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Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Mark 8:22

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And he cometh to Bethsaida: and they bring a blind man unto him, and besought him to touch him.

22 26. The Blind Man in Eastern Bethsaida

22. Bethsaida ] i. e. Bethsaida Julias, which lay upon the northeastern coast of the Sea of Tiberias.

Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

To Bethsaida – See the notes at Mat 11:21.

And they bring a blind man unto him – The healing of the blind man of Bethsaida is recorded only by Mark.

Besought him to touch him – That is, to heal him, for they believed that his touch would restore his sight.

Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible

Mar 8:22-26

And He cometh to Bethsaida; and they bring a blind man unto Him.

Blindness common in the East

Blindness was and is more common in Egypt and Syria than in any other part of the world. The glare of light, the dust which is produced by a dry season, extending from May to November, in which rain rarely falls, and the fruit of the newly ripe fig, all tend to produce inflammation of the eyes, and this, when severe or repeated, produces blindness. One-tenth of the population of Joppa today are blind. In a neighbouring town, Lydda, a traveller, probably exaggerating, said every other person was blind of one or both eyes. In Cairo, a city of 250,000 inhabitants, there are 4,000 blind. Accordingly, this was one of the commonest ills which the Saviour had to treat. (R. Glover.)

Sight for the blind

I. A symbol of the spiritual blindness of humanity.

II. A symbol of salvation by Divine contact.

III. A symbol of the progressive character of spiritual enlightenment.

IV. A symbol of the power of Christ to effect complete illumination. (J. R. Thomson, M. A.)

Christs method of dealing with individual souls

I. He isolates from disturbing influences. First with Christ, that afterwards he may be in Him.

II. He encourages and confirms faith. Personal contact and operation, and kindly words, evoking patients inner freewill and power.

III. He exacts implicit obedience. The first use of the restored vision is to avoid those upon whom the man had formerly depended-a hard task! The life Christs people are bidden to lead may not commend itself to their judgment or desire, but it is best for their spiritual interests; and if Christ is to be a complete Saviour, He must be an absolute and unquestioned Lord. (A. F. Muir, M. A.)

Curing spiritual blindness

I. Deliverance from blind guides.

II. Transfer of confidence to the true Guide.

III. Revelation of the invisible power of God.

IV. Exercising the souls newly acquired powers of spiritual vision.

V. Giving spiritual direction for the future. (A. F. Muir, M. A.)

Earnestness and knowledge the parents of faith

The only progressed cure recorded in the New Testament. Why was it not instantaneous like the rest? Nothing our Lord did or left undone was without meaning; so there must have been a reason for this. That reason cannot have been in Christ. He was no respecter of persons; His tender sympathy yearned over this sufferer as tenderly as over the rest. It must be traced, then, to the man himself and his fellow citizens. It the tone of morality had been higher in Bethsaida, if public opinion had been more upright, if the collective example of the citizens had been better, the probability is that the man would not have been so criminal. Now, what was wrong?

I. Want of faith. Why was there a lack of faith?

1. Because there was a lack of earnestness. Distinct evidence of this. His friends bring him to Christ, and from the fact that he does not speak except to answer a question, we infer that he was not particularly anxious to be brought. No such eagerness as in the case of Bartimaeus.

2. Because there was a want of knowledge. This man was an inhabitant of Bethsaida Julius, which was within easy walking distance of most of Christs great works. The people living there had heard His wonderful words of life; and surely if those who could see, and who therefore, were without excuse, had realized their privileges and acted up to them they might have taught this man; but they had not done so. They had not rejoiced in the good news from God; they had not realized that the promised Messiah had come; they had not hastened to be His witnesses to their neighbours. If they had done so, they would have brought home to the mind of this poor blind man such a sense of the power and love of Jesus Christ, that he would not have hesitated for one moment to believe that Christ was well able to restore him at once to perfect vision. And because they were so unworthy Christ sends the man to his house, saying, Neither go into the town, etc. His fellow citizens were not worthy to hear the story of the great work which God had wrought in him. We must not cast our pearls before swine, or give hat which is holy to the dogs. This man himself was the monument of their spiritual shortcomings; and if in the first hour of his faith in Christ and his own personal experience of the power of Christ, he had returned to his cold-blooded, indifferent, cynical neighbours, they might have quenched the little flame of grateful love which was springing up in his heart. (Hugh Price Hughes.)

Significant actions

The profound and saintly Bengel calls our attention here to this touching spectacle, that significant fact-that Christ did not command his friends to lead him out of the town, but He led him out Himself. Oh, what a spectacle for men and angels-the Divine Son of God tenderly taking the hand of this poor blind beggar, and leading him out of the town Himself! And why did He lead him out of the town, away from the noise and confusion and preoccupation of town life? Surely it was because solitude and silence are great teachers of earnestness. He needed to be alone with himself and with his great want. It has been well said by a great teacher of our own time, that solitude in the sense of being often alone, is essential to any depth of meditation and character; and at present there is very little meditation and depth of character in this man. It is necessary that he should be alone awhile, that he might realize the meaning of these things-his great need and the love of God. And then it is also very significant that, instead of speaking a word to him as usual, He moistens His finger and places it upon the sightless eyeball of the blind, in order that by palpable evidence He might bring home to this man that He is about to bestow upon him a supreme blessing. But, so far, the efforts of Christ are not entirely successful; for, after He had put His hands upon him, He asked him if he could see, and he looked up, and said, I see men as trees-I can see better than I ever saw before, but so vaguely, so dimly, the outline is so indistinct, that I confess I cannot distinguish between the men and the trees at the side of the road, except by the fact that the men are moving. Now, you will observe that Christ did not abandon His work when it was half done. Indeed, He asked the man whether he could see, in order to bring home to him the fact that he could see a little, and that so far hope might spring up within him; but, at the same time, that he might also bring home to him the fact that he could see only very little. And then Christ put His hands upon his eyes a second time, and after that second touch he saw clearly. (Hugh Price Hughes.)

Healing the blind

Men arrive at Christ by different processes: one is found by Christ Himself, another comes to Him, another is borne of four, and this blind man is led. This matters little, so long as we do come to Him. The act of bringing men to Jesus is most commendable.

