Mark 5:12

Mark 5:12, in plain English

The demons beg Jesus, 'Send us into the pigs — let us go into them.' They'd rather inhabit animals than face whatever Jesus had planned for them.

Why it's here

This request shows how desperate the demons are. They know they can't stay in the man, and they're terrified of the alternative. So they bargain for the pigs.

Who's speaking

The demons plead with Jesus for permission to enter the pig herd.

Where it sits in the story

Even in defeat, the demons try to negotiate. But notice: they need Jesus' permission to do anything. They can't move without his say-so.

The scholarly reading

The demons request (parekalesan) to be sent into the pigs rather than face banishment or the abyss. Their preference for any host over disembodiment reflects ancient Near Eastern beliefs about unclean spirits seeking habitation (cf. Matt 12:43-45).

Language and setting

The demons' request to enter the pigs — themselves unclean animals — creates a fitting symbolic alignment between unclean spirits and unclean creatures in Jewish categorical thinking.

Voice

The demons make their specific request to Jesus, bargaining for the pigs as an alternative host.

Significance

The demons propose a deal: send us into the pigs instead of banishing us entirely. Even their negotiation is an acknowledgment that Jesus holds total authority over their fate.

10And he begged Jesus repeatedly not to send them out of that region.

11There on the nearby hillside a large herd of pigs was feeding.

12So the demons begged Jesus, “Send us to the pigs, so that we may enter them.”

13He gave them permission, and the unclean spirits came out and went into the pigs, and the herd of about two thousand rushed down the steep bank into the sea and drowned in the water.

14Those tending the pigs ran off and reported this in the town and countryside, and the people went out to see what had happened.

Read all of Mark 5 — A man possessed by a thousand demons, a woman who has bled for twelve years, a father whose daughter has just died — all healed in a single chapter.