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The following is an adaptation of the brief I wrote for my Demonology course. I post it for the interested party.
The author entreats that his commentary hold no element in one's determination of the truth. As with all humanity, my sin, too, leaves me short of the glory of God. I conclude myself as Job, "Behold, I am vile". A fallen creature can hardly aspire to understand in totality, interpret with precision, and completely communicate the immeasurable breadth, length, depth, and height of the blessed Creator's word. Attainment of the purest Bible knowledge, understanding, and wisdom a human can hope for is solely by ever diligently seeking after God, not through the writings and commentaries and expositions of mortals, but through His only begotten Son Jesus, Whose "name is called The Word of God."
My writings are imperfect, wholly inept, needless. Yet should it please the Holy Spirit to even faintly enlighten one through my humble efforts in His word of truth, then all credit and thanks must be directed and given to our Father in the heavens as I know and can know nothing apart from Him.
Scripture is from the King James Version.
All Hebrew (Heb:) and Greek (Gk:) words are transliterated and uninflected (with the exception of the genitive "daimonos").
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Depending on the context the words "unclean spirit" (Gk: "akathartos pneuma") (Matthew 10.1, Mark 5.13; 6.7; 7.25, Luke 8.29; 9.42, Revelation 16.13; cf. Revelation 18.2), "devil" (Gk: "daimon") (Mark 5.12, Luke 8.29), "devil" (Gk: "daimonion") (Matthew 10.8, Mark 3.15; 6.13; 7.26,29,30, Luke 8.2; 9.42; 10.17), "spirit" (Gk: "pneuma") (Luke 9.39; 10.20), "spirit of a devil" (Gk: "pneuma daimonos") (Revelation 16.14; cf. Revelation 18.2), and "evil spirit" (Gk: "poneros pneuma") (Luke 8.2) are interchangeable. Yet different kinds of "daimonion" (Matthew 17.18,21) and "akathartos pneuma" (Mark 9.25,29) exist, some "more wicked" (Gk: "poneroteros") or more physically disadvantageous than others (Matthew 12.45, Luke 11.26). Their ravages can include dumbness and deafness (Matthew 9.32-34, Mark 9.14-29), other times blindness (Matthew 12.22) or other infirmities (Luke 13.10-17), convulsions (Mark 1.23-28), insanity (Mark 5.15, Luke 8.35), even attempts at or successful suicide (Mark 9.22; cf. Mark 5.13, Luke 8.33).
That a "daimonion" (Luke 11.14) can be "poneroteros" than another (Luke 11.26) implies that all "daimonion" are to one degree or another "wicked" (Gk: "poneros"). "Poneros" is a characteristic also of unregenerate man (Matthew 13.49; 15.19, Mark 7.22,23, Colossians 1.21, 1John 3.12; cf. John 8.44); it makes him unacceptable to God (Gk: "koinoo") (Matthew 15.11,18,20, Mark 7.15,20, Revelation 21.27).
A cognate of "koinoo" is Gk: "koinos" ("common," "defiled"), found closely connected to Gk: "aniptos" ("unwashen", Mark 7.2) and Gk: "akathartos" ("unclean", Acts 10.14,28; 11.8). Hence that which is unwashen is unclean; and that which is unclean is defiled and unacceptable to God (see this great spiritual truth in John 13.8). Unregenerate man is "akathartos" (Ephesians 5.5); so are "pneuma daimonos" (Revelation 16.14). These commonalities perhaps reveal why Satan (titled Beelzebub [Mark 3.22,23] and later "akathartos pneuma" [Mark 3.30]) is said to "savourest . . . the things . . . that be of men" over against "the things that be of God" (Matthew 16.23, Mark 8.33).
To the end that we may perceive how "poneros" or "akathartos" a "daimon" can be, consider the Gadarene demoniac (Gk: "daimonizomai") of Mark 5.1ff and Luke 8.26ff. That "his dwelling [was] among the tombs" (Mark 5.3) rendered him ceremonially unclean (Numbers 19.16; cf. Leviticus 21.1-2,10-12, Numbers 6.7; 9.6). That he "ware no clothes" (Luke 8.27) runs contrary to the divine principle against indecent exposure (Exodus 20.26; 28.42). He was "cutting himself with stones" (Mark 5.5) thus dismissing Leviticus 19.28; 21.5, Deuteronomy 14.1. Upon their having been cast out of the man the ''daimonion'' ''entered into the swine'' (Luke 8.33), an unclean animal (Leviticus 11.7, Deuteronomy 14.8). And that "the herd ran violently down a steep place into the lake, and were choked" (Luke 8.33) implies they were driven to suicide.
The word "devils" in Deuteronomy 32.17 and Psalm 106.37 is Heb: "shed", the stem of which seems to be either Heb: "shadad" or Heb: "shuwd" translated "wasteth" in Psalm 91.6. LXX translates "shed" as "daimonion" (cf. 1Corinthians 10.20). LXX also translates the "wasteth" of Psalm 91.6 (90.6, LXX) as "daimonion". Since the apparent root of "shed" basically means either to "swell" or to "rule" or to "deal/act with strength/power toward" (and this oft to the end that it "bring ruin"), perhaps a "shed" or "daimonion" can be understood as "a malignant that occupies and manipulates, oft to a point of impairment or ruin." This is precisely how the New Testament reads many of the "daimonizomai" being treated by their foul possessors.
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