1. It proves kindly feeling.

2. It shows practical faith in the power of Jesus.

3. It is thus an act of true wisdom.

4. It is exceedingly acceptable to the Lord; and is sure to prove effectual when the person himself willingly comes.

In this case there was something faulty in the bringing, since there was a measure of dictation as to the method in which the Lord should operate. (C. H. Spurgeon.)

The Lord heals in His own way

We must not attempt to dictate to Him how He shall operate. While He honours faith, He does not defer to its weakness.

1. He does not consent to work in the prescribed manner.

2. He touched, but no healing came; and thus He proved that the miracle was not attached to that special form of operation.

3. He did nothing to the blind man before their eyes; but led him out of the town. He would not indulge their observation or curiosity.

4. He did not heal him instantly, as they expected.

5. He used a means never suggested or thought of by them-spit on his eyes, etc.

6. When He did put His hands on him, He did it twice, so that, even in compliance with their wish, He vindicated His own freedom.

(a) Thus He refused to foster the superstition which limited His power.

(b) Thus He used a method more suited to the case

(c) Thus He gave to the people larger instruction.

(d) Thus He displayed to the individual a more personal care. (C. H. Spurgeon.)

Man cannot chose his remedy

Is the sick man the doctor, that he should choose the remedy? (Madame Swetchine.)

Symbolism of touch

In the touching of the eyes with spittle, and laying on of hands, there was no inherent efficacy. They were means and channels of grace. Christ has established a Church in the world, and an ordained ministry therein, and holy sacraments, which only through Him become healing powers in the world. He could have spoken a word to the blind man at Bethsaida and all would have been accomplished that was sought for. He could save mens souls directly by fiats of omnipotent grace, but He has chosen a Church to embody and set forth the fulness of His love toward a lost world. He has used means. (E. N. Packard.)

Analogy to spiritual cures

Doubtless we are inclined to press the analogy between the gradualness of this mans cure and the gradualness of certain restorations to spiritual life; but this seems quite unauthorized. The cure was not an ideal type of all soul cures, but an instructive illustration of occasional Divine methods. The instant the blind eyes began to see, there was a miracle practically accomplished. The instant we turn to God in repentance and faith the new life begins; and regeneration, whenever it occurs, is instantaneous. Yet, for all that, our capacity to receive the fulness of Christ is at first but small, and the light must wax stronger and stronger as we walk in it day by day. (E. N. Packard.)

The gradual miracle

Variety is one mark of Gods working, as order is another. There was a fertility of resource, and a diversity of administration, which bespoke the agency of One who from the beginning was with God and was God, the Doer of all Gods acts and the Partner of all Gods counsels. The spiritual eye is not utterly closed nor utterly darkened; but its sight is confused, its discernment of objects both misty and inaccurate.

1. It is so in reference to the things of God. We can speak but for ourselves: but who has not known what it is to say, I cannot make real to myself one single fact or one single doctrine of the Bible? I can say indeed-and I bless God even for that-Lord, to whom else can I go? where, save in the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ, is there either the hope or the peradventure of healing for a case like mine? And therefore I can cling to the Christian revelation with the tenacity of a shipwrecked sailor whose one broken piece of the ship is his only possibility of escape: I can just float upon that fragment, knowing that, torn from it or washed off from it, I am lost: but if the question is, whether I really see ought; whether I can discern with the minds eye the sacred and blessed forms of a Father and a Saviour and a Comforter who are such to me; whether, when I kneel down to pray, I can feel myself to be apart with my God; whether, when I approach Christs Table, I feel myself to be His guest; whether, when I ask to be kept this day from all sin, I feel myself to be the temple of a Holy Spirit whose indwelling is my safeguard and my chief joy; then I must answer that my hold upon all these things is precarious and most feeble; that seeing I see, but scarcely perceive; that my God is too often to me like the gods of the heathen, which can neither see, nor hear, nor reward, nor punish; that I too often conduct myself towards Him as though I thought wickedly that He was even such an one as myself, equally short-sighted, equally fallible, equally vacillating, equally impotent. More especially is this the case in reference to the distinctive doctrines of Divine grace. How little do any of us grasp and handle and use the revelation of an absolute forgiveness! What can we say more, in regard to all these things, than that at best we see men as trees, walking? that we have a dim, dull, floating impression of there being something in them, rather than a clear, bold, strong apprehension of what and whom and why we have believed?

2. And if this be so in the things of God, in matters of direct revelation and of Christian faith; it is scarcely less true in reference to the things of men; to our views of life, the present life and the future, and to the relations in which we stand to those fellow beings with whom the Providence of God brings us into contact. We all profess as Christians to be looking for the resurrection of the dead, and the life of the world to come. And yet, when we examine our own hearts, or observe (however remotely) the evident principles of others, we find that in reality the world that is holds us all with a very firm gripe. We cannot appreciate the comparative dimensions of things heavenly and things earthly. The subject appears to suggest two words of application. First, to those who are truly in the position which I have sought by the help of this miracle to indicate. To those who are really under the healing hand of Christ, but upon whom as yet it has been laid incompletely if not indecisively. Many persons think themselves quite healed, when they are at best but half healed. Many, having experienced a first awakening, and sought with sincerity the gift of the Divine forgiveness, rest there, and count themselves to have apprehended. The importance of going forward in the process of the healing. Secondly, and finally, a word of caution must be added to those who are too easily assuming that they are even half healed. The hand is not laid without our knowing it, nay, nor without our seeking it. Even the first act of healing is a gift above gold and precious stone: despise it not! Power out of weakness, peace out of warfare, light outer darkness, sight out of dim, groping, creeping blindness, this it is to be the subject of the first healing. (C. J. Vaughan, D. D.)

The free agency of Christ

I. It is a common weakness of faith to expect the blessing in a certain way. They besought Him to touch him.

II. While our Lord honours faith He does not defer to its weakness. He used a means never suggested by them-spit on his eyes, etc.

III. While our Lord rebukes the weakness of faith, He honours faith itself. Faith ever honours the Lord, and therefore the Lord honours it. If faith were not thus rewarded, Jesus Himself would suffer dishonour. He who has faith shall surely see; he who demands signs shall not be satisfied. Let us forever have done with prescribing methods to our Lord. (C. H. Spurgeon.)

