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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comAdam Clarke Commentary - Luke 9:39 - 9:39
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A spirit taketh him, and he suddenly crieth out - Πνευμα λαμβανει αυτον. This very phrase is used by heathen writers, when they speak of supernatural influence. The following, from Herodotus, will make the matter, I hope, quite plain. Speaking of Scyles, king of the Scythians, who was more fond of Grecian manners and customs than of those of his countrymen, and who desired to be privately initiated into the Bacchic mysteries, he adds: “Now because the Scythians reproach the Greeks with these Bacchanals, and say that to imagine a god driving men into paroxysms of madness is not agreeable to sound reason, a certain Borysthenian, while the king was performing the ceremonies of initiation, went out, and discovered the matter to the Scythian army in these words: ‘Ye Scythians ridicule us because we celebrate the Bacchanals, και ἡμεας ὁ θεος ΛΑΜΒΑΝΕΙ, and the God Possesses Us: but now the same demon, οὑτος ὁ δαιμων, has Taken Possession, ΛΕΛΑΒΗΚΕ, of your king, for he celebrates the Bacchanals, and ὑπο του θεου μαινεται, is filled with fury by this god.” Herodot. l. iv. p. 250, edit. Gale.
This passage is exceedingly remarkable. The very expressions which Luke uses here are made use of by Herodotus. A demon, δαιμων, is the agent in the Greek historian, and a demon is the agent in the case mentioned in the text, Luk 9:42. In both cases it is said the demon possesses the persons, and the very same word, λαμβανει is used to express this in both historians. Both historians show that the possessions were real, by the effects produced in the persons: the heathen king rages with fury through the influence of the demon called the god Bacchus; the person in the text screams out, (κραζει), is greatly convulsed, and foams at the mouth. Here was a real possession, and such as often took place among those who were worshippers of demons.