Perturbing the Devils (Mark 1:21-28)

In our previous presentation we read Mark’s succinct account of the forty days in the wilderness, using it as an opportunity to identify the Adversary who tried Christ, and following an examination of the evidence, we came to the conclusion that they were an incredulous and scornful descendant of Cain, perhaps an individual or group from those racial vipers among the Pharisees and Sadducees who came to enquire of John the Baptist.

This interpretation is supported by the fact that the Adversary challenged Yahshua Christ to prove that He was the Son of Yahweh at a very early point in His ministry  at which He was relatively unknown, and the only reasonable explanation for the Adversary's insight is that they were present some days or weeks earlier at the Jordan River, and heard or were made aware of the declaration “You are My beloved Son, in You I am satisfied!" (Mark 1:11) Of course, being a viper, they would have naturally sought to challenge that testimony.

The Christ being tried by a descendant of Cain in the wilderness mirrored the history of Israel in a very literal way, since when the children of Israel entered the wilderness after an immersion in the Red Sea, they were tempted by murmurers among the “mixed multitude” (Exodus 12:8). Some of the vipers in their midst would have been the descendants of Shelah, the bastard son of Judah, who accompanied the tribes in the Exodus. 

While the people failed and hardened their hearts in the wilderness, Christ triumphed over the viper, and made “propitiation for the failures of the people”, as we discussed. And much how the adversary in the wilderness fled from Christ, we will now see the further perturbation of Yahweh’s enemies as we continue with the gospel of Mark, while His children only become increasingly comforted and jubilant.

1:21 And they go into Kapharnaoum, and immediately on the Sabbaths entering into the assembly hall He taught. 22 And they were astonished by His teaching, for He was teaching them as if having authority and not as the scribes.

This account is also recorded at Luke 4:31-32. We will proceed to examine these verses in more detail.

1:21 And they go into Kapharnaoum, and immediately on the Sabbaths entering into the assembly hall He taught.

Capernaum was a fishing village located on the shore of Galilee, with modern estimates placing it around four miles southwest of Bethsaida, the town of Peter and Andrew. The town of Capernaum is important in the Gospel, because Matthew informs us that Christ actually settled there, where he wrote that Yahshua leaving Nazareth “settled in Kapharnaoum” (Matthew 4:13), and the evangelist later calls Capernaum Yahshua's “own city” (cross reference Matthew 9:1 to Mark 2:1). It is evident then that Capernaum remained a sort-of base of operations for Yahshua’s ministry, and there are several significant events recorded in the Gospel which took place in this settlement.

The name Capernaum compounds the Hebrew words kâphâr (village - #3723) and nâcham (comfort - #5162), the latter being the word from which the name of the prophet Nahum is derived. It has been attempted by some to associate the village with the prophet, but there is nothing in the writings which can link Nahum to this settlement. The name Capernaum simply means village of comfort, and Yahshua settling here quite beautifully and prophetically aligns with that name, as any village in which Yahshua lives is certainly a place of comfort. 

It is also prophetic. As Yahshua Christ said to His apostles during their last Passover supper with Him, “And I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter, that he may abide with you forever” (John 14:16 KJV). By saying “another”, Christ indicated that He was their present Comforter, and He informed them that He was this oncoming Comforter as well, where He shortly afterwards said concerning the Holy Spirit that “I shall not leave you fatherless: I come to you.” (John 14:18)

There was no comfort for the children of Israel before Christ. As Solomon wrote in Ecclesiastes “So I returned, and considered all the oppressions that are done under the sun: and behold the tears of such as were oppressed, and they had no comforter; and on the side of their oppressors there was power; but they had no comforter.” (Ecclesiastes 4:1) And though Israel had invited such oppression upon herself through her own errors, Yahweh promised aid in the prophet Hosea where He said: “O Israel, thou hast destroyed thyself; but in me is thine help.” (Hosea 13:9) This promised help was fulfilled in Christ, who came for the sake of the mercies of the unconditional promises made to Abraham, for as Mariam the mother of Christ said: “He has come to the aid of His servant Israel, to call mercy into remembrance” (Luke 1:54)

Christ is certainly the Comforter of Israel, and if we read only two verses earlier from a prophecy which is quoted at the beginning of this gospel concerning John the Baptist crying out in the wilderness:

Isaiah 40:1-3 Comfort ye, comfort ye my people, saith your God. Speak ye comfortably to Jerusalem, and cry unto her, that her warfare is accomplished, that her iniquity is pardoned: for she hath received of the LORD'S hand double for all her sins. The voice of him that crieth in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the LORD, make straight in the desert a highway for our God. 

We can see then that this comfort is directly related to the Gospel, since the prophecy in question was fulfilled in John the Baptist, who prepared the people for Christ. We see this comfort elsewhere in the prophet Isaiah, such as in what is now its 49th chapter, where speaking of the coming redemption and salvation of Israel it is written “for the LORD hath comforted his people, and will have mercy upon his afflicted.” (Isaiah 49:13) The connection of this comfort with the Gospel is perhaps most explicit where we read later in Isaiah, “How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him that bringeth good tidings” (Isaiah 52:7) and then shortly afterwards “the LORD hath comforted his people, he hath redeemed Jerusalem.” (Isaiah 52:9).

