‘And when he was come forth on the land, there met him a certain man out of the city, who had demons, and for a long time he had worn no clothes, and abode not in any house, but in the tombs.'

On Jesus landing there after revealing His power on the Lake of Galilee He was met by a demon-possessed man from the town nearby. This man was a particularly bad case and was naked and living among the tombs. This would give him privacy and be undisputed territory, and the cave tombs would provide shelter. The nakedness is not unusual in cases of extreme clinical depression such as the evil spirits had caused here. Such people can have a tendency to fling their clothes off them. No one else wanted to live there apart from equally possessed people (Matthew tells us that he had at least one companion). It is stressed that he did not live in a house because later that is precisely what Jesus will tell him that he must do (Luke 8:39). It will be one of the signs that he was fully cured.

Continues after advertising
Continues after advertising