Luke 8:29 Commentary and Bible Study

The explanation for the demon’s words is then given. As soon as he had arrived, Christ had said something. ‘For he had commanded the unclean spirit to come out of the man. For oftentimes it had caught him.’ Whatever this means, it made him extremely violent. Why else would they keep him bound with chains and fetters? Because that is what the townspeople were obliged to do. The people would somehow get hold of him and by force of numbers subdue him and then chain him. But he would break the bands eventually, and was driven of the devil into the wilderness. So he spent his time between the open wastes, the desert area, the tombs outside the city near the shoreline, excluded from society and from his home and so on. That is his awful condition.