Then they sailed to the region of the Gerasenes, across the lake from Galilee.
Berean Standard Bible · CC0
Greek — tap a word ↓
Kai katepleusan eis tēn chōran tōn Gerasēnōn hētis estin antipera tēs Galilaias
The Fallible · Synthetic · Study Bible
The Demons and the Pigs
Luke 8:26–39 — The Demons and the Pigs. Each verse below carries the full apparatus: the Berean Standard Bible, the vocalized original (tap any word), and a parsed breakdown of every term transcribed from the interlinear. Synthesized commentary, canonical threads, and the reading of Christ gather at the end, over the whole unit.
Then they sailed to the region of the Gerasenes, across the lake from Galilee.
Berean Standard Bible · CC0
Greek — tap a word ↓
Kai katepleusan eis tēn chōran tōn Gerasēnōn hētis estin antipera tēs Galilaias
When Jesus stepped ashore, He was met by a demon-possessed man from the town. For a long time this man had not worn clothing or lived in a house, but he stayed in the tombs.
Berean Standard Bible · CC0
Greek — tap a word ↓
de autō exelthonti epi tēn gēn hypēntēsen tis echōn daimonia anēr ek tēs poleōs kai hikanō chronō ouk enedysato himation kai ouk emenen en oikia all’ en tois mnēmasin
When the man saw Jesus, he cried out and fell down before Him, shouting in a loud voice, “What do You want with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? I beg You not to torture me!”
Berean Standard Bible · CC0
Greek — tap a word ↓
de Idōn ton Iēsoun anakraxas prosepesen autō kai megalē phōnē eipen Ti soi kai emoi Iēsou Huie tou tou Hypsistou Theou deomai sou mē basanisēs me
For Jesus had commanded the unclean spirit to come out of the man. Many times it had seized him, and though he was bound with chains and shackles, he had broken the chains and been driven by the demon into solitary places.
Berean Standard Bible · CC0
Greek — tap a word ↓
gar parēngellen tō tō akathartō pneumati exelthein apo tou anthrōpou gar pollois chronois synērpakei auton kai edesmeueto phylassomenos halysesin kai pedais kai diarrēssōn ta desma ēlauneto hypo tou daimoniou eis tas erēmous
“What is your name?” Jesus asked. “Legion,” he replied, because many demons had gone into him.
Berean Standard Bible · CC0
Greek — tap a word ↓
Ti estin soi onoma de ho Iēsous Epērōtēsen auton Legiōn De ho eipen hoti polla daimonia eisēlthen eis auton
And the demons kept begging Jesus not to order them to go into the Abyss.
Berean Standard Bible · CC0
Greek — tap a word ↓
kai parekaloun auton hina mē epitaxē autois apelthein eis tēn abysson
There on the hillside a large herd of pigs was feeding. So the demons begged Jesus to let them enter the pigs, and He gave them permission.
Berean Standard Bible · CC0
Greek — tap a word ↓
de ekei en tō orei hikanōn agelē choirōn Ēn boskomenē kai parekalesan auton hina epitrepsē autois eiselthein eis ekeinous kai epetrepsen autois
Then the demons came out of the man and went into the pigs, and the herd rushed down the steep bank into the lake and was drowned.
Berean Standard Bible · CC0
Greek — tap a word ↓
de ta daimonia Exelthonta apo tou anthrōpou eisēlthon eis tous choirous kai hē agelē hōrmēsen kata tou krēmnou eis tēn limnēn kai apepnigē
When those tending the pigs saw what had happened, they ran off and reported this in the town and countryside.
Berean Standard Bible · CC0
Greek — tap a word ↓
de hoi boskontes Idontes to gegonos ephygon kai apēngeilan eis tēn polin kai eis tous agrous
So the people went out to see what had happened. They came to Jesus and found the man whom the demons had left, sitting at Jesus’ feet, clothed and in his right mind; and they were afraid.
Berean Standard Bible · CC0
Greek — tap a word ↓
de exēlthon idein to gegonos kai ēlthon pros ton Iēsoun kai heuron ton anthrōpon hou ta daimonia exēlthen aph’ kathēmenon para tou Iēsou tous podas himatismenon kai sōphronounta kai ephobēthēsan
Meanwhile, those who had seen it reported how the demon-possessed man had been healed.
