The demons’ petition, according to the Received Text, takes the form, ‘Suffer us to go,’ while the reading adopted by most modern editors is ‘Send us.’  The former reading seems to be taken from Luke (viii. 32), while Mark has ‘Send’ (not the same word as now read in Matthew).  But Mark goes on to say, not that Jesus sent them, but that He ’suffered them’ or ‘gave them leave’ (the same word as in Matthew, according to the Received Text).  Thus, Jesus’ part in the transaction is simply permissive, and the one word which He speaks is authoritative indeed in its curtness, and means simply ‘away,’ or ‘begone.’  It casts them out but does not send them in.  He did not send them into the herd, but out of the men, and did not prevent their entrance into the swine.  It should further be noted that nothing in the narrative suggests that the destruction of the herd was designed even by the demons, much less by Jesus.  The maddened brutes rushed straight before them, not knowing why or where; the steep slope was in front, and the sea was at its foot, and their terrified, short gallop ended there.  The last thing the demons would have done would have been to banish themselves, as the death of the swine did banish them, from their new shelter.  There is no need, then, to invent justifications for Christ’s destroying the herd, for He did not destroy it.  No doubt, keeping swine was a breach of Jewish law; no doubt the two demoniacs and the bystanders would be more convinced of the reality of the exorcism by the fate of the swine, but these apologies are needless.

The narrative suggests some affinity between the demoniac and the animal nature, and though it is easy to ridicule, it is impossible to disprove, the suggestion.  We know too little about either to do that, and what we cannot disprove it is somewhat venturesome hardily to deny.  There are depths in the one nature, which we cannot fathom though its possessors are close to us; the other is removed from our investigation altogether.  Where we are so utterly ignorant we had better neither affirm nor deny.  But we may take a homiletical use out of that apparent affinity, and recognise that a spirit in rebellion against God necessarily gravitates downwards, and becomes more or less bestialised.

No wonder that the swineherds fled, but, surely, it is a wonder that eagerness to be rid of Jesus was the sole result of the miracle.  Perhaps the reason was the loss of the swine, which would bulk largest in their keepers’ excited story; perhaps the reason was a fear that He would find out and rebuke other instances of breach of strict Jewish propriety, perhaps it was simply the shrinking from any close contact with the heavenly, or apparently supernatural, which is so instinctive in us, and witnesses to a dormant consciousness of discord with Heaven.  ’Depart from me, for I am a sinful man,’ is the cry of the roused conscience.  And, alas! it has power to send away Him whom we need, and who comes to us, just because we are sinful, and just that He may deliver us from our sin.