New Testament · Gospel

Mark 5:4

Legion and the Little Girl

Though 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. Mark 5:4 · Berean Standard Bible

What It Means

Mark 5:4, in plain English

People had tried chains and shackles over and over, but he broke through every one. No person was strong enough to control him. He was completely out of reach of human help.

Why it's here

Mark repeats the detail about chains to drive home the point: this isn't a problem human effort can solve. It sets the stage for how astonishing Jesus' intervention will be.

Who's speaking

Mark emphasizes the futility of every human attempt to help this man.

Where it sits in the story

Every attempt to restrain him failed. The community had tried everything. This detail makes what Jesus is about to do even more extraordinary — where chains failed, a word will succeed.

A Closer Look

The scholarly reading

The repeated failure of chains (halyseis) and shackles (pedais) to bind the man, along with his superhuman ability to break them, demonstrates the extraordinary power of the demonic forces possessing him.

Language and setting

The graphic detail — 'broken the chains and shattered the shackles' — serves Mark's literary purpose of emphasizing that only divine power can overcome what human force cannot. 'No one had the strength' (ischyen) contrasts with Jesus' power.

Voice

Mark continues his vivid description of the demonized man's condition.

Significance

Time after time, people tried to bind this man with chains and shackles, and time after time he shattered them with supernatural strength. No one on earth could subdue him.

In context

Mark 5:2–6

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.

5Night and day in the tombs and in the mountains he kept crying out and cutting himself with stones.

6When the man saw Jesus from a distance, he ran and fell on his knees before 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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