Berean Standard Bible · CC0
Greek — tap a word ↓
de hoi idontes apēngeilan autois pōs ho daimonistheis esōthē
Then all the people of the region of the Gerasenes asked Jesus to depart from them, because great fear had taken hold of them. So He got into the boat and started back.
Berean Standard Bible · CC0
Greek — tap a word ↓
Kai hapan to plēthos tēs perichōrou tōn Gerasēnōn ērōtēsen auton apelthein ap’ autōn hoti megalō phobō syneichonto de autos embas eis ploion hypestrepsen
The man whom the demons had left begged to go with Jesus. But He sent him away, saying,
Berean Standard Bible · CC0
Greek — tap a word ↓
de ho anēr hou ta daimonia exelēlythei aph’ Edeito autou einai syn autō de apelysen auton legōn
“Return home and describe how much God has done for you.” So the man went away and proclaimed all over the town how much Jesus had done for him.
Berean Standard Bible · CC0
Greek — tap a word ↓
Hypostrephe eis sou ton oikon kai diēgou hosa ho Theos epoiēsen soi kai apēlthen kēryssōn holēn kath’ tēn polin hosa ho Iēsous epoiēsen autō
The verse-by-verse work is done. What follows gathers the whole unit. All three layers below are machine-generated (⚙). Weigh them; they have no authority.
AI synthesis — woven from the public-domain voices above and the original text; generated and fallible.
Fresh from stilling the storm, Jesus κατέπλευσαν “sails down” to the shore over against Galilee. Ellicott hears Luke explaining the geography to foreigners; Cambridge and Pulpit spend their energy on the place name (Gadarenes, Gerasenes, Gergesenes), which the manuscripts never settle. The first person to meet Him is a man “having demons” (ἔχων δαιμόνια), unclothed, without a house, living in the μνήμασιν, the tombs. Cambridge explains the tombs as necessity (no asylums existed); Pulpit as the solitude the frenzy craved, in places “polluted... for the living.” Geneva states the episode's theme at the door: Christ's “heavenly power was appointed to deliver men from the slavery of the devil.”
The man shrieks (ἀνακράξας), falls before Jesus, and confesses more than the disciples have: “Son of the Most High God.” Cambridge thinks the title was customary in exorcisms and notes its only other use of Jesus is Luke 1:32. Godet, quoted by Pulpit, reads the outburst as the effect of “the holy, calm, gentle majesty” on a disordered soul. Verse 29 lays bare the history: seized often, chained and guarded (Cambridge's recovered detail), yet ἠλαύνετο, driven, “as a horse when he is spurred” (Geneva). Jesus asks a name; Cambridge calls it mercy, Plumptre (via Pulpit) a reminder that he once had a human name. The answer is a Roman word, Λεγιών. Then the many beg not to be sent into the ἄβυσσον; Ellicott, Benson, Gill and Cambridge agree this is the prison of spirits, not the lake.
Jesus ἐπέτρεψεν, permits; He does not command (Cambridge). The herd rushes down the precipice and is ἀπεπνίγη, choked. The voices divide on the why. Pulpit confesses ignorance about the demons' aim and sees in the loss a rebuke to Jews keeping swine; Cambridge doubts the owners were Jews and answers the property objection with the worth of “a human soul,” adding Bacon's line that Christ's miracles were all beneficence. Gill simply records that the spirits left “sore against their wills.” The tool notes only what the Greek shows: the same rare verb of choking appears in 8:7 for the thorns.
The herdsmen flee and report; the townspeople come out and find the man καθήμενον, sitting at Jesus' feet, ἱματισμένον, clothed, and σωφρονοῦντα, of sound mind. Ellicott places him in Mary of Bethany's posture (Luke 10:39); Gill calls it the posture of a disciple. Witnesses report how he was ἐσώθη, “saved,” Luke's word for healing and salvation alike. The result is fear: φόβῳ μεγάλῳ συνείχοντο, “they were gripped by great fear” (Ellicott: “oppressed”). Cambridge and Pulpit say flatly that they preferred their swine to Christ; Gill that they would rather keep the devils than Christ. Henry draws the warning: “Christ will not stay with those who slight him.”