Yahshua professing His Gospel and proclaiming that “The time is fulfilled, and the Kingdom of Yahweh has neared! Repent and have faith in the good message!” certainly brought comfort to all of Israel, for the good message reveals to the afflicted and oppressed their hope of eternal life and rest and expectation in the Kingdom of God. As Christ said, “Blessed are those who are mourning, because they shall be comforted.” (Matthew 5:4)

And so Yahshua having settled in Capernaum during His ministry was representative of one of its core accomplishments.

Here in Mark it is written that “immediately on the Sabbaths entering into the assembly hall He taught.” - and the way in which it is described here with a definite article and also elsewhere appears to suggest that it was the only assembly hall in Capernaum, something to be expected from what we would presume was a relatively small fishing settlement. It is possible that the assembly hall would not have existed if it were not for the support of the faithful Roman centurion, for as it is recorded in Luke, the elders of the Judaeans told Christ upon sending the centurion's request for aid that “Worthy is he for whom You may grant this. For he loves our nation and he has built the assembly hall for us." (Luke 7:4-5) 

That account of Luke 7 takes place in Capernaum, and so it is evident that the settlement had one assembly hall, and that its construction was funded by the Roman centurion. With Christ having settled in the town, He would have spent considerable time teaching in this assembly hall, and it is here that He would later explain to His people the comforting truth that He was the bread of life. (John 6:59)

This assembly hall might have been found, as archaeologists in the 19th and 20th centuries excavated the ruins of a 4th century assembly hall in what is believed to be Capernaum. The assembly hall was built with white limestone, and sits upon the foundation of an earlier 1st century structure built with local black basalt, the same material used in the rest of the village’s buildings. If the location is indeed Capernaum, then this older foundation is likely to be that from the assembly hall described in the Gospel.

Judaeans would gather in the assembly halls during Sabbath to hear the law and prophets. This is seen in the gospel of Luke where Christ read from the Isaiah scroll in the Nazarene assembly hall,[ Luke 4:16] and it is also seen in Acts, where Paul and Barnabas entered the assembly hall of Antioch in Pisidia:

Acts 13:14-15 Then they passing through from Perge arrived in Pisidian Antiocheia, and entering into the assembly hall on the day of the Sabbaths they sat. And after the reading of the law and the prophets they sent the assembly hall leaders to them saying "Men, brethren, if there is with you any word of encouragement for the people, speak!"

The word there for encouragement recorded as being used by Paul and Barnabas is παράκλησις, which can also be translated as consolation or comfort, and it is the same word used by Paul in his second surviving epistle to the Corinthians, where he wrote that Yahweh was of all encouragement (2 Corinthians 1:3). Paul of Tarsus understood that Yahshua Christ was the Comforter. and he proclaimed the comforting word of the Gospel which he was entrusted with “according to a commandment of Yahweh our Savior” (Titus 1:3), but when Yahshua taught in the assembly hall of Capernaum, the people of the village of comfort would be able to hear the comforting words of the Gospel being taught directly by the Comforter Himself, as we see here in Mark.

Christ teaching His people was prophesied of in the Psalms, Daniel, and elsewhere in the prophets. Here is one significant example, which is quoted in part by Paul of Tarsus (Hebrews 10:7-9)

Psalm 40:7-10 Then said I, Lo, I come: in the volume of the book it is written of me, I delight to do thy will, O my God: yea, thy law is within my heart. I have preached righteousness in the great congregation: lo, I have not refrained my lips, O LORD, thou knowest. I have not hid thy righteousness within my heart; I have declared thy faithfulness and thy salvation: I have not concealed thy lovingkindness and thy truth from the great congregation. 

And now in a fulfillment of this teaching in the "great congregation", we read in Mark:

1:22 And they were astonished by His teaching, for He was teaching them as if having authority and not as the scribes.

This astonishment concerning the authority with which Christ spoke is also described using near identical language by Matthew in his account of the crowds’ astonishment after the sermon on the mount (7:28-29).

It is impossible for us to imagine how incredible it would be to hear Yahweh God in the flesh teach the very Scriptures which He Himself inspired. As Cleopas and his companion said after the resurrected Christ walked to Emmaus with them and taught the Messianic writings beginning with Moses, "Were our hearts not burning within us as He spoke to us on the road, as He explained the writings to us?" (Luke 24:32)

Only Yahweh God who knows all things can teach with the most absolute and compelling authority concerning His word which He inspired, explaining the writings and making the hearts of men burn; even the pious among the scribes could not match such profound wisdom and neither can any man today. But there is something more to this: the people likely never heard the writings taught with any confidence at all. We can imagine that the scribes were just as awkward and confused as the so-called churches are today. It is important to understand how much the majority of the people were deceived and blinded.

