And he said unto them, Go. And when they were come out, they went into the herd of swine: and, behold, the whole herd of swine ran violently down a steep place into the sea, and perished in the waters. They went into the herd of swine - Instead of την αγελην των χοιρων, the herd of swine, Griesbach reads τους χοιρους, the swine, on the authority of many MSS. and versions.
The whole herd of swine - Των χοιρων, of swine, is omitted by many MSS. and versions. See Griesbach, and see on Luke 8:20, etc.
Ran violently down a steep place, etc. - The prayer of these demons is heard and answered! Strange! But let it be noted, that God only hears demons and certain sinners when their prayer is the echo of his own justice. Here is an emblem of the final impenitence and ruin into which the swinish sinners, the habitually unpure, more commonly fall than other sinners. Christ permits the demons to do that in the swine which he did not permit them to do in the possessed, on purpose to show us what rage they would exercise on us if left to their liberty and malice. Many are the Divine favors which we do not consider, or know only in general. "But the owners of the swine lost their property." Yes; and learn from this of how small value temporal riches, are in the estimation of God. He suffers them to be lost, sometimes to disengage us from them through mercy; sometimes out of justice, to punish us for having acquired or preserved them either by covetousness or injustice.