HEBREW GOSPEL OF MATTHEW - CHAPTER 36

CHAPTER 8 (Part 6) — Section 036 [MT 8:28–34]

Note on Textual Divisions & Concordance Markers:
The section titles (פרק ראשון, פרק שני, etc.) follow the authentic internal layout of Shem-Tob's Hebrew text, which organizes the Gospel of Matthew into 116 structural pericopes. The traditional 28-chapter and verse divisions ([MT X:X–X]) did not exist in ancient manuscripts; they were devised centuries later by Western scholars (Stephen Langton in 1205 and Robert Estienne in 1551) to build Latin concordances. The standard chapter/verse citations are included in brackets solely as a concordance reference for readers navigating standard printed Bibles.

#	Shem-Tob Hebrew Text	Literal Translation
8:28	ויהי כאשר עבר הים ויעבור עבר הים במלכות גַארְגִיזָאנִי נקראים בלעז גִּיינִיטַרְ״ארלוס ויפגעו בו שנים אחוזי שדים יוצאים מהקברים משתגעים עד שלא יוכל איש לעבור בדרך ההיא׃	And it came to pass when he crossed the sea and passed over to the other side of the sea into the kingdom of the Gargizani—called in an outside tongue Ginitar'arlos—that there met him two men possessed of demons, coming out from the man-made sepulchers, raving mad, so that no man was able to pass along that path.
8:29	ויצעקו אליו לאמר מה לך עמנו יש״ו בן אלקים באת קודם הזמן לצערנו וגם להשמידנו? ויש״ו אמר להם צאו משם מחנות רעות׃	And they cried out unto him, saying: "What have we to do with you, Yeshu, Son of Elohim? Have you come before the time to torment us and also to destroy us?" And Yeshu said unto them: "Go out from there, evil camps!"
8:30	ושם קרוב מהם עדרי חזירים רבים רועים׃	And there near them was a herd of many swine feeding.
8:31	ויפגעו בו השדים יען יש לנו לצאת מכאן תן לנו רשות לבא באלו החזירים׃	And the demons besought him, saying: "Since we must go out from here, give us leave to enter into these swine."
8:32	ויאמר להם לכו. ויצאו השדים מהאנשים ויבאו בחזירים וילכו כל העדר בבהלה ונשמטו בים ומתו במים׃	And he said unto them: "Go." And the demons went out from the men and entered into the swine; and all the herd rushed headlong in sudden terror, slipped down into the sea, and perished in the waters.
8:33	ויפחדו הרועים ויברחו ויגידו בעיר הכל. ותהום כל העיר׃	And the herdsmen fled, and went into the city, and told everything; and the whole city was in an uproar.
8:34	ויצאו לקראת יש״ו. ויראו אותם ויחלו פניו לבלתי עבור בגבולם׃	And they went out to meet Yeshu; and when they saw him, they besought his face that he would not pass within their territory.

Consonantal, Paleographic & Prophetic Notes

• The Infrastructure of Death and Man-Made Sepulchers (8:28):
  The text records that the afflicted men emerge directly from the tombs (ha-kvarim). Unlike natural caves, these sepulchers were structural monuments hewn out of rock by human hands using iron tools, introducing ritual defilement and structural death into the landscape. This region functions as a cut-off boundary (gizrah) where human life is alienated from the true path. The psychological and spiritual disintegration of the men (mishtagge'im — raving mad) mirrors the portrait of the ungodly in Psalm 36, where the absence of the fear of God leads to total internal collapse and estrangement from the community of life.
• The Sovereign Command Over the "Evil Camps" (8:29):
  Shem-Tob preserves an unharmonized Semitic command: Tz'u misham maḥanot ra'ot ("Go out from there, evil camps!"). Spiritual darkness is unmasked as an organized, hostile military occupying force (maḥanot). The demons recognize supreme authority instantly, crying out in terror because they know their allotted probationary countdown has been interrupted by the very Word whose headship they rejected previously.
• The Manuscript Apparatus and Scribal Alteration:
  The critical apparatus reveals significant manuscript variation (such as shifts between men, sons of men, and various geographical glosses like Gadara or outside foreign forms). As established in foundational principles regarding copied records, later uninspired copyists frequently altered, smoothed, or glossed the text to fit their own understanding or to harmonize it with parallel versions, whereas the primary Semitic witness preserves the distinct structural features and original testimony of the account.
• The Judicial Judgment in the Great Deep (8:32):
  When the unclean spirits enter the swine, the herd is seized by sudden panic (b'vehalah) and v'nishm'tu bayyam ("slipped down / were cast loose into the sea"). The verb root shamat carries the precise legal sense of forfeiture, release, and structural collapse. This enacts the precise reality declared in Psalm 36: “Thy judgments are like the great deep” and “There are the workers of iniquity fallen; they are thrust down, and are not able to rise.” The chaotic deep acts as the instrument of divine boundary enforcement, swallowing the hostile host.
• The Rejection of the Fountain of Life (8:33–34):
  Faced with undeniable deliverance, the inhabitants of the region do not draw near to the source of restoration. Instead, gripped by the fear of commercial and social disruption, they come out to entreat Yeshu's face (va-yeḥallu fanav) to depart from their borders. Like the proud and wicked described in Psalm 36 who reject wisdom and choose the ways of deceit, the citizens of Gargizani value their material security and herds above the presence of divine authority, shutting themselves off from the fountain of life.
• The Clearing of the Path as a Structural Transition:
  By explicitly noting that the possessed men made it so “that no man was able to pass along that path,” the narrative establishes a physical and spiritual blockade. An ancient scribal reader tracing the structural progression recognizes that the removal of this territorial obstruction and the dismantling of the occupying darkness clears an unhindered pathway for what unfolds next in the sequence, allowing the mission to advance directly into the domestic sphere of restoration and the deeper exposure of scribal doubt.

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