Mark 9:26

26 And it came out, screaming and convulsing [him] greatly, and he became as if [he were] dead, so that most [of them] said, "He has died!"

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 child cried out [and] said, "I believe! Help my unbelief!"

25 Now [when] Jesus saw that a crowd was running together, he rebuked the unclean spirit, saying to it, "Mute and deaf spirit, I command you, come out of him, and enter into him no more!"

26 And it came out, screaming and convulsing [him] greatly, and he became as if [he were] dead, so that most [of them] said, "He has died!"

27 But Jesus took hold of his hand [and] raised him up, and he stood up.

28 And [after] he had entered into the house, his disciples asked him privately, "Why were we not able to expel it?"

Footnotes

• [a]. *Here the direct object is supplied from context in the English translation