Taken with the calming of the sea in Mark 4:35–41, there are "four striking works [which] follow each other without a break":[1] an exorcism, a healing, and the raising of Jairus' daughter.

Tom Wright notes that "why Jesus went to that bit of territory we'll never know",[3] although Johann Bengel infers that many Jews dwelt there.

[a] Mark relates the story "with a wealth of circumstantial detail":[5] the man had lived among the nearby tombs, and had fought off all attempts to chain him up: the Greek text has a complex string of negatives: οὐδὲ ἁλύσει οὐκέτι οὐδεὶς, oude halysei ouketi oudeis, no one, no longer, not even with chains.

Out of "grateful love",[6] the man asks Jesus to let him be with him (Greek: ινα μετ αυτου η, hina met autou e), translated as "stay with him" in the Jerusalem Bible,[9] but Jesus tells him to go home to his "family" (Amplified Bible) or to his "people" (New International Version) and tell them what God has done for him.

Protestant theologian Heinrich Meyer suggests that "he was to abide in his native place as a witness and proclaimer of the marvellous deliverance, that he had experienced from God through Jesus, and in this way to serve the work of Christ".

[6] Anglican biblical scholar Christopher Tuckett argues that "a number of details and inconsistencies within the present narrative suggest that Mark may be combining more than one tradition here into a single story": This story also occurs in Matthew 8:28–34, where there are two possessed men, and in Luke 8:26–39.

[10] On the other side of the lake Jesus is met by a man named Jairus, a Synagogue Ruler (a rich patron of the local house of worship),[7] who begs Jesus to heal his sick, twelve-year-old daughter.