Firstly, the Sadducees who crucified Christ were virtually all Edomites, and being bastards without the Adamic spirit they would have been unable to enquire into the writings (1 Corinthians 2:6-13). The Sadducees often debated with the Pharisees concerning the existence of the Spirit and resurrection, things which they accounted as folly (Acts 23:8, Luke 20:27, et al). As Paul wrote “now the natural man [a bastard without the Adamic spirit] does not accept that of the Spirit of Yahweh, for it is folly to him, and he is not able to know because it is inquired of spiritually”

Meanwhile, the unclean bastards who were among the Pharisees and the scribes couldn’t enquire into the writings either, as the Adamic Spirit is required to understand that which is inspired by the Spirit of Yahweh, the spiritual compounding with the spiritual. As Paul wrote, that bastard portion of the party of the Pharisees had defiled minds and consciences, with which they clung to the myths (Titus 1:14) of their tradition over the word of Yahweh. Professing to know Yahweh in their deeds they denied, and they exposed themselves as “abominable and disobedient and rejected for all good works.” (Titus 1:16)

Many of the genuine children of Israel in Judaea were led astray by all of these vain tradition introduced by the Edomites among the Pharisees, just as many Christians today attempt to learn their Bibles from the accursed jews. As Christ said concerning the thorns among the Pharisees and those who followed them, “Leave them alone, they are blind leaders, and if the blind should lead the blind, both shall fall into a ditch!" (Matthew 15:14) So despite many Israelites in Judaea having good intentions, the Canaanite bastards in the midst were thorns in the eyes of those who were trying to see, just as Yahweh warned would happen, if the children of Israel would not extinguish them. (Numbers 33:55, Joshua 23:13)

It was the leaven of the Pharisees which pricked the eyes into blindness, helping fulfill the curse of disobedience set upon the people ever since the days of Isaiah, when their eyes were shut and their hearts made heavy, and Christ quoted the prophet in reference to His own time (Matthew 13:15). Yahweh uses men’s failures to achieve His own purposes, and this blindness was a necessary step for the fulfillment of the prophets, because only a blind people would allow their Prince to be crucified, inadvertently allowing their salvation to be accomplished. Therefore it was necessary that the Pharisees and Sadducees held sway over the people during the time of Christ. As Yahweh said in the prophet Isaiah, “Who is blind, but my servant? or deaf, as my messenger that I sent?” (Isaiah 42:19)

Even some of the most faithful among the children of Israel were misinformed, as the God-fearing Pharisee Nicodemus did not understand the racial truth of having to be “born from above” to see the Kingdom of Yahweh, and Yahshua said to him, “You are a teacher of Israel, and you do not know these things?” (John 3:10) Our Prince was not gas-lighting Nicodemus, these things which He taught were expressed throughout the law and prophets, it is just that the institutions of the time were entirely ignorant of them. The scribes were not aware, but Yahshua taught these matters with authority, as we see here in Mark.

In addition to traditions pricking fat hearts, many of the truths of the Old Testament had already been kept secret from the very foundation of society, so that the Christ could come at the appointed time and reveal them in parables. After recording the parable of the wheat and the tares which reveals the racial truth of Genesis 3, Matthew fittingly quoted from the 95th Psalm, where it says “I shall open My mouth in parables; I shall bellow things kept secret from the foundation of Society!" (Matthew 13:35 - Psalm 78:2 LXX) The opening chapters of Genesis are certainly records of that foundation!

The revelation provided by Christ has been a gradual process, as it is evident in the Gospel and prophets that the children of Israel will not be racially awakened to the truth of the scriptures until the third ministry of Elijah, otherwise known today as Christian Identity, “restores all things”. (Matthew 17:11, cf. Mal 4:5-6, Acts 3:21, et al) The White-European children of Israel have remained blind in preparation for this final restoration, and the lifting of the veil is quickly approaching.

With the greater underlying truths having been kept hidden at this time, it certainly would have been astonishing to hear Christ reveal things with authority, as opposed to the scribes and Pharisees who would have in their blindness consistently struggled and tripped over themselves, just as the so-called churches do today. Those who understand the testimony of Christ, can repeat the things which He and His apostles taught with authority, knowing that it is Truth. I remember being similarly amazed when I first saw the authority with which those who understand Christian Identity are able to expound upon the writings. 

1:23 And there was right away in their assembly hall a man with an unclean spirit and he had cried out 24 saying "What is there with us and with You, Yahshua the Nazarene? Have You come to destroy us? I know whom You are, the Holy One of Yahweh!" 25 And Yahshua admonished him, saying "Be silent and come out from him!" 26 And the unclean spirit convulsing him and crying out with a great voice came out from him. 27 And they were all amazed so as for them to dispute saying: "What is this? A new doctrine with authority? And He commands the unclean spirits, and they obey Him!" 28 And the report of it went out at once everywhere in the whole surrounding region of Galilaia.

