(26) Rent him sore.--The verb is the same as the "tare him" of Mark 9:20, and implies a spasm, as of horror, convulsing the whole frame. The corpse-like falling as one dead, and the cry of many (better, "the many"--i.e., "the greater part, most of them") that he was dead, and our Lord's taking the boy by the hand, and the question of the disciples, are all peculiar to St, Mark.

9:14-29 The father of the suffering youth reflected on the want of power in the disciples; but Christ will have him reckon the disappointment to the want of faith. Very much is promised to our believing. If thou canst believe, it is possible that thy hard heart may be softened, thy spiritual diseases may be cured; and, weak as thou art, thou mayest be able to hold out to the end. Those that complain of unbelief, must look up to Christ for grace to help them against it, and his grace will be sufficient for them. Whom Christ cures, he cures effectually. But Satan is unwilling to be driven from those that have been long his slaves, and, when he cannot deceive or destroy the sinner, he will cause him all the terror that he can. The disciples must not think to do their work always with the same ease; some services call for more than ordinary pains.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.