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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | DownloadBob Utley You Can Understand the Bible - Matthew 12:43 - 12:45
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This Chapter Verse Commentaries:
NASB (UPDATED) TEXT: Mat_12:43-45
43"Now when the unclean spirit goes out of a man, it passes through waterless places seeking rest, and does not find it. 44Then it says, 'I will return to my house from which I came'; and when it comes, it finds it unoccupied, swept, and put in order. 45Then it goes and takes along with it seven other spirits more wicked than itself, and they go in and live there; and the last state of that man becomes worse than the first. That is the way it will also be with this evil generation."
Mat_12:43 "the unclean spirit" See the two Special Topics: Demonic (Unclean Spirits) at Mat_10:1.
▣ "waterless places" In the OT the desert was the haunt of the demonic (i.e., Azazel in Leviticus 16 and desert animals in Isa_13:21; Isa_34:14).
Mat_12:44-45 This passage has three possible meanings.
1. the Jewish exorcists performed exorcisms without personal faith, and the demonic spirit returned
2. it is an allusion to national Israel in the sense of their rejection of idol worship, but without replacing it with a faith relationship to YHWH
3. it referred to the preaching of John the Baptist, whom they accepted as being from God, while rejecting Jesus
The last condition was far worse than the immediate problem (cf. 2Pe_2:20-22).