Under the latter, persecution, mean personal appearance , headache, epilepsy, earache, stone , ophthalmia. Very plausible reasons are given in favor of both epilepsy and ophthalmia. Bishop Lightfoot inclines to the former, and Archdeacon Farrar thinks that it was almost certainly the latter. The torment is thus personified. Messenger is the word commonly rendered angel in the New Testament, though sometimes used of human messengers, as Luke vii.
Messenger is figurative, in the sense of agent.
Satan is conceived in the New Testament as the originator of bodily evil . Thus, in the gospel narrative, demoniac possession is often accompanied with some form of disease . Compare Luke xiii. For the verb, meaning to strike with the fist, see Matt. Compare Job ii.