Matthew 17:14-21 And when they were come to the multitude, there came to him a certain man, kneeling down to him, and saying,… Many think that in the cases recorded we have but the symptoms of well-known diseases which, from their exceptionally painful character, involving loss of reason, involuntary or convulsive motions, and other abnormal phenomena, the imaginative and unscientific Easterns attributed, as the easiest mode of accounting for them, to a foreign power taking possession of the body and mind of the man. They say there is no occasion whatever to resort to an explanation involving an agency of which we know nothing from any experience of our own; that, as our Lord did not come to rectify men's psychological or physiological theories, He adopted the mode of speech common among them, but east out the evil spirits simply by healing the diseases attributed to their influences. There seems to me nothing unchristian in this interpretation. But I have no difficulty in receiving the old Jewish belief concerning possession; and I think it better explains the phenomena recorded than the growing modern opinion. (George Macdonald.) Parallel Verses KJV: And when they were come to the multitude, there came to him a certain man, kneeling down to him, and saying,WEB: When they came to the multitude, a man came to him, kneeling down to him, saying, |
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