This is one of the few accounts common to Mark and Luke (4:33-37) but not found in Matthew. The healing of this possessed man in Capernaum was quite possibly one of the great deeds Christ prophesied of when He told those who rejected Him in Nazareth "Surely you shall speak to Me this parable: 'Physician, heal Yourself! Whatever we have heard happened in Kapharnaoum, do also here in Your fatherland!" (Luke 4:23)

We will now examine the account in more detail:

1:23 And there was right away in their assembly hall a man with an unclean spirit and he had cried out

So it is evident that Yahshua is a comfort for His people but a perturbation and terror to His enemies.

The Scriptures do not provide any depth concerning the origin of unclean spirits, and that is for good reason. The only writings which elaborate on the matter are found in the Enoch literature, and while the book known as 1 Enoch was inspired scripture quoted by Jude, it is only presented in a supposedly “complete” form in the spurious Ethiopic tradition. There are some surviving portions found elsewhere, and there is also a small number of fragments found among the Dead Sea Scrolls. Those Dead Sea Scroll fragments are the most trustworthy which survive today, so we should always test the spurious Ethiopic tradition against those fragments whenever possible, (the fragments are unfortunately few in number).

We will be examining the Enoch literature with a great deal of caution and discretion, testing it against the Dead Sea Scroll fragments whenever possible, and then of course to the balance of Scripture, and we will see that its explanations concerning the origin of unclean spirits does appear to agree with that balance.

We will begin with the fragment 4Q202 (or 4QEnochb ar), which corresponds with the account in Genesis 6.

4Q202, or 4QEnochb ar, Col. II :[ from The Dead Sea Scrolls – Study Edition, Volume 1, by F. G. Martinez and E. J. C. Tigchelaar, Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company Grand Rapids, 1997: “1 [al]l the [d]ays [of their life ...] 2 It happened that wh[en in those days the sons of men increased,] 3 pretty and [attractive daughters were born to them. The Watchers, sons of the sky, saw them and lusted for them] 4 and sa[id to each other: «Let’s go and choose out women from among the daughters of men and sire for ourselves] 5 [sons ».” The reconstructions are corroborated from other scrolls, such as 4Q201, 4Q204, et al.

The cited portion of 4Q202 is 1 Enoch 5:9-6:4, where in the spurious Ethiopic tradition it appears for the most part to agree with this fragment, showing the textual tradition to be of great antiquity. Unfortunately, the Dead Sea Scroll fragments are few in number, and when we do not have any corresponding fragments to test the Ethiopic tradition against, it is important to read the text with even more discretion.

Continuing with the 15th chapter of the Ethiopic tradition of 1 Enoch, we will see that the chapter for the most part does agree with the balance of Scripture when read with discretion:

1 Enoch 15:1-11 And He answered and said to me, and I heard His voice: 'Fear not, Enoch, thou righteous man and scribe of righteousness: approach hither and hear my voice. And go, say to the Watchers [Daniel 4:7] of heaven, who have sent thee to intercede for them: You should intercede for men, and not men for you: Wherefore have ye left the high, holy, and eternal heaven, [Jude 1:6, Revelation 12:9] and lain with women, and defiled yourselves with the daughters of men [Genesis 6:2] and taken to yourselves wives, and done like the children of earth, and begotten giants [Numbers 13:33] as your sons? And though ye were holy, spiritual, living the eternal life, you have defiled yourselves with the blood of women, and have begotten children with the blood of flesh, and, as the children of men, have lusted after flesh [Jude 1:7 - pursuit of different flesh] and blood as those also do who die and perish. Therefore have I given them wives also that they might impregnate them, and beget children by them, that thus nothing might be wanting to them on earth. [Genesis 1:28] But you were formerly spiritual, living the eternal life, and immortal for all generations of the world. And therefore I have not appointed wives for you; [Matthew 22:30, Mark 12:25, Luke 20:36] for as for the spiritual ones of the heaven, in heaven is their dwelling. And now, the giants, who are produced from the spirits and flesh, shall be called evil spirits [Luke 8:2] upon the earth, and on the earth shall be their dwelling. Evil spirits have proceeded from their bodies; because they are born from men, and from the holy Watchers is their beginning and primal origin; they shall be evil spirits on earth, and evil spirits shall they be called. As for the spirits of heaven, in heaven shall be their dwelling, but as for the spirits of the earth which were born upon the earth, on the earth shall be their dwelling. And the spirits of the giants afflict, [Mark 5:5] oppress, [Daniel 10:13] destroy, attack, [Mark 9:22] do battle, and work destruction on the earth, and cause trouble: they take no food, but nevertheless hunger and thirst, and cause offences. [Matthew 13:41] And these spirits shall rise up against the children of men and against the women, because they have proceeded from them.

Taking this into account, we should see if unclean spirits originating from bastards is compatible with our surviving scriptures, and it certainly is.

Something we should first understand is the nature of the Adamic Spirit, which was breathed into Adam by Yahweh God and made him a living soul (Genesis 2:7), an image of Yahweh's "own eternity” (Wisdom 2:23). 

Paul of Tarsus explained that this Spirit is sown with the natural body, which must mean that the Adamic Spirit is an integral piece of the natural body’s genetic code. Of course, any corruption of the Adamic genetic code would consequently break the blueprint and make the body unable to hold the Adamic Spirit.

