We meet with the relation of this miracle, and somewhat more particularly enlarged, in Mark 5:1. I refer the Reader therefore to that part of my Commentary for my observations upon it. I only detain the Reader for the moment, to observe, that the place, though mentioned differently, is one and the same. Matthew here calls it the country of the Gergesenes. Mark and Luke call it the country of the Gadarenes. But as it was on the lake of Tiberias, right over against Galilee, it is but one and the. same. It was called in the days of Joshua, and indeed long before, the country of the Girgashites. Genesis 15:21; Deuteronomy 7:1; Joshua 3:10. The Syriac version gave it the name of Gadarenes: Gergesce and Gadara, was the same city.
REFLECTIONS.
READER! let you and I look on, and behold the wonders of our wonder-working GOD. See the leprous man cleansed; the paralytic healed; the raging fever subdued; yea, the winds, sea, and devils, in a moment brought under the word of our JESUS. But let us not stop here. He that cleansed the poor leper in his body, can and will cleanse all the leprosy of soul in his people. He that gave strength to the palsy of nature, can and will make the crippled in soul to leap as an hart; and all the feverish lusts of his redeemed, JESUS will subdue. Oh! thou gracious God of our salvation! no storms of hell, nor storms of indwelling corruption, nor storms of the world, shall drown thy people! JESUS, though for a while may appear to our impatient minds as inattentive, but he hath said, For the sighing of the poor, and the oppression of the needy, now will I arise, saith God! And oh! with what tenderness and fellow-feeling, the LORD JESUS enters into all the concerns of his redeemed. Truly Lord, it may be said of thee, thou dost thyself take our infirmities, and bare our sicknesses! Oh! vouchsafe thy continual presence with us! and never, never LORD, do thou depart out of our coasts!