And there was in their synagogue a man with an unclean spirit, i.e, a man having an unclean spirit, that is to say, possessed by a devil. The Greek has, in an unclean spirit, and it is a Hebraism. For the Hebrew uses α, beth, i.e, in, when one noun governs another in the genitive.
And he cried out, i.e, the spirit, by the mouth of the man possessed, "as though he were suffering torment," says the Scholiast in S. Chrysostom, "as though in pain, as though not able to bear his strokes." "For," as Bede says, "the presence of the Saviour is the torment of the devils." Christ desired that by this public testimony of the demon concerning Him, in the synagogue of Capernaum (for it is plain from ver21that these things occurred there), the Jews who were gathered there might acknowledge Him to be Messias. There is nothing about this demoniac in Matthew , but there is in Luke 4:33.
Saying. The Gr. subjoins ב, which the translator of Luke 4:34 renders by let alone, as if the imperative of the verb בש, i.e, suffer, permit; as Euthymius says, dismiss us. Others take ב as an adverb of grieving, wondering, beseeching. As it were, "Ah! alas! Lord, in what have I injured Thee?"
