Mark 5:1–20, Why the pigs?

The following passage from the Gospel of Mark could prompt people to ask the question about why the legion of demons wanted to be sent to the pigs. To dismiss it by simply saying that ‘The unclean often go with the unclean’ could hide us from a bigger and sinister plot that is possibly taking place in this passage. I would agree that with a Jewish lens that explanation makes a lot of sense as the Hebrews considered pigs to be unclean Leviticus 11:7.

And the pig, though it has a divided hoof, does not chew the cud; it is unclean for you.

Let’s start by isolating the three requests that Jesus gets in this passage which range from pleading to begging.

The first request that He gets is from the legion of demons possessing the man, they begged Jesus saying this.

“Send us among the pigs; allow us to go into them.”

Jesus who has complete authority over demons could just send them away. Often during his other exorcisms recorded in the gospels, we see that he does not engage in a swapping agreement with the spirits. So it is interesting to notice that the Spirits here want to be sent to the pigs that are grazing nearby. It can be argued that due the the sheer number of spirits (legion=6,000) that were inside this man they could not all be simply sent away into the open. The number of pigs recorded were two thousand which seems to be three times lower than the number of demons present. It seems like an odd request but, JESUS AGREES.

The second request that He gets is from the people of this region. They see Jesus with the demoniac who is clear of mind and is clothed, they also hear from those tending the pigs about what had happened so they pleaded with Jesus.

Then the people began to plead with Jesus to leave their region.

The region here needs a little more attention. The region of the Gerasenes comes under the Decapolis which is a greater region consisting of ten cities. It should also be noted that these cities are not jewish settlements so Jesus went to a region which could have a hostile sentiment towards his race. Another indication that could strongly indicate that this region was not jewish is the fact about the pigs. Since the law forbid them to eat pigs it would seems unlikely that they would rear them for meat, and due to stringent purity laws established in Leviticus 11 we could say that they might not prefer to trade with them either. The prodigal son’s stint as a pig herd in a foreign land shows the debasement he endured after leaving his father, this also shows that someone who is of jewish descent could not or would not desire to associate themselves with pigs. This would be sufficient proof to establish that the region that Jesus is currently in is not jewish and he is probably among people who do not look favorably towards him and his race.

Now, we know that Jesus heals this man and the people from his hometown are mad that they lost their livestock. They clearly at the moment are taken by their loss of livestock over the gain of their fellow man. Here among them is the son of God a foreigner sitting with their countryman who seems to be lucid and free of the demons but the cost of his freedom was a significant monetary one. Even though we know that Jesus did nothing wrong they pleaded with him to leave the region and, JESUS AGREES.

The third request comes from the man who was healed and this comes at the time when Jesus was leaving the region.

As Jesus was getting into the boat, the man who had been demon-possessed begged to go with him.

JESUS DISAGREES. This is the only request in this passage that Jesus does not fulfill. Here we see that Jesus tells the man to stay with his own people.

19 Jesus did not let him, but said, “Go home to your own people and tell them how much the Lord has done for you, and how he has had mercy on you.” 20 So the man went away and began to tell in the Decapolis how much Jesus had done for him. And all the people were amazed.

Now we see that Jesus who rejected the third request give this man a mission, similar to that of his disciples. He went away and tells the neighboring cities about what Jesus has done for him. It can also be understood that those who heard him probably recognized him as the person who was demon possessed and chained thus unwillingly inheriting the position of a social pariah. The people who heard him were amazed and they probably want to see Jesus and to listen His words and to ask for healing.

Now that we have dived into the three requests mentioned in this passage, we now go to the initial question. Why the pigs? I think people here do not give the demons enough credit. They know who Jesus is, they know that He has complete authority over them and could send them away and they know that they can’t touch him directly or harm him. So the best thing available to them is to hinder his ministry here in this region and to possibly even kill him. The pigs here as we established above should be seen as valuable livestock and when people are threatened with monetary loss they often tend to loose reason and act with extreme emotion. The demons know this as they probably know more about human behavior than we would give them credit. So the request to go into the pigs was probably put forth as the next move available to them to directly harm Jesus and His ministry. Jesus probably knows this. He gives the demons permission to enter the pigs.

The herd, about two thousand in number, rushed down the steep bank into the lake and were drowned.

The demons have laid a trap for Jesus and He seems to have willingly marched into it. The request that the demons placed before Jesus was granted and they using His permission entered the pigs and kills them by drowning. The people of this region are angry at Jesus as He single handedly destroyed their livelihoods. They could possibly band together and even stone him to death. Here we see that Jesus submits fully to them even though he did nothing wrong. He does not hide from them nor defend His actions. He just submits to them the people of the region, the people who could hold harmful biases against the jews.

I find that as Christians we have the right intentions but after we act on them we do not submit freely to the effects of our actions. We defend ourselves and we demand that we have been treated unfairly. I think Jesus lays a foundation on how to behave in such a situation, one in which your actions with the right intentions have caused significant monetary losses of others. In this passage his submission to the people just leads to him being asked to leave.

The last point I would like to mention here is the effect of the man who was healed and his contribution to Jesus’ ministry in the region. The value of a convert and in his hometown seems to be often undervalued. This lesson here can be applied within the Church and the corporate world. Delegation is a valuable trait of a leader. Jesus models it perfectly by identifying what can be done given the trap that had sprung on him and the situation He is currently in. He tells the man to minister to the people of his region and leaves.