And when the unclean spirit had torn him
Not that he had torn any limb from him, or had made any wound in any part of his body; for Luke says, ( Luke 4:35 ) , that he "hurt him not", but he shook him; and as Luke there says, "threw him in the midst", of the people, or synagogue; and so the Syriac, Persic, and Ethiopic versions read here, "he cast him", or "threw him to the ground": he threw him into convulsions, and laid him prostrate on the floor:
and cried with a loud voice, he came out of him;
though sorely, against his will, as his loud cry showed, and being obliged to it by a superior power.