Sometimes Mark's rather sparse and truncated way of writing creates problems. So we are puzzled why Jesus should speak "sternly" to a poor man whom he has cured of leprosy. "The leprosy left him then and there, and he was cured." Perhaps this sentence means that two things occurred: an exorcism and a healing. Jesus was speaking sternly to the devil and not to the healed man. As the devil's malice was removed from the man, he was healed.

For Jesus' contemporaries, illness was associated with the devil, for illness is an evil and the devil is the source of all evil. Jesus sometimes associated sin and illness, telling people whom he had healed "Go now and sin no more." At the same time, he was careful to disassociate illness and sin, showing there is no automatic connection between them: those who suffer are frequently innocent of any sin that could have caused the illness. Indeed, those who are afflicted by illness are often the victims of sinfulness on the part of others.

The words "The leprosy left him" may be an indication that the "evil spirit" left the man: he was exorcized or set free from this evil, and so was cured of his illness.