Seeing or not seeing, or men as trees walking

I. Picture the case. A person with a darkened understanding, not a man who might be pictured by a person possessed with a devil.

II. Notice the means of cure. His friends brought him to Jesus. He first received contact with Jesus. A solitary position: Jesus led the man out of the town. He was brought under ordained but despicable means. Jesus spit on his eyes. Jesus put His hands on him in the form of heavenly benediction.

III. Consider the hopeful stage. The first joyful word is-I see. His sight was very indistinct. His sight was very exaggerating. This exaggeration leads to alarm. There is to such people an utter loss of the enjoyment which comes from seeing beauty and loveliness.

IV. Notice the completion of the cure. Jesus touched His patient again. The first person he saw was Jesus. Jesus bade him look up. At last he could see every man clearly. (C. H. Spurgeon.)

Seeing men as trees walking

I. An improvement upon the past. He was no longer blind-thus an immense change had taken place. There is an infinite distance between the lowest type of a Christian and the finest specimen of an unconverted soul. The most subtle animal and the barbarous savage may seem to resemble each other; but a gulf which only God can bridge separates them. Thus the most imperfect act of faith in Christ lifts a person out of the natural into the spiritual realm.

II. A state that is still unsatisfactory. Men as trees walking. Whilst an imperfect faith will save the soul, yet it will not prevent incorrect views of truth: exaggerated views; and many needless fears. Most of the theological contentions are through imperfect conceptions of truth. Two men with perfect sight would see an object alike-two with very dim sight would each see it to be different.

III. A guarantee of perfect vision. The blade is a prophecy of the ear: the morning twilight of the noonday splendour: the buds of spring of the fruit of autumn. He which hath begun a good work within, will perfect it. He is the finisher as well as the author of our faith. How strange if Christ had left the poor man thus. Now are we sons of God-therefore it doth not yet appear what we shall be. (L. Palmer.)

Three views of Christs work

I. Christs work as a salvation. The restoring of sight was a point on the brilliant line, the end of which was the salvation of mankind; so was every miracle of healing.

II. Christs work as a process. The good work was not accomplished in this case, as in others, by a word; it was done gradually. It is so in spiritual enlightenment. All good men do not see God with equal quickness or with equal clearness.

III. Christs work as a consummation. He was restored, and saw every man clearly. He will not leave His work until it be finished, if so be men beseech Him to go on to be gracious. (Dr. Parker.)

The cure of a blind man

I. A blind man brought to Christ. Their faith. If those who are spiritually blind will not pray for themselves, let others pray for them.

II. A blind man led by Christ. He did not bid his friends lead him. Never had the blind man such a leader before.

III. A blind man marvellously cured.

1. Christ used a sign.

2. The cure was wrought gradually, but-

3. It was soon completed.

He took this way because-

1. He would not be tied to any one method.

2. It should be to the patient according to his faith, which at first was very weak.

3. He would show how spiritual light shines more and more to the perfect day. (M. Henry.)

Get hold of sinners by the hand if you mean to get hold of them by the heart

Gough, the temperance orator, tells of the thrill of Joe Strattons hand laid lovingly upon his shoulder, just at the time when he was reeling on the brink of hell; and of another gentleman of high respectability, who came to his shop when he was desperately struggling to disengage himself from the coils of the serpent, and almost ready to sink down in despair; and how he took him by the hand, expressed his faith in him, and bade him play the man. Gough said, I will: and he did-as everybody knows.

The gradual healing of the blind man

I. Here we have Christ isolating the man whom He wanted to heal. Christ never sought to display His miraculous working; here He absolutely tries to hide it. This suggests the true point of view from which to look at the subject of miracles. Instead of being merely cold, logical proofs of His mission, they were all glowing with the earnestness of a loving sympathy, and came from Him at sight of sorrow as naturally as rays from the sun. A lesson about Christs character; His benevolence was without ostentation. But Christ did not invest the miracle with any of its peculiarities for His own sake only. All that is singular about it will, I think, find its best explanation in the condition and character of the subject, the man on whom it was wrought. What sort of a man was he? Well, the narrative does not tell us much, but if we use our historical imagination and our eyes we may learn something about him. First, he was a Gentile; the land in which the miracle was wrought was the half-heathen country on the east side of the Sea of Galilee. In the second place, it was other people that brought him; he does not come of his own accord. Then again, it is their prayer that is mentioned, not his-he asks nothing. And suppose he is a man of that sort, with no expectation of anything from this Rabbi, how is Christ to get at him? His eyes are shut, so cannot see the sympathy beaming in His face. There is one thing possible-to lay hold of him by the hand; and the touch, gentle, loving, firm, says this, at least: Here is a man that has some interest in me, and whether He can do anything or not for me, He is going to try something. Would not that kindle an expectation in him? And is it not in parable just exactly what Jesus Christ does for the whole world? Is not the mystery of the Incarnation and the re, caning of it wrapped up as in a germ in that little simple incident, He put out His hand and touched him? Is there not in it too a lesson for all you good-hearted Christian men and women, in all your work? We must be content to take the hands of beggars if we are to make the blind to see. How he would feel more and more at each step, I am at His mercy! What is He going to do with me? And how thus there would be kindled in his heart some beginnings of an expectation, as well as some surrendering of himself to Christs guidance! These two things, the expectation and the surrender, have in them, at all events, some faint beginnings and rude germs of the highest faith, to lead up to which is the purpose of all that Christ here does. And is not that what He does for us all? Sometimes by sorrows, sometimes by sick beds, sometimes by shutting us out from chosen spheres of activity. Ah! brethren, here is a lesson from all this-if you want Jesus Christ to give you His highest gifts and to reveal to you His fairest beauty, you must be alone with Him. He loves to deal with single souls. I was left alone, and I saw this great vision, is the law for all true beholding.

