Category: Mark Chapter 5

A great miracle is recorded in these verses. A dead girl is restored to life. Mighty as the “King of terrors” is, there is One mightier than he. The keys of death are in our Lord Jesus Christ’s hands. He will one day “swallow up death in victory.” (Isaiah 25:8)

The main subject of these verses is the miraculous healing of a sick woman. Great is our Lord’s experience in cases of disease! Great is his sympathy with His sick and ailing members! The gods of the heathen are generally represented as terrible and mighty in battle, delighting in bloodshed, the strong man’s patrons, and the warrior’s friends. The Saviour of the Christian is always set before us as gentle, and easy to be entreated, the healer of the broken hearted, the refuge of the weak and helpless, the comforter of the distressed, the sick man’s best friend. And is not this just the Saviour that human nature needs? The world is full of pain and trouble. The weak on earth are far more numerous than the strong.

The after-conduct of those whom our Lord Jesus Christ healed and cured when upon earth, is a thing which is not often related in the Gospels. The story often describes the miraculous cure, and then leaves the after history of the person cured in obscurity, and passes on to other things.

These verses describe one of those mysterious miracles which the Gospels frequently record,–the casting out of a devil. Of all the cases of this kind in the New Testament, none is so fully described as this one. Of all the three evangelists who relate the history, none gives it so fully and minutely as Mark.