Verses 30-31
The presence of so many pigs may have been due to Jewish disobedience to the Mosaic Law since for Jews pigs where unclean. However this is unlikely since the Jewish leaders were very particular about such flagrant violations of the Law. Probably they belonged to Gentiles who lived in large numbers in the Decapolis where this story took place.
The demons may have requested asylum in the swine because they hated the creatures and or because they wanted to stir up trouble for Jesus. Demons do not like to be homeless (Matthew 12:43-45). Exorcized evil spirits sometimes expressed their rage with acts of violence and vengefulness (cf. Matthew 17:14-20). What happened to the demons? Matthew did not tell us. Probably he wanted to impress us with Jesus’ power over them, not detract us by making them the central feature of the incident. Perhaps they went to the lake of fire.
"We can construct a ’statement of faith’ from the words of the demons. (Demons do have faith; see James 2:19.) They believed in the existence of God and the deity of Christ, as well as the reality of future judgment. They also believed in prayer. They knew Christ had the power to send them into the swine." [Note: Wiersbe, 1:34.]
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