The central theme of this incident is Jesus' authority over evil spirits.
8:28 Gadara was the regional capital of the Decapolis area that lay southeast of the Sea of Galilee. Its population was strongly Gentile. This may account for the presence of many swine there (v. 30). The Gadara region stretched west to the Sea of Galilee. This was the country of the Gadarenes.
Mark and Luke mentioned only one man, but Matthew said there were two (Mark 5:2; Luke 8:27). Mark and Luke evidently mentioned the more prominent one. Perhaps Matthew mentioned them both because the testimony of two witnesses was valid in Jewish courts, and he wrote for Jews originally.
The Jews believed that demonic spirits could and did take over the bodies and personalities of certain individuals. Matthew reflected this view of the spirit world. A literal reading of Scripture leads to the same conclusion.402Demons are fallen angels who are Satan's agents.
These demoniacs lived among tombs away from other people in a place that rendered them ritually unclean in Judaism.
8:29 The demoniacs hated and feared Jesus. They recognized Him as Messiah calling Him by the messianic title "Son of God"(cf. 3:17; 16:16; Luke 4:41). The disciples in the boat did not know who He was, but the demoniacs taught them. The demoniacs may have known Jesus from some previous contact (cf. Acts 19:15), or perhaps the demons were already speaking through them (cf. v. 31).
Their second question revealed their knowledge that Jesus would judge them one day. This was a messianic function. Evidently Jesus will cast them into the lake of fire when He sends Satan there (Rev. 20:10).403When Jesus cast out demons He was exercising this eschatological prerogative early. These demons asked if He planned to judge them then. He had cast out other demons recently (4:24; 8:16). "Here"probably refers to the earth, where demons have a measure of freedom to operate, rather than to that particular locale.
8:30-31 The presence of so many pigs may have been due to Jewish disobedience to the Mosaic Law since for Jews pigs where unclean. However this is unlikely since the Jewish leaders were very particular about such flagrant violations of the Law. Probably they belonged to Gentiles who lived in large numbers in the Decapolis where this story took place.
The demons may have requested asylum in the swine because they hated the creatures and or because they wanted to stir up trouble for Jesus. Exorcized evil spirits sometimes expressed their rage with acts of violence and vengefulness (cf. 17:14-20).
8:32-34 Why did Jesus allow the demons to enter the swine, destroy the herd, and cause the owners considerable loss? Some commentators solve this puzzle by saying the owners were disobedient Jews whom Jesus judged. That is possible, but the answers to these questions were outside Matthew's field of interest. They are probably part to the larger scheme of things involving why God allows evil. As God, Jesus owned everything and could do with His own as He pleased.
However we can observe from the reaction of the citizens that "they preferred pigs to persons, swine to the Savior."404They valued the material above the spiritual. This is the first instance in Matthew of open opposition to the Messiah. Matthew will show it building from here to the Cross. The pigs' stampede also testified to Jesus' deliverance of the demoniacs.
What happened to the demons? Matthew did not tell us. Probably he wanted to impress us with Jesus' power over them, not detract us by making them the central feature of the incident. Perhaps they went to the lake of fire.
This incident shows Jesus fulfilling such kingdom prophecies as Daniel 7:25-27; 8:23-25; 11:36-12:3; and Zechariah 3:1-2. As Messiah, He is the Judge of the spirit world as well as humankind. He has all power over demons as well as nature (vv. 23-27).
