⚡WEB · Mark 9:26
What does Mark 9:26 mean?
"After crying out and convulsing him greatly, it came out of him. The boy became like one dead; so much that most of them said, “He is dead.”"
— Mark 9:26 (World English Bible)
Surrounding context
Jesus said to him, “If you can believe, all things are possible to him who believes.”
Immediately the father of the child cried out with tears, “I believe. Help my unbelief!”
When Jesus saw that a multitude came running together, he rebuked the unclean spirit, saying to him, “You mute and deaf spirit, I command you, come out of him, and never enter him again!”
After crying out and convulsing him greatly, it came out of him. The boy became like one dead; so much that most of them said, “He is dead.”
But Jesus took him by the hand, and raised him up; and he arose.
When he had come into the house, his disciples asked him privately, “Why couldn’t we cast it out?”
He said to them, “This kind can come out by nothing, except by prayer and fasting.”
Explanation
Mark 9:26 describes the climactic moment when Jesus casts an unclean spirit out of a boy who had suffered from convulsions since childhood. The verse tells us that as the spirit left, it did not go quietly — it cried out and threw the boy into violent convulsions one last time. The aftermath was so severe that the boy lay motionless, appearing lifeless, leading the crowd of onlookers to conclude that he had actually died.
This event takes place in Mark 9:14-29, immediately after the Transfiguration, when Jesus comes down the mountain to find His disciples unable to heal this boy despite the father's desperate pleas. The father explains that the spirit has repeatedly tried to destroy the child by throwing him into fire and water. Jesus rebukes the unbelief present in the scene, and the father famously responds, "I believe; help my unbelief!" (9:24). Mark, writing likely for a Roman audience unfamiliar with Jewish customs, includes vivid physical details like this one to underscore the reality and severity of demonic affliction and the corresponding power of Jesus to overcome it. The Gospel was meant to demonstrate Jesus's authority even where human effort — including that of His own disciples — had failed.
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