And he said unto them, I beheld Satan as lightning fall from heaven.
And he said, I behold [ etheooroun (G2334 )] Satan as lightning fall from heaven. Since much of the force of this glorious statement depends on the nice shade of sense indicated by the imperfect tense in the original, it might have been well to bring it out in the translation: 'I was beholding Satan as lightning falling from heaven:'-q.d., 'I followed you on your mission, and watched its triumphs; while ye were wondering at the subjection to you of devils in My name, a grander spectacle was opening to My view; sudden as the darting of lightning from heaven to earth Satan was beheld by Mine eye falling from heaven!' By that law of association which connects a part with the whole, those feeble triumphs of the Seventy seem to have not only brought vividly before the Redeemer the whole ultimate result of His mission, but compressed it into a moment and quickened it into the rapidity of lightning! We have repeatedly observed that the word rendered "devils" х daimonia (G1140)] is always used for those spiritual agents employed in demoniacal possessions-never for the ordinary agency of Satan in rational men. When, therefore, the Seventy say, "the demons are subject to us," and Jesus replies, 'Mine eye was beholding Satan falling,' it is plain that He meant to raise their minds not only from the particular to the general, but from a very temporary form of satanic operation to the entire kingdom of evil. See John 12:31, and compare Isaiah 14:17.