Three petitions have now been made: the demons begged (parekaloun) and were granted; the townspeople asked (ērōtēsen) and were granted; the healed man begs (ἐδεῖτο) to be with Him and is refused. Jesus ἀπέλυσεν, releases him, with a commission: return home and recount “how much God has done.” He goes and heralds (κηρύσσων) “how much Jesus had done.” Gill reads Jesus' wording as tacitly claiming deity; Pulpit says that to the restored man “Jesus was at once his Deliverer and his God.” Cambridge sees why silence was not commanded here: Jesus was not returning, so the report could not draw crowds.
⚙ Read by itself, Scripture here sets out a contest of power with no contest in it. The Legion is many and organized, yet it bows, begs, and moves only by leave; Jesus never raises His voice. The text joins the authority Luke has just shown over wind and water (8:24 to 25) to authority over the unseen powers, and it names that authority from the enemy's own mouth: “Son of the Most High God.”
Read with the rest of Scripture, the scene measures true deliverance by its fruit: a man unclothed is clothed, a man driven sits, a man without a house is sent home, and a man whose name was a regiment becomes a witness. The decisive failure in the passage is not the demons' (they are expected to resist) but the town's, which sees a man restored and asks the Restorer to leave. The command to tell “what God has done,” obeyed as telling “what Jesus had done,” is the passage's own clue to who Jesus is. This is the tool's fallible reading; test it against the text, especially where the commentators disagree (the swine's owners, the place name, the demons' motive), which the text itself leaves open.
Everyone in the story who begs Jesus gets what they ask, except the one man who asked to stay with Him; he is sent instead.
AI-generated connections. Each carries a verification badge with a recorded basis; contested links are flagged.
Mark 5:15 shares with this passage the rare loanword λεγεών (G3003) and the even rarer ἱματίζω (G2439), “clothed,” which the Verifier finds in only two verses: Mark 5:15 and Luke 8:35. With φοβέω (“they were afraid”) the three words form the same closing tableau in both Gospels. Ellicott notes repeatedly that Luke agrees with Mark against Matthew (one demoniac, the name Legion). This is a synoptic parallel, not a quotation of one by the other.
Mark 5:15
basis: Verifier: shared Greek lexemes G2439 ἱματίζω (in 2 vv), G3003 λεγεών (in 4 vv), G5399 φοβέω (in 92 vv); a synoptic parallel of the same event, not a citation
Mark 5:4 shares πέδη (G3976, “fetter,” found in only 2 verses) and ἅλυσις (G254, “chain,” in 10 verses). Mark stresses that no one had strength to subdue him; Luke adds that he was also kept under guard (Cambridge). Human binding failed in both accounts; the deliverance is by word alone.
Mark 5:4
basis: Verifier: shared Greek lexemes G3976 πέδη (in 2 vv), G254 ἅλυσις (in 10 vv); parallel account of the same event
The verb for the herd's death, ἀπεπνίγη (G638), occurs in only two verses, and the other is Luke 8:7: thorns grew up and choked the seed. ⚙ Within one chapter, Luke uses the word for what destroys the word in a hearer and for what destroys a herd driven by unclean powers; in v. 14 the thorns are explained as cares, riches and pleasures, which is also the reason the Gerasenes give Jesus up (Cambridge, Pulpit: they preferred their swine). The shared word is certain; that Luke intended the echo is the tool's suggestion and is offered as such.
Luke 8:7 · Luke 8:14
basis: Verifier: shared Greek lexeme G638 ἀποπνίγω (in 2 vv); the lexical link is confirmed, the interpretive link (thorns and swine) is novel ⚙ synthesis
Luke 4:33 to 34 is Luke's first exorcism: a man in the Capernaum synagogue ἀνέκραξεν (G349, in only 5 verses), with a demon (G1140), and cries “What to us and to You, Jesus?” then names Him “the Holy One of God.” Luke 8:28 repeats the outcry, the idiom and the confession, now among Gentile tombs. The pairing frames Jesus' authority as the same on both sides of the lake.
