Online Resource Library
Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | DownloadHeinrich Meyer Commentary - Matthew 8:31 - 8:31
(Show All Books | Show All Chapters)
This Chapter Verse Commentaries:
Mat_8:31. Εἰς … χοίρων ] They mean: into the bodies of the swine that were feeding. To the unclean spirits in the possessed Jews, anticipating, as they certainly do, their inevitable expulsion, it appears desirable, as well as most easily attainable, that they should find an abode for themselves in impure animals. Eisenmenger, entdecktes Judenth. II. p. 447 f.
The request implies that the demoniacs considered themselves to be possessed by a multitude of evil spirits, a circumstance noticed in detail by Mark and Luke, from which, however, it may be inferred that the form of the tradition is not the same as the one made use of in our Gospel. The former is so peculiar, that, had Matthew only abridged it (Ewald), he would scarcely have omitted so entirely its characteristic features. On the contrary, he followed another version of the story which he happened to light upon, and which likewise mentioned two demoniacs instead of one; comp. on Mat_8:28. Probably this is also the source to which we are to trace the expression δαίμονες , which does not occur anywhere else in Matthew, and which in Mar_5:12 is of doubtful critical authority.