldiers.122 Many Jews would have liked nothing better than to see this Roman legion—guilty of defiling the land, destroying the holy city, and killing and enslaving thousands—driven into the sea.
So the man went away and began to tell in the Decapolis how much Jesus had done for him (5:20). The Decapolis was a league of free Greek cities under the protection of the Roman governor of Syria: Damascus, Raphana, Dion, Canantha, Scythopolis, Gadar, Hippos, Pella, Gerasa, and Philadelphia. The great calm that came over the sea matches the great calm that now governs the man, sitting quietly and fully clothed at Jesus’ feet. The man’s deliverance will spread the word into the heavily pagan Decapolis.
THE REGION OF THE DECAPOLIS
Jairus’ Daughter and the Woman with the Flow of Blood (5:21–43)
Then one of the synagogue rulers, named Jairus, came there (5:22). Jairus is a male leader of the synagogue and Mark identifies him by name. The woman with the flow of blood is nameless, and her complaint renders her ritually unclean, making her unfit to enter into a synagogue or the temple. The two individuals come from opposite ends of the social and purity spectrum.
And a woman was there who had been subject to bleeding for twelve years (5:25). The text does not specify the nature of the woman’s loss of blood, but we can presume that it was related to uterine bleeding. Menstruation was a normal part of life that, nevertheless, made a woman unclean and confined her to home (see Ezek. 36:17). Leviticus 15:19–24 deals with normal female discharges. Her family was to refrain from lying in her bed, sitting on her seat, or touching her. Those contaminated by her had to purify themselves by bathing and laundering their clothes and remained unclean until the evening.
Outside of Judaism, Pliny reported that the touch of a menstruating woman was considered harmful.123 An extreme view is found in the sectarian Ramban, who said that such women were not to approach people or speak with them because their breath is harmful and their gaze detrimental. Learned men were forbidden to greet a menstruant, or to walk after her and tread in her footsteps.124
This woman’s condition was abnormal, making her unclean all the time. It would not have been kept secret in a small village society. She was subject to regulations listed in Leviticus 15:25–31, which sought to prevent impurity from infringing on the realm of God’s holiness. As a bearer of such impurity, she was not permitted to participate in the religious feasts or enter the temple precincts,125 and she was excluded from normal social intercourse for twelve years. Such an affliction must have caused her physical, psychological, social, and economic suffering. Jesus’ healing demonstrates that God’s holiness cleanses human impurity and restores individuals to wholeness.
She had suffered a great deal under the care of many doctors and had spent all she had (5:26). Only the wealthy could afford the care of physicians, and now this woman has become impoverished (cf. Tobit 2:10). Doctors were not always revered.126 We find complaints about their fees,127 statements that even the best of doctors are destined for hell,128 and advice not to stay in a town where the leading citizen is a physician.129 A list of procedures for curing a woman who suffers from a flow of blood appears in the Babylonian Talmud. Possibly this poor woman endured some of them:
Let them procure three kapiza of Persian onions, boil them in wine, make her drink it, and say to her, “Cease your discharge.” But if not, she should be made to sit at cross-roads, hold a cup of wine in her hand, and a man comes up from behind, frightens her and exclaims, “Cease your discharge!” But if not, a handful of cummin, a handful of saffron, and a handful of fenugreek are brought and boiled in wine, she is made to drink it, and they say to her, “Cease your discharge.” But if not, let sixty pieces of sealing clay of a [wine] vessel be brought, and let them smear her and say to her, “Cease your discharge.”
It offers five more remedies; the last suggests fetching a barley grain from the dung of a white mule. When she eats it and holds it in one day, her discharge will cease for one day, if for two days, her discharge will cease for two days, if for three days, it will cease forever.130
When she heard about Jesus, she came up behind him in the crowd and touched his cloak (5:27). In popular belief, the clothes of holy men, and especially the fringes, were thought to possess miraculous power. Touching Jesus’ garment is mentioned four times here (5:27, 28, 30, 31). Already in 3:10, many who suffered diseases pushed forward to touch him. In 6:56, they beg him to let them touch the hem of his cloak, and all who touch him are healed. The belief that the power of a person is transferred to what he wears or touches is also found in Acts 5:15 and 19:12. To touch a man in public would have been highly irregular, and this woman tries to do it on the sly.
Daughter, your faith has healed you (5:34). God controls the power residing in Jesus, for the emphasis in this story is placed on the woman’s faith, not on Jesus’ power. Faith transfers divine power to those who are utterly powerless. When a woman was healed from this type of affliction, she was supposed to bring a sacrifice (Lev. 15:29–30), but Jesus makes no mention of this as he did for the leper (Mark 1:44). The miracle nicely dovetails with the next miracle. The woman’s faith in Jesus reverses the loss of blood that betokened the ebbing away of life. Resurrection awaits all those who trust in Jesus, but even now they can see the forces of death being held at bay through their faith.
Your daughter is dead (5:35). Child mortality rate was high in this era. Sixty percent of children who survived childbirth died by their mid-teens.
Jesus saw a commotion, with people crying and wailing loudly (5:38). Burial was swift, usually on the same day of death, and relatives, neighbors, and mourners were employed for the occasion and gathered quickly to make loud, theatrical demonstrations of sorrow (see Jer. 9:17–19).
He took her by the hand and said to her, “Talitha koum!” (5:41). Talitha koum is an ordinary Aramaic phrase made memorable by the extraordinary miracle.131 By providing the translation, “Little girl, rise,” Mark makes it clear that it was not some arcane, magical formula. Eating food proves that the child is really alive and not some disembodied spirit (cf. Luke 24:39–43).