II. We have Christ stooping to a sense-bound nature by the use of material helps. The hand laid upon the eyes, the finger possibly moistened with saliva touching the ball, the pausing to question, the repeated application. They make a ladder by which his hope and confidence might climb to the apprehension of the blessing. And that points to a general principle of the Divine dealings. God stoops to a feeble faith, and gives to it outward things by which it may rise to an apprehension of spiritual realities. Is not that the meaning of the whole complicated system of Old Testament revelation? Is not that the meaning of His own Incarnation? And still further, may we not say that this is the inmost meaning and purpose of the whole frame of the material universe? It exists in order that, as a parable and a symbol, it may proclaim the things that are unseen and eternal. So in regard of all the externals of Christianity, forms of worship, ordinances, and so on-all these, in like manner, are provided in condescension to our weakness, in order that by them we may be lifted above themselves; for the purpose of the temple is to prepare for the time and place where the seer saw no temple therein. They are but the cups that carry the wine, the flowers whose chalices bear the honey, the ladder by which the soul may climb to God Himself, the rafts upon which the precious treasure may be floated into our hearts. If Christs touch and Christs saliva healed, it was not because of anything in them, but because He willed it so; and He Himself is the source of all the healing energy.

III. Lastly, we have Christ accommodating the pace of His power to the slowness of the mans faith. He was healed slowly because he believed slowly. His faith was a condition of his cure, and the measure of it determined the measure of the restoration; and the rate of the growth of his faith settled the rate of the perfecting of Christs work on him. As a rule, faith in His power to heal was a condition of Christs healing, and that mainly because our Lord would, rather have men believing than sound of body. According to your faith be it unto you. And here, as a nurse or a mother might do, He keeps step with the little steps, and goes slowly because the man goes slowly. Now, both the gradual process of illumination and the rate of that process as determined by faith, are true for us. How dim and partial a glimmer of light comes to many a soul at the outset of the Christian life! How little a new convert knows about God and self and the starry truths of His great revelation! Christian progress does not consist in seeing new things, but in seeing the old things more clearly: the same Christ, the same Cross, only more distinctly and deeply apprehended, and more closely incorporated into my very being. We do not grow away from Him, but we grow into knowledge of Him. But then let me remind you that just in the measure in which you expect blessing of any kind, illumination and purifying and help of all sorts from Jesus Christ, just in that measure will you get it. You can limit the working of Almighty power, and can determine the rate at which it shall work on you. God fills the water pots to the brim, but not beyond the brim; and if, like the woman in the Old Testament story, we stop bringing vessels, the oil will stop flowing. It is an awful thing to know that we have the power, as it were, to turn a stopcock, and so increase or diminish, or cut off altogether the supply of Gods mercy and Christs healing and cleansing love in our hearts. You will get as much of God as you want and no more. The measure of your desire is the measure of your capacity, and the measure of your capacity is the measure of Gods gift. Open thy mouth wide and I will fill it. (A. Maclaren, D. D.)

Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell

Verse 22. They bring a blind man unto him] Christ went about to do good, and wherever he came he found some good to be done; and so should we, if we had a proper measure of the same zeal and love for the welfare of the bodies and souls of men.

Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible

This miracle is only mentioned by Mark particularly, possibly because of two singularities in it:

1. With reference to the signs he used.

2. With reference to the gradual cure.

Our Saviour sometimes used some signs in his miraculous operations, sometimes he used none, but by the word of his power alone healed them; in the signs he used, to let the people understand there was nothing in them, he often varied; sometimes he laid his hands upon them, sometimes he took them by the hand, sometimes he used one sign, sometimes another. Here:

1. He takes the blind man by the hand.

2. He leads him out of the town, the inhabitants being not worthy to see a miracle: it was one of the cities upbraided by our Saviour for their impenitency and unbelief; Mat 11:21.

3. He spit on his eyes: so Mar 7:33.

4. Then he twice put his hands on him.

Christ was wont to heal at once; here he healeth by degrees; so as the healing of this blind man was a true pattern of his healing spiritual blindness, which usually is done gradually, but perfected at last as this bodily cure was.

Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole

22. And he cometh toBethsaidaBethsaida Julias, on the northeast side of the lake,whence after this He proceeded to Csarea Philippi (Mr8:27).

and they bring a blind manunto him, and besought him to touch himSee on Mr7:32.

Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible

And he cometh to Bethsaida,…. The city of Andrew, Peter, and Philip, Joh 1:44; a fishing town, which was situated by the sea of Galilee. Beza’s ancient copy, and the Gothic version, wrongly read “Bethany”. The Vulgate Latin, Arabic, and Ethiopic versions read, “they came”; Christ, and his twelve apostles, who landed at this place:

and they bring a blind man unto him; for Christ had been here before, and was known by the inhabitants of the place; who, as soon as they heard of his arrival, and knowing what miracles were done by him, brought a poor blind man, of their town, to him, to be cured by him:

and besought him to touch him; having heard of, or seen cures performed by him this way. This man is an emblem of such who are spiritually blind: he had no natural sight at all; he could see nothing; he had not the least glimmering of any thing, until he was touched by Christ: so men, in a state of nature, are quite dark, even darkness itself, until they are made light by the Lord: they have no sight, nor sense of themselves, of their sinful, lost, and dangerous estate and condition they are in; they know not because they are blind, that they are wretched, and poor, and miserable, and naked: they have no sight of Christ, neither of the glory of his person, nor of the fulness of his grace, nor of the nature, necessity, and suitableness of his salvation: they are quite blind as to any saving knowledge of God in Christ, the way of life and peace by him, and the work of the Spirit of God upon the soul; or with regard to any spiritual experience of the power of Gospel truths, or views of the glories of another world: and as this man seemed to be unconcerned himself about the cure of his blindness, only his friends were affected with his case, and brought him to Christ, and solicited a cure, so it is with unregenerate men, they are insensible of their case, and so thoughtless of it, and unaffected with it, and do not, of themselves, seek for a deliverance out of it; nor do they make use of means for that purpose; but it becomes their friends, relations, and acquaintance, that are spiritual, who know their case, and their need of Christ, and his grace, to bring them to him under the means, and pray unto him, that he would put forth the mighty power of his grace upon them, and give them spiritual sight to see in what a lost condition they are, and their need of him.

Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible

A Blind Man Restored to Sight.

