Mark 5:17

Mark 5:17, in plain English

And then something heartbreaking happens: instead of celebrating the man's freedom, the townspeople beg Jesus to leave. They're more upset about the pigs than amazed by the miracle.

Why it's here

Fear and the cost of change made the people push Jesus away. It's a sobering reminder that encountering God sometimes disrupts our comfortable arrangements.

Who's speaking

The people of the region ask Jesus to go away.

Where it sits in the story

The crowd chooses familiarity over freedom, comfort over the presence of God. It's a warning for all of us: sometimes we reject the very thing that could transform our lives.

The scholarly reading

The people's response — begging (erxanto parakalein) Jesus to leave their region — reveals that they value economic stability (the lost pigs) over spiritual liberation. Their fear of Jesus' disruptive power outweighs gratitude.

Language and setting

This rejection foreshadows broader Gentile and Jewish resistance to Jesus throughout Mark. The verb parakaleo ('beg') ironically mirrors the demons' begging in v.10-12.

Voice

The townspeople collectively plead with Jesus to depart from their territory.

Significance

Instead of welcoming the miracle-worker, the people beg Jesus to leave. The cost of his presence — disruption, loss, confrontation with the supernatural — is more than they want to bear.

15When they came to Jesus, they saw the man who had been possessed by the legion of demons sitting there, clothed and in his right mind; and they were afraid.

16Those who had seen it described what had happened to the demon-possessed man and also to the pigs.

17And the people began to beg Jesus to leave their region.

18As He was getting into the boat, the man who had been possessed by the demons begged to go with Him.

19But Jesus would not allow him. “Go home to your own people,” He said, “and tell them how much the Lord has done for you, and what mercy He has shown you.”

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.