Luke 4:33 · Luke 4:34
basis: Verifier: shared Greek lexemes G349 ἀνακράζω (in 5 vv), G1140 δαιμόνιον (in 55 vv), G3173 μέγας (in 231 vv)
Luke 15:15 shares χώρα (region), χοῖρος (pig, in 12 verses) and βόσκω (to feed swine, in 9 verses). The prodigal sinks to feeding pigs in a far country; the demoniac lived among the same unclean animals in a Gentile region. Both end with a return home (15:20; 8:39). ⚙ This is a thematic resonance within Luke, not a quotation or a claimed authorial design.
Luke 15:15 · Luke 15:20
basis: Verifier: shared Greek lexemes G5519 χοῖρος (in 12 vv), G1006 βόσκω (in 9 vv), G5561 χώρα (in 28 vv); a shared motif of swine, foreign land and return, not a quotation
Acts 19:29 shares two rare verbs with this passage: συναρπάζω (G4884, “seize,” in 4 verses; v. 29 here) and ὁρμάω (G3729, “rush,” in 5 verses; v. 33 here). Both books come from Luke's hand, so the overlap is first his vocabulary. ⚙ The picture is still worth noting: a city seized by an idol's profit rushes as one, as the herd did. No allusion is claimed.
Acts 19:29
basis: Verifier: shared Greek lexemes G4884 συναρπάζω (in 4 vv), G3729 ὁρμάω (in 5 vv); same author's vocabulary, downgraded from verbal because no allusion is evident
Mark 5:1 and Matthew 8:28 narrate the same landing; the Verifier finds G1086 (in 3 verses) in Mark 5:1. But the manuscripts of all three Gospels vary among three names. Cambridge holds that Gergesenes is “almost certainly the right reading” in Luke and identifies the site with Kerzha opposite Capernaum; Pulpit agrees on the site; Ellicott and Gill record the variation without deciding. The printed text here reads Gerasenes, while the Strong's tag names Gergesene. The link is real; the label is not settled.
Mark 5:1 · Matthew 8:28
basis: Verifier: shared Greek lexeme G1086 Γεργεσηνός (in 3 vv), but the place name is a contested textual variant in all three Synoptics (Cambridge, Pulpit, Ellicott, Gill)
Pulpit cites Isaiah 65:3 to 4, where a people provoking the Lord sit among graves, spend nights in hidden places, and eat swine's flesh. Luke's scene gathers the same unclean elements: tombs, pigs, a life in the dark places. Isaiah 65:1 opens the same chapter with God found by those who did not seek Him (cited in Romans 10:20 of the Gentiles). ⚙ Because the link crosses from Hebrew to Greek, no shared Strong's number can verify it; it rests on a shared cluster of images and is offered as structural, not verbal.
Isaiah 65:3 · Isaiah 65:4 · Isaiah 65:1
basis: cross-Testament motif (tombs, swine, uncleanness), cited by Pulpit for v. 32; Hebrew to Greek, so no shared lexeme can be recorded; not a quotation
Benson, Ellicott and Cambridge all read ἄβυσσος in v. 31 by Revelation's “bottomless pit” (9:1 to 2, 11; 20:3), where the dragon is bound and sealed. Cambridge adds Romans 10:7 and (by a scanning error printed “Judges 6”) Jude 6. The demons ask not to be sent where Revelation shows Satan finally shut up.
Revelation 20:3 · Revelation 9:1 · Romans 10:7
basis: Verifier (pair Luke 8:31 / Revelation 20:3): shared Greek lexeme G12 ἄβυσσος (in 9 vv); also recorded by Benson, Ellicott and Cambridge; a shared rare term, not a quotation
AI-generated reading; weigh it against the text.
⚙ Gabriel announced that Mary's child “will be called Son of the Most High” (Luke 1:32); the next voice in Luke to give Jesus the title Ὑψίστου is a legion of demons (Cambridge: “Jesus is not so called elsewhere, except in Luke 1:32”). The disciples have just asked “Who then is this?” (8:25); the answer comes first from the kingdom that fears Him. That the demons' confession is true but not saving (James 2:19, cited by Cambridge) is the widely-held reading.
Luke 1:32 · Luke 8:25 · James 2:19
⚙ No one could bind the man; he broke chains and fetters (v. 29). Jesus explains His exorcisms in Luke 11:21 to 22: when a stronger man attacks the strong man, he overpowers him and divides his spoil. Isaiah 49:24 to 25 had asked whether captives can be taken from the mighty, and answered that the Lord Himself will do it. Here the captive is taken by a word. Geneva's note on v. 27 states the same: Christ's power “was appointed to deliver men from the slavery of the devil.” The strong-man reading of the exorcisms is widely held in the church's interpretation.