22 And he cometh to Bethsaida; and they bring a blind man unto him, and besought him to touch him. 23 And he took the blind man by the hand, and led him out of the town; and when he had spit on his eyes, and put his hands upon him, he asked him if he saw ought. 24 And he looked up, and said, I see men as trees, walking. 25 After that he put his hands again upon his eyes, and made him look up: and he was restored, and saw every man clearly. 26 And he sent him away to his house, saying, Neither go into the town, nor tell it to any in the town.

This cure is related only by this evangelist, and there is something singular in the circumstances.

I. Here is a blind man brought to Christ by his friends, with a desire that he would touch him, v. 22. Here appears the faith of those that brought him–they doubted not but that one touch of Christ’s hand would recover him his sight; but the man himself showed not that earnestness for, or expectation of, a cure that other blind men did. If those that are spiritually blind, do not pray for themselves, yet let their friends and relations pray for them, that Christ would be pleased to touch them.

II. Here is Christ leading this blind man, v. 23. He did not bid his friends lead him, but (which bespeaks his wonderful condescension) he himself took him by the hand, and led him, to teach us to be as Job was, eyes to the blind, Job xxix. 15. Never had poor blind man such a Leader. He led him out of the town. Had he herein only designed privacy, he might have led him into a house, into an inner chamber, and have cured him there; but he intended hereby to upbraid Bethsaida with the mighty works that had in vain been done in her (Matt. xi. 21), and was telling her, in effect, she was unworthy to have any more done within her walls. Perhaps Christ took the blind man out of the town, that he might have a larger prospect in the open fields, to try his sight with, than he could have in the close streets.

III. Here is the cure of the blind man, by that blessed Oculist, who came into the world to preach the recovering of sight to the blind (Luke iv. 18), and to give what he preached. In this cure we may observe, 1. That Christ used a sign; he spat on his eyes (spat into them, so some), and put his hand upon him. He could have cured him, as he did others, with a word speaking, but thus he was pleased to assist his faith which was very weak, and to help him against his unbelief. And this spittle signified the eye-salve wherewith Christ anoints the eyes of those that are spiritually blind, Rev. iii. 18. 2. That the cure was wrought gradually, which was not usual in Christ’s miracles. He asked him if he saw aught, v. 23. Let him tell what condition his sight was in, for the satisfaction of those about him. And he looked up; so far he recovered his sight, that he could open his eyes, and he said, I see men as trees walking; he could not distinguish men from trees, otherwise than he could discern them to move. He had some glimmerings of sight, and betwixt him and the sky could perceive a man erect like a tree, but could not discern the form thereof, Job iv. 16. But, 3. It was soon completed; Christ never doeth his work by the halves, nor leaves it till he can say, It is finished. He put his hands again upon his eyes, to disperse the remaining darkness, and then bade him look up again, and he saw every man clearly, v. 25. Now Christ took this way, (1.) Because he would not tie himself to a method, but would show with what liberty he acted in all he did. He did not cure by rote, as I may say, and in a road, but varied as he thought fit. Providence gains the same end in different ways, that men may attend its motions with an implicit faith. (2.) Because it should be to the patient according to his faith; and perhaps this man’s faith was at first very weak, but afterward gathered strength, and accordingly his cure was. Not that Christ always went by this rule, but thus he would sometimes put a rebuke upon those who came to him, doubting. (3.) Thus Christ would show how, and in what method, those are healed by his grace, who by nature are spiritually blind; at first, their knowledge is confused, they see men as trees walking; but, like the light of the morning, it shines more and more to the perfect day, and then they see all things clearly, Prov. iv. 18. Let us enquire then, if we see aught of those things which faith is the substance and evidence of; and if through grace we see any thing of them, we may hope that we shall see yet more and more, for Jesus Christ will perfect for ever those that are sanctified.

IV. The directions Christ gave the man he had cured, not to tell it to any in the town of Bethsaida, nor so much as to go into the town, where probably there were some expecting him to come back, who had seen Christ lead him out of the town, but, having been eyewitnesses of so many miracles, had not so much as the curiosity to follow him: let not those be gratified with the sight of him when he was cured, who would not show so much respect to Christ as to go a step out of the town, to see this cure wrought. Christ doth not forbid him to tell it to others, but he must not tell it to any in the town. Slighting Christ’s favours is forfeiting them; and Christ will make those know the worth of their privileges by the want of them, that would not know them otherwise. Bethsaida, in the day of her visitation, would not know the things that belonged to her peace, and now they are hid from her eyes. They will not see, and therefore shall not see.

Fuente: Matthew Henry’s Whole Bible Commentary

Unto Bethsaida ( ). On the Eastern side not far from the place of the feeding of the five thousand, Bethsaida Julias. Note dramatic presents

they come (),

they bring (). This incident in Mark alone (verses 22-26).

Fuente: Robertson’s Word Pictures in the New Testament

BLIND MAN HEALED IN BETHSAIDA V. 22-26

1) “And He cometh to Bethsaida,” (kai erchontai eis Bethsaidan) “And they enter into Bethsaida,” by their own will, near where they had last landed from Dalmanutha, Mar 8:10, across the Sea of Galilee, Mar 8:13 Bethsaida means “house of fish,” indicating that it was a fishing village, the home of Peter, Andrew and Philip, Joh 1:44, before they became disciples, Mar 1:29.

2) “And they bring a blind man unto Him,” (kai pherousin auto tuphlon) “And they (the people of Bethsaida) brought a blind man to Him,” to Jesus. This account is given by Mark only.

3) “And besought Him to touch him.” (kai parakalousin auton hina autou hapsetai) and appealing to Him in order that they might get Jesus to touch him,” that he might miraculously be made to see, and be healed, Isaiah 42, 16, 18; Mar 5:27-34.

Fuente: Garner-Howes Baptist Commentary

This miracle, which is omitted by the other two Evangelists, appears to have been related by Mark chiefly on account of this circumstance, that Christ restored sight to the blind man, not in an instant, as he was generally accustomed to do, but in a gradual manner. He did so most probably for the purpose of proving, in the case of this man, that he had full liberty as to his method of proceeding, and was not restricted to a fixed rule, so as not to resort to a variety of methods in exercising his power. On this account, he does not all at once enlighten the eyes of the blind man, and fit them for performing their office, but communicates to them at first a dark and confused perception, and afterwards, by laying on his hands a second time, enables them to see perfectly. And so the grace of Christ, which had formerly been poured out suddenly on others, flowed by drops, as it were, on this man.

Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary

CRITICAL AND EXEGETICAL NOTES

Mar. 8:22-26. Peculiar to Mark. Bethsaida (= Fish-town).There were two places of this name:

(1) the landing-port for Capernaum, on the western side of the lake;
(2) a village to the north-east, on which Herod Philip conferred the status of a city, naming it Julias, after the emperors daughter. That this latter was the Bethsaida to which our Lord now withdrew may be inferred from the indications of locality in Mar. 8:10; Mar. 8:13; Mar. 8:27.

Mar. 8:24. See R.V. I see something confusedly and obscurely; for I see what I think must be men, and yet so dimly that they look to me like trees, only that I know that men move from their places, whereas trees do not.

Mar. 8:25-26. See R.V. for readings and renderings.

MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.Mar. 8:22-26

The blind man at Bethsaida.This incident, recorded only by St. Mark, may be considered both in a natural and a spiritual view, under which twofold aspect there can be no doubt that all our Lords miracles of healing were intended to be viewed. He adopted this method to make Himself known as the Great Physician of the soul, who forgiveth all our sins and healeth all our infirmities; who, by the virtue which resides in Him, and which is called forth by the application of faith, removes the blindness of our understanding, the raging fever of our passions, the palsy of our spiritual affections, the lameness of our halting obedience; commands Satan and his unclean spirits to come out of us, and raises us from the death of sin unto the life of righteousness.

I. A blind man is brought to Jesus to be cured.

1. The restoring of sight to the blind was one of the signs to be looked for in the promised Messiah (Isa. 35:5); and to this evidence Christ appealed, in the first place, in His answer to the Baptists messengers (Mat. 11:5).

2. Many remarkable instances of this kind of miracle might be referred to (see especially John 9). The present example contains some peculiarities not found elsewhere.

3. There is a moral as well as a natural blindness, to which not merely a few unfortunate persons but all mankind by nature are subject (Isa. 43:8).

(1) Such were the Gentiles (Eph. 4:18).

(2) Such were the Jews also, who, though they had not the same excuse of ignorance or want of light, yet were blinded by obstinate and invincible prejudice (Mar. 4:12).

(3) Such are all of us by nature: born blind, and continuing so by our own fault; having no light in ourselves, and hating it when it is brought to us. Perhaps, like the Pharisees, we say we see; but this is our blindness. We see nothing as we ought to see, nothing as it really is. We see no deformity in sin, no beauty in holiness; no terrors in the law, no charms or attractions in the gospel; no weakness in ourselves, no all-sufficiency in Christ (Rev. 3:17-18).

4. It was to free all mankind from these spiritual infirmities, and not to relieve a few miserable objects from their bodily pains, that the Saviour appeared (Luk. 4:18).

II. Our Lord, before beginning the cure, takes His patient to a private place, apart from the multitude.

1. No reason is given why He did this, or why, after the cure was complete, He told him not to go back into the town, etc. (Mar. 8:26). Perhaps the people of Bethsaida, like those of Nazareth (Mat. 13:57-58), had resisted the evidence of former miracles performed amongst them, and therefore did not deserve another. At any rate, when we read this, and when we observe His disinclination on other occasions to have His fame blazed abroad, we are reminded of the character given Him by the prophet (Isa. 42:2).

2. We also are oftentimes spiritually blind while we are in the town, i.e. this world; afterwards, being led out of the town, i.e. out of the world and its concerns, by Jesus Christ, we are healed. He does this in a variety of ways: by afflictions, by disappointments, by the loss of friends, by a change in our situation, etc. Anything, in short, which disentangles us from the world, detaches us from our former associates and pursuits, affords an opening for serious reflexion, and a closer acquaintance with our own heartsanything which has this effect may be considered as a merciful dispensation of Christ to our souls, a taking us by the hand and leading us out of the town, preparatory to a perfect restoration.

III. On a first exertion of His healing virtue our Lord cures the blind man only in part.He saw objects, but not distinctly. Men and trees waved to and fro before his eyes, so that he could not distinguish one object from another.

1. This is always the case when a blind man is restored to sight by natural means; and it is necessary to obviate it by not allowing him the free use of his eyes at first, and by the gradual admission of light into the room.
2. Such was not our Lords usual manner. He did all things well. Those who witnessed His cures were beyond measure astonished when they saw His patients restored to the immediate and full use of their senses, without the necessity of any precautions.
3. Here, however, He departs from His usual course, and as it were puts a restraint upon the virtue which resided in Him, so as to make its effect incomplete. Perhaps, according to the faith of this poor man, so was it done to him, which, being weak at first, required nursing and rearing by a partial exhibition of the Saviours power.

4. At any rate the application to the spiritual recovery of sinners is much more exact than if the cure had been completed at once. When the eyes of our understanding are enlightened by the revelation of Christ, the first effect is not unlike what is here described. Our views of Divine things are very imperfect and confused. We are not all at once turned from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan unto God. We experience at first a kind of twilight illumination, which shineth more and more unto the perfect day. Nor is this gradual conversion in any way derogatory to the great power of God. Was the cure of this blind man less perfect or less astonishing because it was not effected all at once? The material circumstance which constituted the miracle was this; he came, seeing no man; he went away, seeing every man clearly. And so with respect to our souls; the great point to be considered is, what we were, and what we are (Eph. 5:8). It is not necessary that we should be able to refer to the time or place when light first flashed in upon our mind; it is enough if we can say, One thing I know, etc. (Joh. 9:25).

IV. The same process being repeated, the patient is perfectly restored.

1. The former trial, however unsuccessful apparently in part, had had the intended effect of raising the mans expectations and confidence in his Physician to a proper pitch. And Jesus, seeing that he had now faith to be healed, delays no longer to complete the cure.
2. It is the same with those whom He calls out of spiritual darkness into His marvellous light. The imperfect illumination vouchsafed them at first is designed only to exercise their faith, to make them love the light and desire more of it. Having once tasted of the heavenly gift, they feel an insatiable desire to increase in the knowledge of God, and to be filled with all wisdom and spiritual understanding. To them shall more be given as they are able to receive it, until they are stablished, strengthened, settled, and made perfect in every good work to do His will.

