Luke Chapter 4 verse 33 Holy Bible

Pulpit Commentary

Pulpit CommentaryVerse 33. - And in the synagogue there was a man, which had a spirit of an unclean devil. After the general picture of Jesus' life and work in Capenaum, St. Luke proceeds to give a detailed account of the way in which one sabbath day was spent, no doubt intending us to understand it as a specimen of the ordinary sabbath-day work of the Master. We meet with here, for the first time in our Gospel, one of those unhappy persons described as either "having a spirit of an unclean devil," or as "possessed with a devil" or "devils," or in similar terms, generally signifying "demoniacs," men or women - apparently a class by themselves, directly under the influence of some evil spirit. Who, now, were these unhappy beings with whom Jesus in his ministry of mercy seems often to have come in contact? Many of these "demoniacs" mentioned in the Gospels would nowadays certainly be classed under the ordinary category of the "sick." They seem to have been simply afflicted with disease of one kind or other; for instance, the epileptic child mentioned by St. Luke (Luke 9:39), or dumbness again (Matthew 9:32), blindness (Matthew 12:22), and insanity, among other instances, are ascribed to demoniac agency. Are we, then, simply to regard these cases, not as exceptional displays of diabolical power, but as instances of sickness and disease which still exist among us? and to suppose that our Lord, in speaking of devils possessing these sick ones, accommodated himself to the popular belief, and spoke of these afflicted persons in the way men were able to understand? for it is disputable that Judaism in the days of Jesus of Nazareth ascribed to "demons," or "devils," much of the suffering and woe with which men are afflicted under the common name of disease. The Talmud, which well represents the Jewish teaching of that time, has endless allusions to evil spirits, or devils, who were permitted to work evil and mischief on the bodies and even on the souls of men. Josephus, the contemporary historian, narrates that a lamb grew at Machaerus, the wool of which had the power of expelling devils; and he toils how he was the eye-witness of the cure of a man possessed of a devil by means of a ring containing a root which had similar properties; this, he says, took place in the presence of the Emperor Vespasian ('Ant.,' 8:02, 5; 'Bell. Jud.,' 7:06, 3). Many believed that these demons, or devils, were the souls of the wicked who returned to earth after death, and sought a new home for themselves in the bodies of the living. This popular belief in demoniacal agency is mentioned by Justin Martyr ('Apol.,' 1.), and even seems to have lingered in some parts as late as Chrysostom. But such a theory - which represents Jesus in his miraculous cures accommodating himself to popular belief, and speaking of the sufferers as possessed by devils which really had no existence save in imagination - is not only quite foreign to the transparently truthful character of all the Master's words and works, but is perfectly incompatible with the narratives given us by the evangelists of the cures in question. In these, in several instances, the devils are not only spoken to, but they speak themselves - they answer questions, they even prefer requests. Jesus, too, gives his own power to cast out devils (Luke 9:1), and to tread on all the power of the enemy (Luke 10:19). He even, in St. Mark (Mark 9:29), is represented as distinguishing a special class of devils over whom a mastery could be obtained alone through prayer and fasting. Evidently the Holy Spirit, who guided the writers of those memoirs of the apostles we call the Gospels, intended that a marked distinction should be impressed upon the readers of the apostolic memoirs as existing between ordinary maladies of the flesh and those terrible and various scourges which the presence of devils inflicted upon those hapless beings in whose bodies, for some mysterious reason, they had been permitted to take up their habitation. The whole question is fraught with difficulties. Dean Plumptre suggests that perhaps we possess not the data for an absolutely certain and exhaustive answer. It seems, on the whole - while not denying the possible presence of these evil spirits at different times of the world's history occupying the bodies and distracting the souls of men - best to assume that these devils possessed special and peculiar power over men at that period when Jesus walked among us. By this means, as Godet well says, Jesus could be proclaimed externally and visibly as the Conqueror of the enemy of men (and of his legions of evil messengers). That period, when the Lord taught among us, was a time when, it is generally conceded, moral and social evil had reached its highest point of development. Since that age the power of these unhappy spirits of evil has been, if not destroyed, at least restrained by the influence - greater, perhaps, than men choose to acknowledge - of the Master's religion or by the direct command of the Master himself.

Ellicott's Commentary

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers(33-37) And in the synagogue.--See Notes on Mark 1:23-27. The narrative, as being common to these two Gospels, and not found in St. Matthew, may be looked on as having probably been communicated by one Evangelist to the other when they met at Rome (Colossians 4:10; Colossians 4:14). See Introduction to St. Mark.