Luke 11:21 · Luke 11:22 · Isaiah 49:24 · Isaiah 49:25
⚙ Jesus commands: tell “how much ὁ Θεός has done for you”; the man goes and tells “how much ὁ Ἰησοῦς had done for him.” Luke lets the two lines stand side by side without correction. Gill: “none but God could effect such things, tacitly suggesting to him hereby, that he himself was God.” Pulpit: to the restored man, “Jesus was at once his Deliverer and his God.” The man's obedience is the passage's own confession, and the reading is long-standing.
Luke 8:39 · Mark 5:19 · Mark 5:20
⚙ The Legion begs not to be sent into the ἄβυσσον. Paul uses the same word of Christ: “Who will descend into the Abyss? (that is, to bring Christ up from the dead)” (Romans 10:7, cited by Cambridge at v. 31). The One the demons beg not to consign them there would Himself go down into the depths of death and come up again, and Revelation 20:1 to 3 shows the Abyss finally holding the dragon. This connection of the two uses of abyssos is the tool's own typological suggestion; it is not made by the sources in the brief.
Romans 10:7 · Revelation 20:1 · Revelation 20:3
⚙ Jesus does not stay on the east shore, but He leaves a witness: the man heralds (κηρύσσων) through the whole city, and Mark 5:20 says through the Decapolis (Geneva and Gill note Gadara was a Decapolis town). Isaiah 65:1, “I was found by those who did not seek Me,” which Paul applies to the Gentiles (Romans 10:20), fits a man who came to Jesus unbidden from the tombs of a Gentile district. Reading the man as a forerunner of the Gentile mission is a common modern reading but is not stated by the voices in this brief; it is marked novel here.
Mark 5:20 · Isaiah 65:1 · Romans 10:20
The biblical text is the Berean Standard Bible (BSB), public domain (CC0). Hebrew/Greek text, transliteration, morphology and Strong’s are transcribed from the Berean interlinear (CC0) + Strong’s lexicons (PD); the literal renderings, divergence notes, word notes and all synthesis are this tool’s own work (⚙) — fallible; verify them.
Named voices, quoted verbatim from public-domain works:
Text. The printed Greek of vv. 26 and 37 reads Gerasēnōn, but the Strong's tag is G1086, glossed “a Gergesene.” Cambridge, Pulpit, Ellicott and Gill record that the three Synoptics' manuscripts vary among Gadarenes, Gerasenes and Gergesenes; Cambridge (following Tischendorf) prefers Gergesenes in Luke. The tool does not decide. Cambridge also records a singular variant parekalei in v. 31.
Parsing. The interlinear parses parēngellen (v. 29) as aorist; its doubled-lambda form looks imperfect, and Cambridge renders it “He commanded.” The sourced parse is left unaltered; the note flags the question. The interlinear lists words in English order, so the literal renderings are reconstructed by the tool into Greek word order (⚙).
Sources. Barnes and Poole comment on this pericope only by cross-reference to Matthew and Mark and are not quoted; JFB is quoted once to show it does the same. Henry's entry is a single summary of 8:22 to 40 repeated under every verse. Benson's one entry for vv. 26 to 39 is filed at v. 26. The brief's Cambridge text contains scanning errors: “Song of Solomon of God most high” (v. 28) for “Son of God most high,” “Judges 6” (v. 31) for Jude 6, and “Luke 5:4” (v. 27) where Mark 5:4 is meant. Pulpit quotes Godet and Plumptre; those lines are attributed accordingly.
Uncertain. Whether the swine's owners were Jews (Pulpit) or Gentiles (Cambridge) is disputed among the voices and not stated by Luke. The purpose of the demons' request to enter the swine is unexplained in the text (Pulpit confesses this). The site identification (Kerzha) is a nineteenth-century proposal recorded by Cambridge and Pulpit.
✦ = human, public-domain source, quoted and named. ⚙ = machine synthesis, to be verified. Flagged cross-references are left visible on purpose — the verifier working in the open. “Search the Scriptures daily, whether those things were so.” (Acts 17:11)