V. The remarkable injunction with which the man is dismissed.

1. There was the same reason (whatever that might be) for desiring him not to go into the town after his cure as for taking him out in order to cure him.
2. The eyes of our understanding being enlightened to see our lost condition as sinners and the great power of God our Saviour, we are commanded not to go back into the town, nor to tell it to any one in the town, but to go to our house.

(1) Since it was the god of this world that first blinded our minds, the folly and danger of going back into the world after conversion is evident to common sense. If we do, we run the most serious risk of being again entangled therein and overcome. Nor is it enough that we should merely abstain from returning to the world; we must not even wish to do so, or indulge longing desires after what we have renounced. They are objects altogether at variance with our newly acquired sense (1Jn. 2:15-16; Luk. 9:62).

(2) Still further to preserve us from worldly contamination, Christ forbids us even to tell or talk of what has happened to us, to the unspiritual. By such communications we are likely to do harm to ourselves, and no good to them. We may begin by inviting them out of the town; we may end by going back into the town with them.
(3) But although we are dissuaded from talking of these matters to the world in general, it by no means follows that we are to keep them to ourselves. On the contrary, having received such great mercies, we are to give glory to God, and at the same time be doing an inestimable service to those most dear to us, by endeavouring to open their eyes and to bring them to the knowledge and obedience of the faith. In the bosom of our own family, where we may count upon at least some measure of sympathy and attention, we are to do the work of a true friend for them and of an evangelist for Christ.

The clearing of the sight.As in other cases, Jesus led this sufferer apart; as in other cases, He made use of certain means as well as of His word, teaching us the method and the secret of sacramental working; but, not as in other miracles, the cure is gradually wrought.

I. It was intended to teach us how God deals differently with different souls.It is a rebuke to those who demand proofs of instantaneous conversion; it should be read with that passage which describes the growth of grace as gradual, like the growth of the grain of corn, first the blade, then the ear, then the full corn in the ear, which, while the man rises and sleeps night and day, grows he knoweth not how.

II. As to the particular words in which the man describes his growth.I see men walking, but they look like trees. Large, indistinct, crowded, and hazy, like the mingled mass of the distant woods waving and bending in the breeze, or as when passing rapidly along we see the trees flit quickly by us in copse and hedgerow. The man had either never seen, or had long been unaccustomed to, the form of either man or tree; his was therefore an utterance doubly obscured, his eyes only partially transmitting objects which his mind only partially recognised. The man having thus truly described his half-restored condition, Jesus speaks to him a word of command: He bids him look up, and then he sees all men clearly.

III. Looking at the spiritual meaning of this description, it has been urged that it is often the case when the work of grace is beginning that people mistake the nature and proportion of things around them. Spiritual things and living truths still have much of the earthly clinging to them: and if life and movement be recognised at all, it is the dull vegetative life of mere existence, still rooted in the soil of this world, or spreading itself out in a hazy form of general indefinite goodness, not the active, personal, organic life of the regenerate man, which is part of the very life of God.

IV. We notice a lesson of honesty and humility in the mans description.He does not claim an insight which he has not attained to. He speaks a lesson, gentle but severe, to those who, after hearing a sermon, or reading a treatise, or attending a service, or feeling an awakening of conscience, suddenly consider that they are converted, that they can read their title clear, that they have clear views, and so forth. The precocious child, who lectures its parents or strangers on religion; the converted prize-fighter, who suddenly turns from indulging in all kinds of brutal passions and lectures his neighbours who have been walking for years in the light on which he has persistently turned his back; the uneducated convert, who has picked up one text of Scripture, and on the strength of that ignores all that others have learned of the whole counsel of God,all these may lay to heart the humility and truthfulness of this man.

V. And in this gradual development of the spiritual powers there is also a strong and abiding word of comfort for many a struggling Christian. Oftentimes we find those who, though they are interested and anxious, cannot obtain the steadfast gaze that they desire. Clouds drive across their spiritual firmament; now all is clear and bright for a moment; now the fierce storm or the blinding mist sweeps over them, and their light is turned to darkness. They are not, as they were once, either blind or careless; the truth has shone in upon their souls, but they cannot retain it; their conscience is tender, but their understanding is dim. Let such take courage; they are just in the condition indicated by the textthey see men walking as it were trees. You who have been not only baptised and confirmed, but have earnestly worshipped and reverently communicated, you are different, widely different, from what you were once; but widely different also from what hereafter you shall be. Christ has led you to self-examination: the result is at once to excite your thankfulness for His marvellous work, and your humiliation for your own shortcoming. But He still is standing by you,still in His house apart from the citys noise He is bending over you as you kneel; still to your soul His voice is speaking; still on His altar He waits for you, that again He may lay His hands upon you, again He may bid you lift up your hearts. And in His house, and through His Word, by the voice of His Church and the power of His sacraments, He will free you from the bondage and the blinding power of sin, and quicken all those faculties which have so long been paralysed or misused.G. C. Harris.

OUTLINES AND COMMENTS ON THE VERSES

Mar. 8:23. Christs freedom in the use of means.This case and that of the deaf and stammering man in Decapolis have many points of resemblance. In both those who brought the diseased to Jesus prescribed to Him the mode of cure. Was it for the purpose of reproving and counteracting the prejudice which connected the cure with a certain kind of manipulation on the part of the curer that Jesus in both instances went so far out of His usual course, varying the manner of His action so singularly that, out of all His miracles of healing, these two stand distinguished by the unique mode of their performance? It is certain that, had Jesus observed one uniform method of healing, the spirit of formalism and superstition, which lies so deep in our nature, would have seized upon it, and linked it inseparably with the Divine virtue that went out of Him, confounding the channel with the blessing it conveyed.Dr. Hanna.

Christ, not means, the source of healing.If Christs touch and Christs saliva healed, it was not because of anything in them, but because He willed it so; and He Himself is the source of all the healing energy. Therefore let us keep these externals in their proper place of subordination, and remember that in Him, not in them, lies the healing power.A. Maclaren, D.D.

