Mark 3:23

προσκαλεσάμενος αὐτούς. The hostile Scribes were so far off that He had to summon them in order to address them. This shows that they had made this monstrous charge behind His back, when He was too far off to hear. Therefore, as in Mark 2:8 and Mark 3:4, it was because “He knew their thoughts” that He surprised them with this unanswerable question. As in Mark 2:8; Mark 2:17; Mark 2:19; Mark 2:25; Mark 3:4, He meets their indirect and underhand methods directly and openly.

ἐν παραβολαῖς. The original meaning of “comparison” occurs Mark 4:30 and is not wholly absent here; Euthymius has ἐν παραδείγμασιν. His questions are parallels to their accusation. To say that by evil spiritual power He casts out evil spirits is to say that Satan casts out himself, which is like saying that a kingdom or a house is divided against itself. But here the O.T. meaning of παραβολή may be uppermost, a “trite and terse saying” or a “symbolical saying.”

Πῶς δύναται; This question elsewhere implies that the thing is morally impossible (Matthew 12:34), or physically impossible (Matthew 12:29; John 6:52), or that no one would have the face to do it (Luke 6:42). Here it means that such conduct would be not only morally impossible but unthinkable; it involves a contradiction. The Satanic corporation does not violate the conditions of its existence. Note the pres. infin.; cannot go on casting out. We have here one of the many occasions of which it is recorded that Christ spoke of the great power of evil as a personal agent; Mark 4:15; Luke 10:18; Luke 13:16; Luke 22:31; Matthew 25:41; John 8:44. See on Mark 1:13. It is difficult to believe that Christ was ignorant on this momentous point, or that, if He knew it to be a superstition, He yet encouraged men to hold it.