Matthew 8:29

ἰδοὺ ἔκραξαν : sudden, startling, unearthly cry, fitted to shock weak nerves. But not the cry of men about to make an assault. The madmen, whom all feared and shunned, were subdued by the aspect of the stranger who had arrived in the neighbourhood. To be taken as a fact, however strange and mysterious, partly explained by the fact that Jesus was not afraid of them any more than He had been of the storm. They felt His power in the very look of His eye. τί ἡμῖν καὶ σοί : an appropriate speech even in the mouth of one demoniac, for he speaks in the name of the legion of devils (Mark 5:9) by which he conceives himself possessed. Identifying himself with the demons, he shrinks from the new comer with an instinctive feeling that He is a foe. υἱὲ τοῦ θεοῦ : ὁ ἅγιος τ. θ. in the Capernaum synagogue case; strange, almost incredible divination. Yet “insanity is much nearer the kingdom of God than worldly-mindedness. There was, doubtless, something in the whole aspect and manner of Jesus which was fitted to produce almost instantaneously a deep, spiritual impression to which child-like, simple, ingenuous souls like the Galilean fishermen, sinful, yet honest-hearted men like those who met at Matthew's feast, readily surrendered themselves. Men with shattered reason also felt the spell, while the wise and the strong-minded too often used their intellect, under the bias of passion or prejudice, to resist the force of truth. In this way we may account for the prompt recognition of Jesus by the Gadarene demoniac. All that is necessary to explain it is the Messianic hope prevalent in Gadara as elsewhere, and the sight of Jesus acting on an impressionable spirit” (Bruce, The Miraculous Element in the Gospels p. 187). πρὸ καιροῦ : before the appointed time of judgment. The article wanting here before κ. as in other phrases in N. T., e.g., ἐν καιρῷ, Matthew 24:45. βασανίσαι, to torment with pain in Hades, described as a place of torment in Luke 16:28, cf. Matthew 8:23.