1 Corinthians 15:44,46 It is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body; if there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual. […] But the spiritual was not first; rather the natural, then the spiritual:

Paul of Tarsus makes it evident that the flesh of the Adamic body comes first, and that the Adamic Spirit is sown alongside with it for a future raising, ostensibly at conception. But Paul also wrote that “Not all flesh is the same flesh, but one flesh of man, and another flesh of beasts” (1 Corinthians 15:39) Speaking of the singular flesh of man, Paul is certainly thinking of Adam, where he writes in that chapter “The first man Adam came into a living soul" (1 Corinthians 15:45) 

The Adamic Spirit was also within Eve, for being formed from Adam’s rib, she had the same natural body, and therefore Adam declared that she was “bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh” (Genesis 2:23) If she was of the same flesh, then she was also of the same Spirit.

But again, Paul wrote that “not all flesh is the same flesh”, which is substantiated by the apostle Jude, where he wrote of a different flesh in his explanation of the fact that both the fallen angels and their later descendants in Sodom and Gomorra had both engaged in the same transgressions of “committing fornication and having gone after different flesh” (Jude 1:7). The word translated as different in the CNT is heteros, meaning different, and therefore Jude is stating that those in Sodom and Gomorra were having sexual relations with partners who did not have the same flesh as themselves. This is not a matter of gender, because remember, Eve had the same flesh as Adam. Therefore, Jude is making it clear that there was race-mixing fornication happening in Sodom between those who descended from Adam and those who did not.

If a hominid on this earth does not have the flesh of Adam, then one of the few alternatives is that they have the flesh of beasts, for as Paul writes “Not all flesh is the same flesh, but one flesh of man, and another flesh of beasts”, and Jude agrees, writing that the bastards with different flesh are “animals, not having the Spirit” (Jude 1:19). Again, if these bastards have different flesh, as Jude earlier writes, then it explains his statement that they do not have the Adamic Spirit, which we know from Paul to require the blueprint of Adamic flesh. 

Therefore, Jude calling such bastards animals does not only act as a pejorative, but also as a statement of the fact that bastards do not have the Spirit passed onto Adam, which is what makes someone human. Only the children of Adam are “born from above” (John 3:3), because only they have the Spirit of Yahweh God from above within their fleshly tabernacles. As Christ said to the different-flesh Edomite beasts among the Pharisees, "You are from of those below; I am from of those above” (John 8:23), and also as Solomon wrote, “Who knoweth the spirit of man [Adam #120] that goeth upward, and the spirit of the beast that goeth downward to the earth?” (Ecclesiastes 3:21)

There is one flesh of Adam, and the Adamic Spirit is sown along with that same natural body ostensibly at conception. Therefore if one does not have the Spirit, then it must be because they have different flesh from Adam, a matter of having a racial origin apart from him, which is why Peter describes these bastards as being “born as natural irrational animals into destruction and corruption in which blaspheming they are ignorant in their corruption they also shall perish” (2 Peter 2:12)  Where Peter writes that they are born into corruption, this is a reference to how bastards are a violation of God’s law of kind after kind.

As Genesis and Enoch testify, so do Jude and Peter agree, because they both relate these bastard animals without the Adamic Spirit to the fallen angels: Jude connects the “godless men” having “stolen in” and who are “written about beforetime for this judgement” (Jude 1:13) to the “messengers not having kept their first dominion but having forsaken their own habitation” (Jude 1:6), and Peter, speaking of the same bastards, connects them to “the messengers who had done wrong” (2 Peter 2:4)

But we must ask: if the Spirit is sown with the flesh, then does having different flesh imply that one has a different spirit? The apostle John provides the answer: 

1 John 4:1 Beloved, do not have trust in every spirit, but scrutinize whether the spirits are from of Yahweh, because many false prophets have gone out into Society. 

These are the same bastard animal false prophets Peter spoke of (2 Peter 2:1), whom he illustrated to be the descendants of the fallen angels, and here the apostle John describes these bastard false prophets as spirits which are not from Yahweh God. This confirms that bastards also have spirits within them, which is testified towards in the Enoch literature, and John therefore illustrates that bastards are embodied unclean spirits, as much as unclean spirits are disembodied bastards.

If a spirit does not originate from Yahweh God then it must be the result of corruption, period, as Peter had also wrote concerning embodied unclean spirits. Yahweh is the author of Creation, not the author of corruption. He created the donkey, but did not make the mule. Similarly, He did not create the bastard spirits.

Spirits coming from a source other than Yahweh God is subtly witnessed towards in the writings. 

