He charged them not to make him known - It was not the time: nor were they fit preachers.
He calleth whom he would - With regard to the eternal states of men, God always acts as just and merciful. But with regard to numberless other things, he seems to us to act as a mere sovereign. Lu 6:12
Mt 10:2; Lu 6:13; Ac 1:13.
He surnamed them sons of thunder - Both with respect to the warmth and impetuosity of their spirit, their fervent manner of preaching, and the power of their word.
To eat bread - That is, to take any subsistence.
His relations - His mother and his brethren, Mr 3:31. But it was some time before they could come near him.
The scribes and Pharisees, Matt 12:22; who had come down from Jerusalem - Purposely on the devil's errand. And not without success. For the common people now began to drink in the poison, from these learned, good, honourable men! He hath Beelzebub - at command, is in league with him: And by the prince of the devils casteth he out devils - How easily may a man of learning elude the strongest proof of a work of God! How readily can he account for every incident without ever taking God into the question. Mt 12:24; Lu 11:15.
Mt 12:31; Lu 12:10.
Because they said, He hath an unclean spirit - Is it not astonishing, that men who have ever read these words, should doubt, what is the blasphemy against the Holy Ghost? Can any words declare more plainly, that it is "the ascribing those miracles to the power of the devil which Christ wrought by the power of the Holy Ghost?"
Then come his brethren and his mother - Having at length made their way through the crowd, so as to come to the door. His brethren are here named first, as being first and most earnest in the design of taking him: for neither did these of his brethren believe on him. They sent to him, calling him - They sent one into the house, who called him aloud, by name. Mt 12:46; Lu 8:19.
Looking round on them who sat about him - With the utmost sweetness; He said, Behold my mother and my brethren - In this preference of his true disciples even to the Virgin Mary, considered merely as his mother after the flesh, he not only shows his high and tender affection for them, but seems designedly to guard against those excessive and idolatrous honours, which he foresaw would in after ages be paid to her.
Mt 13:1; Lu 8:4.
He taught them many things by parables - After the usual manner of the eastern nations, to make his instructions more agreeable to them, and to impress them the more upon attentive hearers. A parable signifies not only a simile or comparison, and sometimes a proverb, but any kind of instructive speech, wherein spiritual things are explained and illustrated by natural, Prov 1:6. To understand a proverb and the interpretation - The proverb is the literal sense, the interpretation is the spiritual resting in the literal sense killeth, but the spiritual giveth life.
Hearken - This word he probably spoke with a loud voice, to stop the noise and hurry of the people.
When he was alone - That is, retired apart from the multitude.
To them that are without - So the Jews termed the heathens: so our Lord terms all obstinate unbelievers: for they shall not enter into his kingdom: they shall abide in outer darkness.
So that seeing they see and do not perceive - They would not see before now they could not, God having given them up to the blindness which they had chosen.
Know ye not this parable? - Which is as it were the foundation of all those that I shall speak hereafter; and is so easy to be understood?
The desire of other things choke the word - A deep and important truth! The desire of any thing, otherwise than as it leads to happiness in God, directly tends to barrenness of soul. Entering in - Where they were not before. Let him therefore who has received and retained the word, see that no other desire then enter in, such as perhaps till then he never knew. It becometh unfruitful - After the fruit had grown almost to perfection.
And he said, Is a candle - As if he had said, I explain these things to you, I give you this light, not to conceal, but to impart it to others. And if I conceal any thing from you now, it is only that it may be more effectually manifested hereafter. Mt 5:15; Lu 8:16; 11:33.
Mt 10:26; Lu 8:17.
Take heed what ye hear - That is, attend to what you hear, that it may have its due influence upon you. With what measure you mete - That is, according to the improvement you make of what you have heard, still farther assistance shall be given. And to you that hear - That is, with improvement.
He that hath - That improves whatever he has received, to the good of others, as well as of his own soul. Mt 13:12; Lu 8:18.
So is the kingdom of God - The inward kingdom is like seed which a man casts into the ground - This a preacher of the Gospel casts into the heart. And he sleeps and rises night and day - That is, he has it continually in his thoughts. Meantime it springs and grows up he knows not how - Even he that sowed it cannot explain how it grows. For as the earth by a curious kind of mechanism, which the greatest philosophers cannot comprehend, does as it were spontaneously bring forth first the blade, then the ear, then the full corn in the ear: so the soul, in an inexplicable manner, brings forth, first weak graces, then stronger, then full holiness: and all this of itself, as a machine, whose spring of motion is within itself. Yet observe the amazing exactness of the comparison. The earth brings forth no corn (as the soul no holiness) without both the care and toil of man, and the benign influence of heaven.
He putteth in the sickle - God cutteth down and gathereth the corn into his garner.
He spake the word as they were able to hear it - Adapting it to the capacity of his hearers; and speaking as plain as he could without offending them. A rule never to be forgotten by those who instruct others.
Mt 8:23; Lu 8:22.
They take him as he was in the vessel - They carried him immediately in the same vessel from which he had been preaching to the people.
On the pillow - So we translate it, for want of a proper English expression, for that particular part of the vessel near the rudder, on which he lay.
Peace - Cease thy tossing: Be still - Cease thy roaring; literally, Be thou gagged.
Mt 8:28; Lu 8:26.
There met him a man with an unclean spirit - St. Matthew mentions two. Probably this, so particularly spoken of here, was the most remarkably fierce and ungovernable.
My name is Legion! for we are many - But all these seem to have been under one commander, who accordingly speaks all along, both for them and himself.
And they were afraid - It is not improbable they might otherwise have offered some rudeness, if not violence.
Mt 9:1; Lu 8:37;
Tell them how great things the Lord hath done for thee - This was peculiarly needful there, where Christ did not go in person.
He published in Decapolis - Not only at home, but in all that country where Jesus himself did not come.
Lu 8:40.
One of the rulers of the synagogue - To regulate the affairs of every synagogue, there was a council of grave men. Over these was a president, who was termed the ruler of the synagogue. Sometimes there was no more than one ruler in a synagogue. Mt 9:18; Lu 8:41.
Mt 9:20; Lu 8:43.
John, the brother of James - When St. Mark wrote, not long after our Lord's ascension, the memory of St. James, lately beheaded, was so fresh, that his name was more known than that of John himself.
Them that were with him - Peter, James, and John.
He charged them that no man should know it - That he might avoid every appearance of vain glory, might prevent too great a concourse of people, and might not farther enrage the scribes and Pharisees against him; the time for his death, and for the full manifestation of his glory, being not yet come. He commanded something should be given her to eat - So that when either natural or spiritual life is restored, even by immediate miracle, all proper means are to be used in order to preserve it.
Mt 13:54; Lu 4:16.
Is not this the carpenter? - There can be no doubt, but in his youth he wrought with his supposed father Joseph.