Mark 9:26

26 Then it came out, shrieking and convulsing him^[a] violently. The boy became like a corpse, so that many said, "He's dead."

Mark 9:26 Meaning and Commentary

Mark 9:26

And [the spirit] cried, and rent him sore
We rightly supply, "the spirit", as do the Syriac and Persic versions, "the demon"; for it was he, and not the child, that cried, and made an hideous noise, at his ejection; being filled with wrath and rage, that he must be obliged to quit the possession he had so long held; and therefore, in spite and malice, before it left him, shook and tore him, and threw him into dreadful convulsions:

and came out of him;
though sore against his will, being obliged to it, by the superior power of Christ:

and he was as one dead:
that is, the child, when the devil had left him, lay as still as if he had no breath, nor life in him:

insomuch that many said, he is dead;
really dead: that there was no life in him, nor any hopes of his coming to himself again.

Mark 9:26 In-Context

24 Immediately the father of the boy cried out, "I do believe! Help my unbelief."

25 When Jesus saw that a crowd was rapidly coming together, He rebuked the unclean spirit, saying to it, "You mute and deaf spirit, I command you: come out of him and never enter him again!"

26 Then it came out, shrieking and convulsing him violently. The boy became like a corpse, so that many said, "He's dead."

27 But Jesus, taking him by the hand, raised him, and he stood up.

28 After He went into a house, His disciples asked Him privately, "Why couldn't we drive it out?"

Footnotes

• [a] Other mss omit him