Mark 3:11

And unclean spirits, when they saw him, fell down before him, and cried, saying, Thou art the Son of God.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(11) And unclean spirits.—The testimony which had been given in a single instance (Mark 1:24) now became more or less general. But it came in a form which our Lord could not receive. The wild cry of the frenzied demoniac had no place in the evidence to which He appealed (John 5:31-37), and tended, so far as it impressed men at all, to set them against the Teacher who was thus acknowledged.

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

3:6-12 All our sicknesses and calamities spring from the anger of God against our sins. Their removal, or the making them blessings to us, was purchased to us by the blood of Christ. But the plagues and diseases of our souls, of our hearts, are chiefly to be dreaded; and He can heal them also by a word. May more and more press to Christ to be healed of these plagues, and to be delivered from the enemies of their souls.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

Unclean spirits - Persons who were possessed of evil spirits.

Thou art the Son of God - The Son of God, by way of eminence. In this place it is equivalent to the Messiah, who was, among the Jews, called the Son of God. Hence, they were charged not to make him known, because he was not desirous that it should be blazoned abroad that he claimed to be the Messiah. He had not yet done what he wished in order to establish his claims to the Messiahship. He was poor and unhonored, and the claim would be treated as that of an impostor. "For the present," therefore, he did not wish that it should be proclaimed abroad that he was the Messiah. The circumstance here referred to demonstrates the existence of evil spirits. If these were merely diseased or deranged persons, then it is strange that they should be endowed with knowledge so much superior to those in health. If they were under the influence of an order of spirits superior to man - whose appropriate habitation was in another world - then it is not strange that they should know him, even in the midst of his poverty, to be the Messiah, the Son of God.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

CHAPTER 3

Mr 3:1-12. The Healing of a Withered Hand on the Sabbath Day, and Retirement of Jesus to Avoid Danger. ( = Mt 12:9-21; Lu 6:6-11).

See on [1411]Mt 12:9-21.

Matthew Poole's Commentary

Ver. 11. See Poole on "Mark 3:12"

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

And unclean spirits, when they saw him,.... That is, as the Syriac and Arabic versions read, "they who had unclean spirits": or, as the Ethiopic, "they that were possessed with unclean spirits"; as soon as ever they beheld Christ, though they had never seen him before, and he was an entire stranger to them, yet

fell down before him: the unclean spirits being said to do that, which they that were possessed with them did; and which, notwithstanding their possession of them, they could not prevent, but were obliged to admit of it, as a token of their subjection to Christ:

and even the devils themselves in the men,

cried, saying, thou art the Son of God; a divine person, equal with God; and such his power over them, and his healing all manner of diseases, by a word, or touch, showed him to be.

Geneva Study Bible

And {i} unclean spirits, when they saw him, fell down before him, and cried, saying, Thou art the Son of God.

(i) In those whom they had entered into: or by the figure of speech called metonymy, it refers to those who were vexed with the unclean spirits.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Expositor's Greek Testament

Mark 3:11. ὅταν ἐθ. In a relative clause like this, containing a past general supposition, classical Greek has the optative without ἄν. Here we have the imperfect indicative with ἄν (ὅτε ἄν). Vide Klotz., ad Devar, p. 690, and Burton, M. and T., § 315. Other examples in chap. Mark 6:56, Mark 11:19.—προσέπιπτον, fell before (ἐπιπίπτειν, above, to fall against).—Σὺ εἶ ὁ υ. τ. θ.: again an instance of spiritual clairvoyance in demoniacs. Vide at Matthew 8:29.

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

11. Thou art the Son of God] In the Synagogue of Capernaum they had called Him the “Holy One of God” (Mark 1:24), they now acknowledge Him as the “Son of God” (comp. Luke 4:41). The force of the imperfect tense in the original here is very striking, “whenever the demons saw Him, they kept falling down before Him and saying” … and as often as they did so, “He straitly charged them that they should not make Him known,” i. e. as the Messiah “the Son of God.”

Bengel's Gnomen

Mark 3:11. Ὅταν) ὅτʼ ἂν is here joined with a past tense of the Indicative, as ὅπου ἂν, ch. Mark 6:56.

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 11. - And the unclean spirits, whensoever they beheld him, fell down before him, and cried, saying. It is worthy of notice that the afflicted people fell upon him (ἐπίπιπτειν αὐτῷ); but the unclean spirits felt down before him (προσέπιπτεν αὐτῷ), and this not out of love or devotion, but out of abject fear, dreading lest he should drive them out of the "possessed," and send them before their time to their destined torment. It is just possible that this homage paid to our Lord may have been an act of cunning - a ruse, as it were, to lead the people to suppose that our Lord was in league with evil spirits. Thou art the Son of God. Did, then, the unclean spirits really know that Jesus was the Son of God? A voice from heaven at his baptism had proclaimed him to be the Son of God, and that voice must have vibrated through the spiritual world. Then, further, they must have known him to be the Son of God by the numerous and mighty miracles which he wrought, and which they must have seen [o be real miracles, such as could only have been wrought by the supernatural power of God, and which were wrought by Christ for this very purpose, that they might prove him to be the promised Messiah, the only begotten Son of God. It may, however, be observed that they did not know this so clearly, but that, considering, on the other hand, the greatness of the mystery, they hesitated. It is probable that they were ignorant of the end and fruit of this great mystery, namely, that mankind were to be redeemed by the Incarnation, the Cross, and the Death of Christ; and so their own kingdom was to be overthrown, and the kingdom of God established. Blinded by their hatred of Jesus, whom they perceived to be a most holy Being, drawing multitudes to himself, they stirred up the passions of evil men against him, little dreaming that in promoting his destruction they were overthrowing their own kingdom. Mark 3:11

Vincent's Word Studies

The unclean spirits (τὰ)

The article indicating those particular spirits which took part in that scene. Mark's precision is shown in the use of the two articles and in the arrangement of the noun and adjective: The spirits, the unclean ones.

When they saw (ὅταν ἐθεώρουν)

More accurately as Rev., whenever they beheld. The imperfect tense denotes a repeated act. The ἄν in ὅταν gives an indefinite force: as often as they might see him.