39 But he answered them, “An evil and adulterous generation seeks after a sign, but no sign will be given it but the sign of Jonah the prophet. 40 For as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the whale, so will the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth. 41 The men of Nineveh will stand up in the judgment with this generation, and will condemn it, for they repented at the preaching of Jonah; and behold, someone greater than Jonah is here. 42 The queen of the south will rise up in the judgment with this generation, and will condemn it, for she came from the ends of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon; and behold, someone greater than Solomon is here. 43 But the unclean spirit, when he is gone out of the man, passes through waterless places, seeking rest, and doesn’t find it. 44 Then he says, ‘I will return into my house from which I came out,’ and when he has come back, he finds it empty, swept, and put in order. 45 Then he goes, and takes with himself seven other spirits more evil than he is, and they enter in and dwell there. The last state of that man becomes worse than the first. Even so will it be also to this evil generation.”

via World English Bible Matthew 12.

This parable is told (in Matthew’s version) after Jesus has cast out a demon from a man that made him mute and blind. He then warns his hearers over how they use their speech and their eyes.

Demon possession and exorcisms are metaphors for the situation of the whole nation in that generation.

I used to think Jesus was cleansing his own generation but warning them about the future.

I now think, following N. T. Wright in Jesus and the Victory of God that Jesus is saying that they were delivered in the past and now the demons have returned. He is explaining why, now, there is so much demon possession in the nation. A spirit was once expelled but has returned with worse company.

When was it expelled? What was the historic event? Wright does not know. But I have a suggestion. When the return from exile had begun Zechariah had a vision (chapter 5):

Then the angel who talked with me came forward, and said to me, “Lift up now your eyes, and see what is this that is appearing.”

I said, “What is it?”

He said, “This is the ephah basket that is appearing.” He said moreover, “This is their appearance in all the land (and behold, a talent of lead was lifted up); and this is a woman sitting in the midst of the ephah basket.” He said, “This is Wickedness”; and he threw her down into the midst of the ephah basket; and he threw the weight of lead on its mouth.

Then lifted I up my eyes, and saw, and behold, there were two women, and the wind was in their wings. Now they had wings like the wings of a stork, and they lifted up the ephah basket between earth and the sky.

Then I said to the angel who talked with me, “Where are these carrying the ephah basket?”

He said to me, “To build her a house in the land of Shinar. When it is prepared, she will be set there in her own place.”

When the first exiles went in to Babylon, Ezekiel chapter 1 records a vision of God’s presence from the Temple coming with them to the foreign land. Ezekiel sees a throne carried by cherubim described in a way that would remind readers of the Ark of the Covenant, a box with a gold lid that was carried in a similar fashion by the Levites. This “ephah basket” with a lid made of lead is an anti-Ark. The stork is an unclean bird (Leviticus 11.9; Deuteronomy 14.18; etc). The stork-winged women function as anti-cherubim taking the anti-Ark back to Babylon where the Israelites are not longer captive as exiles.

The storks are returning from the wilderness of Shinar.