Luke 8:34 Meaning and Explanation
“When they that fed them saw what was done, they fled, and went and told it in the city and in the country.”
King James Version (KJV)
Read this verse in context with translation switching:
Read Full Chapter →Luke names the first witnesses of one of the most dramatic deliverances in his Gospel, and they are herdsmen at work. Their livelihood had just gone down a steep place into the lake, and they were the ones who carried the story into every settlement nearby. What they did with what they saw shaped the next hour for an entire region, which makes this a verse about how news of Jesus actually travels.
The men hired to feed the swine watched the herd go into the lake, ran, and spread the news through town and countryside. Their report is what brings the whole district out to Jesus.
The Context of Luke 8:34
Jesus and the disciples have crossed the lake to the country of the Gadarenes, over against Galilee, arriving after the storm Jesus stilled in verses 22 through 25. A man with many devils met him from the tombs, named himself Legion, and begged not to be tormented. The spirits asked to enter a herd of swine feeding on the mountain, Jesus permitted it, and in verse 33 the herd rushed down a steep place into the lake. Verse 34 records the reaction of the men responsible for the animals. Verses 35 through 37 follow the crowd that their message brought out.
What Does Luke 8:34 Mean?
Luke describes the herdsmen by their job, they that fed them, which keeps them anonymous and locates their stake in the event. The phrase what was done appears here and again in verse 35, and Luke uses it once more at the close of the chapter in verse 56, marking events that leave witnesses reaching for words. Two verbs follow in quick order: they fled, and they told. Fear and testimony arrive together in the same sentence. The report goes in the city and in the country, covering settled streets and scattered farms alike, so that within a short time everyone with a reason to care has heard something.
Luke has built this chapter around things that cannot stay hidden. Earlier he records the parable of the lamp and the saying that nothing is secret which shall not be made manifest. Here that principle works itself out through frightened employees. The chapter is also a sequence of demonstrations: authority over the word and the soil, over wind and water, over a legion of spirits, and shortly over sickness and death. Each demonstration produces witnesses who have to decide what to say. The herdsmen say what they saw, and their words carry the event out of a lonely place among the tombs and into the shared life of a whole region.
God is able to use a report carried by fear. Nothing in the wording suggests that these men understood or welcomed what had happened; they were counting losses and raising an alarm. All the same, their alarm is what gathered a crowd to the feet of Jesus, where the crowd found a man clothed and in his right mind. Mark tells the same moment with the same detail. Later in the chapter Jesus gives a different kind of commission, sending the healed man home to declare how great things God had done for him. Both kinds of telling move through the same streets.
Luke 8:34 in the Original Language
boskontes (βόσκοντες), 'they that fed them' -- a participle for those pasturing or feeding livestock, the word for a herdsman at work. Luke identifies these witnesses by their task instead of by name, which is also how Mark reports the same men.
Bible Verses Related to Luke 8:34
“And they that fed the swine fled, and told it in the city, and in the country. And they went out to see what it was that was done.”
- Mark 5:14
“For nothing is secret, that shall not be made manifest; neither any thing hid, that shall not be known and come abroad.”
- Luke 8:17
“Then the whole multitude of the country of the Gadarenes round about besought him to depart from them; for they were taken with great fear: and he went up into the ship, and returned back again.”
- Luke 8:37
“And he said unto them, Where is your faith? And they being afraid wondered, saying one to another, What manner of man is this! for he commandeth even the winds and water, and they obey him.”
- Luke 8:25
Where Luke 8:34 Echoes in Scripture
Matthew 8:33 records the same instant from another angle, noting that the keepers of the herd fled into the city and reported everything, including what had become of the men possessed with devils. Three Gospel writers preserve this small detail about hired workers running with news, which suggests the early church considered it worth keeping. The first public account of that deliverance came from people with no standing in the story, and their words still stand in the record.
How to Apply Luke 8:34 Today
Most of what people learn about Jesus reaches them through ordinary conversation at work, over a fence, in a shop. That was true in Gadara and it is true now. We can tell what we have actually seen, in plain words, without waiting until we can explain it well. It also helps to notice who is telling us things and why, since the herdsmen delivered accurate news carrying a great deal of fear. Listening past someone's alarm to the facts underneath is a skill worth practicing, at church and everywhere else.
Reflection & Prayer
When something startles us, do we run toward explanation or toward the nearest person who will listen? A prayer: Lord, steady me when I am shaken. Let what I repeat about you be true, and let my fear never outrun my honesty. Use even my clumsy telling to bring somebody closer to where you are.