In Scripture, water can represent many things, one of which being the Spirit of Yahweh God, whether it be the Adamic Spirit sown at birth, or the Holy Spirit, which represents Yahweh’s complete union with obedient men, both being the same Spirit but the latter a fuller dispensation. For example, the waters of the early and latter rain prophetically describe immersions of the Holy Spirit. Therefore, where Jude describes the bastard descendants of the fallen angels as “clouds without water” (Jude 1:12), and Peter that they are “streams without water” (2 Peter 2:17) - these two statements concerning water are respectively parallel with where Jude writes that these were “animals, not having the Spirit.”, and then Peter that they were “born as natural irrational animals into destruction and corruption”

Identifying these bastards as dry clouds and streams without water, is a metaphor which has precedence in the Bible, perhaps most notably in the prophet Jeremiah, where Yahweh says in reference to Israel and Judah's racemixing fornication: “For my people have committed two evils; they have forsaken me the fountain of living waters, and hewed them out cisterns, broken cisterns, that can hold no water” (Jeremiah 2:13). Cisterns or vessels are often used to represent the bodies of men, because the vessel contains a spirit, whether it be clean or unclean, (Romans 9:21-23, Isaiah 52:11, Zechariah 14:21, et al).

If a cistern is not able to hold the water of the Adamic Spirit then it must be of different flesh, because as Paul explains, the Adamic Spirit can only be sown with the genetic code of an Adamic natural body. The production of these bastard broken cisterns was the principle sin of the children of Israel. For example, as it is written in the prophet Hosea, “They have dealt treacherously against the LORD: for they have begotten strange children” (Hosea 5:7)

Furthermore, these broken-cistern strange children are not truly alive, because as we can remember, it is the Spirit of Yahweh which made Adam a “living soul”. Vessels (bodies) which do not have the spirit of Yahweh are not living souls, and are therefore twice dead. As James said, “the body without a spirit is dead” (James 2:26), and then Jude, “clouds without water being carried away by the winds, late-autumn trees without fruit, twice dead being uprooted” (Jude 1:12)

Because a fountain represents the source of water, in prophecy it can represent the source of a Spirit, therefore Yahweh having breathed His spirit into Adam and making him a living soul, is the “fountain of living waters”. But the spirits which are not from Yahweh must have a different fountain which they sprang from, which is explicitly written of in the Proverbs:

Proverbs 9:18 (LXX) But he knows that mighty men die by her, [a bastard woman] and he falls in with a snare of hell. But hasten away, delay not in the place, neither fix thine eye upon her: for thus shalt thou go through strange water; but do thou abstain from strange water, and drink not of a strange fountain, that thou mayest live long, and years of life may be added to thee. 

The meaning of not drinking from a strange fountain is definitely to not engage in race-mixing fornication, for as Solomon wrote earlier in Proverbs:

Proverbs 5:15-18 Drink waters out of thine own vessels, and out of thine own springing wells. Let not waters out of thy fountain be spilt by thee, but let thy waters go into thy streets. Let them be only thine own, and let no stranger partake with thee. Let thy fountain of water be truly thine own; and rejoice with the wife of thy youth. 

So the waters of a strange fountain are connected with bastard women, and if there are strange waters inside of these women, then those strange waters must be representative of the bastard spirits described in the Enoch literature, and we should remember how Jude and Peter agreed that the infiltrators of their day descended from the fallen angels. Therefore, these strange waters represent the spirit which is not from Yahweh, that the apostle John warned of.

These bastard spirits within bastard "people" must therefore be the unclean spirits recorded of in the Gospel, and that brings us to one last and straightforward point: that the spirits are described as unclean:

The Greek word koinos (common, profane) refers to things which have been made profane through some sort of action, such as when the clean meat of chicken is dedicated to an idol, or when a clean Adamic man racemixes. This is why Paul called Esau, a clean Adamic son of Isaac, “a profane man and a fornicator” (Hebrews 12:16) Esau took Hittite wives, those of a strange fountain. However, things which are made profane are not doomed and are able to be cleansed. As it was told to Peter ,in regard to the profane Judahite Romans who were cleansed through the blood of Christ: “The things which Yahweh has cleansed, you do not deem profane!” (Acts 11:9)

In contrast, the word akathartos (unclean) is often used to refer to animals or people which are unclean on account of their origin, and they can never be cleansed. Swine is unclean, and there is nothing which any man can do to make it clean. As Job said “Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean? not one.” (Job 14:4)

Therefore, when Christ compared certain hominids to swine or dogs, which are unclean animals, He was communicating that it is the genetic nature of these men which makes them unclean. Swine and dogs are unclean for consumption, and bastards are corrupt and unclean for marriage. As Yahweh said to the Israelite cisterns containing the living waters of the Adamic Spirit: “Depart ye, depart ye, go ye out from thence, touch no unclean thing; go ye out of the midst of her; be ye clean, that bear the vessels (bodies) of the LORD.” (Isaiah 52:11)

The word thing is not in the Hebrew of Isaiah 52:11 and is an artificial insertion made by the translators of the King James. Quoting this verse in his second epistle to the Corinthians, Paul understood the unclean to be referring to bastards, where he wrote “Do not become yoked together with untrustworthy aliens” (2 Corinthians 6:14) Such untrustworthy aliens are embodied unclean spirits, embodied demons, and they as all things are unclean based on their origin.

Therefore, the description of these evil spirits as “unclean spirits” in the Gospel substantiates the Enoch literature, which describes their origin as being through racemixing fornication. To be unclean is a matter of origin, and in the case of spirits, it must mean their origin is apart from God, which is what the apostle John wrote, and it can only result from the corruption which results from mixing, which is why John explained that those different spirits are contained within the bastard bodies of false prophets. 

