Unclean spirits - Persons who were possessed of evil spirits.

Thou art the Son of God - The Son of God, by way of eminence. In this place it is equivalent to the Messiah, who was, among the Jews, called the Son of God. Hence, they were charged not to make him known, because he was not desirous that it should be blazoned abroad that he claimed to be the Messiah. He had not yet done what he wished in order to establish his claims to the Messiahship. He was poor and unhonored, and the claim would be treated as that of an impostor. "For the present," therefore, he did not wish that it should be proclaimed abroad that he was the Messiah. The circumstance here referred to demonstrates the existence of evil spirits. If these were merely diseased or deranged persons, then it is strange that they should be endowed with knowledge so much superior to those in health. If they were under the influence of an order of spirits superior to man - whose appropriate habitation was in another world - then it is not strange that they should know him, even in the midst of his poverty, to be the Messiah, the Son of God.

Thou art the Son of God - Two MSS., and the later Syriac, have, Thou art the Christ, the Son of God. One of Stephens's MSS. has, Thou art the Holy One of God. A MS. in the library of Leicester has, συ ει ὁ Θεος, υἱος, Thou art God, the Son. This is an uncommon reading, which is not confirmed by any MS. yet discovered.

And unclean spirits, when they saw him,.... That is, as the Syriac and Arabic versions read, "they who had unclean spirits": or, as the Ethiopic, "they that were possessed with unclean spirits"; as soon as ever they beheld Christ, though they had never seen him before, and he was an entire stranger to them, yet

fell down before him: the unclean spirits being said to do that, which they that were possessed with them did; and which, notwithstanding their possession of them, they could not prevent, but were obliged to admit of it, as a token of their subjection to Christ:

and even the devils themselves in the men,

cried, saying, thou art the Son of God; a divine person, equal with God; and such his power over them, and his healing all manner of diseases, by a word, or touch, showed him to be.

The unclean spirits (τὰ)

The article indicating those particular spirits which took part in that scene. Mark's precision is shown in the use of the two articles and in the arrangement of the noun and adjective: The spirits, the unclean ones.

When they saw (ὅταν ἐθεώρουν)

More accurately as Rev., whenever they beheld. The imperfect tense denotes a repeated act. The ἄν in ὅταν gives an indefinite force: as often as they might see him.

And {i} unclean spirits, when they saw him, fell down before him, and cried, saying, Thou art the Son of God.

(i) In those whom they had entered into: or by the figure of speech called metonymy, it refers to those who were vexed with the unclean spirits.

3:11 Unclean spirits. See PNT Mt 8:28.

3:6-12 All our sicknesses and calamities spring from the anger of God against our sins. Their removal, or the making them blessings to us, was purchased to us by the blood of Christ. But the plagues and diseases of our souls, of our hearts, are chiefly to be dreaded; and He can heal them also by a word. May more and more press to Christ to be healed of these plagues, and to be delivered from the enemies of their souls.