Legion and the Little Girl
As soon as Jesus got out of the boat, He was met by a man with an unclean spirit, who was coming from the tombs. Mark 5:2 · Berean Standard Bible
The second Jesus steps out of the boat, a man with an evil spirit comes running from the tombs to meet him. This poor man has been living among the dead.
Living in tombs meant total isolation from community, family, and normal life. This man is as broken and outcast as a person can be.
Mark sets the scene for one of the most dramatic encounters in the Gospels.
There's something poignant about this: Jesus just crossed a deadly storm, and the first person he meets is someone everyone else has given up on — a man living among graves.
Immediately (euthys) upon disembarking, Jesus encounters a man with an 'unclean spirit' (pneuma akatharton) emerging from the tombs — a place of ritual impurity in Jewish law, compounding the man's defilement.
The tombs as a dwelling place symbolize the man's association with death and complete social exclusion. Mark's characteristic 'immediately' heightens the dramatic pace.
Mark narrates the encounter between Jesus and the demonized man.
The moment Jesus steps off the boat, a tormented man rushes toward him from among the tombs. This man is the very reason Jesus crossed the storm-tossed sea.
1On the other side of the sea, they arrived in the region of the Gerasenes.
2As soon as Jesus got out of the boat, He was met by a man with an unclean spirit, who was coming from the tombs.
3This man had been living in the tombs and could no longer be restrained, even with chains.
4Though he was often bound with chains and shackles, he had broken the chains and shattered the shackles. Now there was no one with the strength to subdue him.
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.
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