These unclean spirits cannot trace their origin back to the fountain of living waters, because they are corruptions resulting from the adulteration of different kinds.

Now upon seeing the Christ - this unclean spirit trembles:

24 saying "What is there with us and with You, Yahshua the Nazarene? Have You come to destroy us? I know whom You are, the Holy One of Yahweh!"  

This unclean spirit knew who Christ was without any need to challenge Him, while the Adversary in the wilderness requested proof. This supports our interpretation that the Adversary in the wilderness was a "man", a physical descendant of Cain, perhaps a Pharisee or Sadducee. Furthermore, there is no evidence in Scripture that demons can communicate with men unless they are embodied in a physical vessel.

We can see how this unclean spirit in the Capernaum assembly hall was terrified of Christ. As James wrote: “You believe that there is one God, you do well; even the demons believe it, and they shudder!” (James 2:19) 

Very similar words as recorded to have been uttered by this unclean spirit in Capernaum were used by the unclean spirits which possessed the two men in the country of Gadarenes, where they said to Christ as it is recorded in Matthew’s gospel: “"What is with us and with You, O Son of Yahweh? Have You come already, to torment us prematurely?" (Matthew 8:29, also Mark 5:7 and Luke 8:28)

It is evident from both these accounts that unclean spirits know full well that they have an appointed day of destruction, which appears to be prophesied of in the surviving Enoch literature among the Dead Sea Scrolls, in the fragment designated 4Q204: “Exterminate all the spirits of the bastards and the sons of] [the Watchers, because they have caused evil to be done to men.” Notice how in that fragment, both the disembodied spirits (spirits of the bastards), and the embodied spirits (sons), are exterminated.

The unclean spirit here was terrified that Yahshua had come to destroy it, and earlier in this commentary we discussed how there is an appointed time for everything. Beginning in 28 AD, the was fulfilled for the good message to be proclaimed to the children of Israel, but the time for the destruction of God’s enemies had not yet come. Christ had come in His First Advent to be a man of sorrows and give His life as a ransom for many. It is in His Second Advent that He will return as a warrior King and righteous Judge, and destroy both the disembodied and embodied demons together as He makes war against the goat nations.

Interestingly, this is the only account in the gospels where an unclean spirit is recorded as calling Yahshua “the Nazarene”. Yahshua is recorded as being called “the Nazarene” by the blind beggar Bartimaeus (Mark 10:47), the woman who recognized Peter during Christ’s trial before the Sanhedrin (Mark 14:67), one of the messengers at the tomb after Yahshua’s resurrection (Mark 16:6), and finally by Cleopas and his companion on the road to Emmaus (Luke 24:19). It would not have been unusual for Christ to be associated with His fatherland, as men were often associated with their hometown or place of birth: think Paul of Tarsus (Acts 9:11) or Joseph of Arimathea (John 19:38).

But Nazarene has a special significance, because nazer (#H5342) means branch. This surname fulfilled several prophecies of the Messiah, such as in Zechariah where He is twice called “the Branch” (Zechariah 3:8, 6:12), or in Isaiah where He is described as a Branch out of Jesse’s roots (Isaiah 11:1), and in Jeremiah where it is written “Behold, the days come, saith the LORD, that I will raise unto David a righteous Branch, and a King shall reign and prosper, and shall execute judgment and justice in the earth.” (Jeremiah 23:5) In the following verse of Jeremiah it is said that His name will be “Yahweh our righteousness”, because Yahshua Christ of Nazareth is certainly Yahweh in the flesh. He is the branch, but He is also the root.

Christ is similarly called a tender plant in Isaiah 53:2 and a plant of renown in Ezekiel 34:29. If we read further on in the parallel Ethiopic tradition of the Dead Sea Scrolls fragment we just cited earlier, we see described the destruction of the unclean spirits around the same time of the manifestation of a certain “plant of righteousness”:

1 Enoch 10:15-16 And destroy all the spirits of the reprobate and the children of the Watchers, because they have wronged mankind. Destroy all wrong from the face of the earth and let every evil work come to an end: and let the plant of righteousness and truth appear: and it shall prove a blessing; the works of righteousness and truth' shall be planted in truth and joy for evermore.

Reading this prophecy in 1 Enoch, it is interesting that the unclean spirit in Capernaum called Yahshua the Nazarene, and asked if He had come to destroy him. As for where the unclean spirit calls Yahshua “the holy one of Yahweh”, this may possibly hearken back to the opening of 1 Enoch, shortly before the passage which Jude quoted in his lone epistle:

1 Enoch 1:3-5 […] The Holy Great One will come forth from His dwelling [Revelation 19:11], and the eternal God will tread upon the earth, (even) on Mount Sinai, [And appear from His camp] and appear in the strength of His might from the heaven of heavens. And all shall be smitten with fear, and the Watchers shall quake, and great fear and trembling shall seize them unto the ends of the earth. [Luke 21:26-27] […] 9 And behold! He cometh with ten thousands of His holy ones [Revelation 19:14] to execute judgement upon all, and to destroy all the ungodly: and to convict all flesh of all the works of their ungodliness which they have ungodly committed, and of all the hard things which ungodly sinners have spoken against Him.

