A drove
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The Greek noun agele means a herd or drove, a collective group of animals. In the New Testament it occurs in the Synoptic accounts of Jesus delivering a man or men from demons, where a large herd of pigs is feeding nearby.
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Full entry for ἀγέλη (G34) · Open the biblical lexicon
The Greek noun agele means a herd or drove, a collective group of animals. In the New Testament it occurs in the Synoptic accounts of Jesus delivering a man or men from demons, where a large herd of pigs is feeding nearby.
The BSB source-word alignment has 7 aligned rows for this entry. Common renderings include herd (7).
The source-word alignment first shows this entry at Matthew 8:30. Its strongest book concentrations include Matthew (3), Luke (2), Mark (2).
The Greek noun agele means a herd or drove, a collective group of animals. In the New Testament it occurs in the Synoptic accounts of Jesus delivering a man or men from demons, where a large herd of pigs is feeding nearby. The demons enter the pigs with Jesus's permission, and the herd rushes down the steep bank into the water and dies. The noun itself identifies the animals as a group moving together; it does not mean demon, uncleanness, mental illness, mob, or sinful humanity.
Matthew, Mark, and Luke narrate the episode with different surrounding details, so interpreters should respect each account rather than inventing a harmonized number of afflicted people or a symbolic code for every herd. The scene involves human deliverance, spiritual conflict, animal death, economic loss, fear, and public response. Those elements deserve careful treatment, but they must not be used to stigmatize people experiencing mental distress or to make speculative diagnoses from suffering behavior.
Agele occurs only in the parallel Synoptic deliverance accounts, where it names the nearby group of pigs and then the animals moving together toward the water.
In the distance a large herd of pigs was feeding.
Matthew first locates a large herd of feeding pigs at a distance from Jesus and the demonized men.
“Go!” He told them. So they came out and went into the pigs, and the whole herd rushed down the steep bank into the sea and died in the waters.
After Jesus permits the demons to go, Matthew says the whole herd rushes down the steep bank and dies in the waters.
He gave them permission, and the unclean spirits came out and went into the pigs, and the herd of about two thousand rushed down the steep bank into the sea and drowned in the water.
Mark reports that the herd numbered about two thousand and moved together into the sea after the unclean spirits entered the pigs.
Then the demons came out of the man and went into the pigs, and the herd rushed down the steep bank into the lake and was drowned.
Luke distinguishes the demons leaving the man, entering the pigs, and the herd rushing into the lake and drowning.
BSB source-word alignment connects this entry to exact verse rows, English rendering, source form, transliteration, and parsing.
How English Renders ItA compact distribution from source-word alignment before the full evidence tables.
Greek word. A collective group of animals, especially swine, under unified control or movement together
A collective group of animals, especially swine, under unified control or movement together
(ἄγω), [in LXX chiefly for עֵ֫דֶר ;] a herd: Mat.8:30-32, Mrk.5:11, 13, Luk.8:32,33.
Textus Receptus witness, full corpusGreek token appearances from Scrivener 1894 Textus Receptus in the full New Testament corpus.
8 Greek text appearances shown. Linked morphology labels have verse guides.
a flock, herd
Read versea flock, herd
Read versea flock, herd
Read versea flock, herd
Read versea flock, herd
Read versea flock, herd
Read versea flock, herd
Read versea flock, herd
Read verseFull New Testament corpus: 260 chapters, 7,957 verses, 140,628 tokens. Data source: honza/textus-receptus (data only), with authority check against byztxt/greektext-textus-receptus.
How this word appears across different grammatical cases and numbers.
This word appears as a noun across 2 case and number patterns. The form changes show how the word functions in a sentence; they do not change the basic lexical meaning by themselves.
Verse guides are not available for this word yet, so verse references remain plain evidence markers.
ἀγέλη is built from these roots:
Agele is a small lexical detail with an important interpretive function: it keeps the animals together as a group while the narrative distinguishes the afflicted person, the demons, Jesus, the pigs, the herdsmen, and the townspeople. The word does not collapse those actors into one symbol. In each account, the herd is first present and feeding; after Jesus's permission, the demons enter the pigs and the animals rush toward the water.
The resulting loss is real, but the texts do not offer a complete explanation for every moral and economic question readers may raise. Their center is Jesus's authority and the restoration of a person who had been isolated and suffering. Responsible teaching can acknowledge spiritual conflict without treating every psychiatric symptom, disability, trauma response, or unusual behavior as demonic.
It can acknowledge animal death and livelihood loss without valuing property above a restored human life. Lexical precision therefore protects both the narrative's claims and people who may be harmed by speculative application.
Luke.8.33
Biblical herds elsewhere can signify ordinary livelihood, wealth, or judgment, but agele's New Testament use is confined to this event. Other deliverance accounts confirm Jesus's authority and compassion, yet none licenses a fixed method for diagnosing mental illness or assigning spiritual causes to every distressing condition.