Jude 1:14-15 And Enoch, seventh from Adam, prophesied to these saying "Behold, the Prince has come with ten thousands of His saints to execute judgment against all and to convict every soul for all of their impious deeds which they committed impiously and for all of the harsh things which the impious wrongdoers have spoken against Him!"

As interesting as these passages may be - it has to be emphasized that the spurious Ethiopic tradition has to be read with the highest level of discretion. It is demonstrably filled with interpolations and corruptions. The Ethiopic text itself is a compilation of several texts which are doubtful to be remnants of legitimate scripture, and among them only 1 Enoch is quoted by Jude. We have been careful to only cite aspects of 1 Enoch which can be substantiated with surviving Scripture.

1:25 And Yahshua admonished him, saying "Be silent and come out from him!" 26 And the unclean spirit convulsing him and crying out with a great voice came out from him.  

Yahshua admonishes the unclean spirit to be silent, as He did not want the people at this time to know that He was the Christ. This is made explicit later in what is now the first chapter of Mark, where we read “and He cast out many demons, yet He did not allow the demons to speak, because they knew Him to be the Christ.” (Mark 1:34)

Our Prince often urged His students to keep His identity a secret, such as when after Peter gave testimony through the Spirit that Yahshua was “the Anointed Son of Yahweh who is living!” (Matthew 16:16), Christ then “ordered the students in order that they would tell no one that He is the Anointed One” (Matthew 16:20) Shortly afterwards, Peter and the sons of Zebedee witnessed what is called today the Transfiguration on the Mount, and we read that “upon their descending from the mountain Yahshua commanded them saying "Tell no one of this sight until when the Son of Man has been raised from the dead!" (Matthew 17:9)

It was important for Yahshua’s identity to not become public knowledge, and it is evident why, where after the feeding of the five thousand, as it is recorded in John’s gospel, we read that “Then the men, seeing the sign which He had made, said that "this is truly the Prophet [Deut 18:15] who is coming into the Society!" Yahshua, knowing that they were going to come and to seize Him in order that they would make Him king, He alone withdrew back into the mountain.” (John 6:14-15)

If the people in the land became abundantly aware that Yahshua was the Christ, they would have sought to make Him king, and would have never let Him be crucified by the High Priests. Therefore, it was necessary that it not become publicly known, so that the children of Israel could be saved from their errors. This is also part of the reason why the hearts of the people were made fat, so that they would not universally repent.

1:27 And they were all amazed so as for them to dispute saying: "What is this? A new doctrine with authority? And He commands the unclean spirits, and they obey Him!"

The unclean spirit obeyed Yahshua because He is Yahweh God and sovereign over all things, even His own enemies, which is also explicit in the account of the healing of the Canaanite dog’s daughter, and in the Revelation where the messenger of Yahweh holds the key to the bottomless pit (Revelation 20:1). The existence of unclean spirits both embodied and disembodied is something permitted by Yahweh until the consummation of the age, as a means to punish and refine His children, so the unclean spirit is cast out here but not yet exterminated.

The ability to cast out unclean spirits was later gifted to the apostles, who worked through Yahweh, and they rejoiced that the demons were subject by His name. But as it is recorded in the gospel of Luke, Christ responded and said “But in this you must not rejoice: that spirits are subject to you. Rather, rejoice that your names are inscribed in the heavens." (Luke 10:20) The true treasure in life is the one which we hold in our earthen vessels (2 Corinthians 4:7). Men should rejoice that they themselves are clean spirits, waters from the fountain of God, and not strange and unclean waters which originate from the fallen angels. It is truly a blessing that we have been born as children of Yahweh.

1:28 And the report of it went out at once everywhere in the whole surrounding region of Galilaia.

There is no surviving account I am aware of that describes anyone casting out demons before Christ, and so this would have been an extraordinary thing for the people to witness. In the next passage of Mark, we will see the whole city crowding by the door of Peter and Andrew’s house wishing to be healed from various diseases and afflictions, including possessions, which was likely at least partly due to this astounding report.

The report extended out into “the whole surrounding region of Galilee” and that would have included Nazareth. As Yahshua had prophesied to His kinsmen there at an earlier date, "Surely you shall speak to Me this parable: 'Physician, heal Yourself! Whatever we have heard happened in Kapharnaoum, do also here in Your fatherland!'" (Luke 4:23)

Yahweh had comforted His people in Capernaum, but the devils were perturbed, and that is because there is no possibility of comfort for them, of whom it is written in the law concerning their embodied counterparts “Thou shalt not seek their peace nor their prosperity all thy days for ever.” (Deuteronomy 23:6) We await the day when all of the unclean spirits are destroyed, both embodied and disembodied, and in that day will all the earth in quietness know comfort and rest and peace.