Led into solitude.As Israel was led into the wilderness that God might speak to her heart, so often Christ draws us aside, if not by outward providences such as these, yet by awaking in us that solemn sense of personal responsibility and making us feel our solitude, that He may lead us to feel His all-sufficient companionship.Ibid.

Mar. 8:24-25. The mans answer is in accord with later scientific discovery. What we call the act of vision is really a twofold process; there is in it the report of the nerves to the brain, and also an inference, drawn by the mind, which previous experience has educated to understand what that report implies. In want of such experience an infant thinks the moon as near him as the lamp, and reaches out for it. And when Christian science does its Masters work by opening the eyes of men who have been born blind, they do not know at first what appearances belong to globes and what to flat and square objects. It is certain that every image conveyed to the brain reaches it upside-down, and is corrected there. When Jesus then restored a blind man to the perfect enjoyment of effective, intelligent vision, He wrought a double miracle, one which instructed the intelligence of the blind man as well as opened his eyes. This was utterly unknown to that age.Dean Chadwick.

Mar. 8:24. Different conditions of the spiritual life.

1. It is a happy state, if it is the first stage towards clearly seeing in perfect knowledge.
2. It is a gloomy and uncertain state, if the Christian should remain in it.
3. Worst of all, if through his own guilt he should return to this stage, falling into the new blindness of despair.J. P. Lange, D.D.

Man and tree.A large part of the battle of life has been fought and gained when one has learned the difference between a man and a tree. For that is the difference between the great and the small, between mind and matter, between the eternal and the transitory, between earth and heaven.G. Hodges.

Christian progress.How dim and partial a glimmer of light comes to many a soul at the outset of the Christian life! How little a new convert knows about God and self and the starry truths of His great revelation! Christian progress does not consist in seeing new things, but in seeing the old things more clearlythe same Christ, the same Cross, only more distinctly and deeply apprehended, and more closely incorporated into my very being. We do not grow away from Him, but we grow into knowledge of Him.A. Maclaren, D.D.

Mar. 8:25. The restoration of sight.In this verse the Evangelist just touches that which is the salient point in the blessing of the restoration of sight. For what is the great deprivation in blindness? It is a loss, doubtless, as the blind poet Milton sang, that not to them return, Day, or the sweet approach of even or morn, or sight of vernal bloom, or summers rose, or flocks and herdsbut still more, what he adds last, that they cannot see the human face Divine. Were it possible for a blind person to be restored to the faculty of seeing persons, though he remained blind to everything else, much more than half his deprivation would be removed. Now a great deal of that moral blindness of which the blindness of this man was the type consists in just thisthat we do not see our fellow-men. We only see ourselves; we are sharp-sighted enough to our own interests, but blind to the wants and wishes of others. The love of self brings a gradual film over the moral vision, so that, reversing the process of the miracle, though at first we see every man clearly, by-and-by they are no more to us than vague shadows, as trees walking, and presently we cease to see them at all.Bishop A. Blomfield.

Mar. 8:26. A view of the miraculous.This fact, of a miracle done in intended secrecy and shrouded in deep darkness, suggests to us the true point of view from which to look at the whole subject of miracles.

1. People say they were meant to be attestations of His Divine mission. Yes, no doubt that is true partially; but that was never the sole or even the main purpose for which they were wrought; and when anybody asked Jesus Christ to work a miracle for that purpose only, He rebuked the desire and refused to gratify it. He wrought the miracle not coldly, in order to witness to His mission, but every one of them was the token because it was the outcome of His own sympathetic heart brought into contact with human need. And instead of the miracles of Jesus Christ being cold, logical proofs of His mission, they were all glowing with the earnestness of a loving sympathy, and came from Him as naturally as rays from the sunshine at sight of sorrow.
2. The same fact carries with it, too, a lesson about His character. Is not He here doing what He tells us to do?Let not thy left hand know what thy right hand doeth. All goodness does good by stealth, even if it does not blush to find it fameand that universal mark of true benevolence marked His. He had to solve in His human life what we have to solvethe problem of keeping the narrow path between ostentation of powers and selfish concealment of faculty; and He solved it thus: Leaving us an example that we should follow in His steps.A. Maclaren, D.D.

ILLUSTRATIONS TO CHAPTER 8

Mar. 8:22-25. Sight obscured by the trivial.A silk thread stretched across the glass of the telescope will entirely cover a star, although as large as our sun. So there are some whose sight of the heavenly world is entirely obscured by what is infinitely little compared with the life of the world to come. Richardson, the blind man, used to say of his conversion, I could never see till I was blind. The great Earl of Chatham once went with a friend to hear Mr. Cecil preach. The sermon was on the Spirits agency in the hearts of believers. As they were coming from church, the great statesman confessed that he could not understand it at all, and asked his friend if he supposed that any one present did. Why, yes, said he, there were many plain, unlettered women, and some children there, who understood every word of it, and heard it with joy.

Fuente: The Preacher’s Complete Homiletical Commentary Edited by Joseph S. Exell

6. HEALING THE BLIND MAN OF BETHSAIDA 8:22-26

TEXT 8:22-26

And they come unto Bethsaida. And they bring to him a blind man, and beseech him to touch him. And they took hold of the blind man by the hand, and brought him out of the village; and when he had spit on his eyes, and laid his hands upon him, he asked him, Seest thou aught? And he looked up, and said, I see men; for I behold them as trees, walking. Then again he laid his hands upon his eyes; and he looked stedfastly, and was restored, and saw all things clearly. And he sent him away to his home, saying, Do not even enter into the village.

THOUGHT QUESTIONS 8:22-26

394.

Please locate Bethsaida on the map.

395.

Who brought the blind man to Jesus?

396.

What is meant by the word beseech?

397.

Why lead the blind man out of the village?

398.

Did Jesus actually spit upon the eyes of the blind man? for what purpose?

399.

Is this an example of a progressive healing? Discuss.

400.

There must have been some purpose in the two stages of the healingwhat was it?

401.

Did the blind man have faith in order to be healed?

402.

Why send the man who was healed away?

COMMENT

TIMESummer A.D. 29.
PLACEBethsaida Julias, on the east bank of the Jordan River where it flows into the Lake of Galilee.
PARALLEL ACCOUNTSonly in Mark.

OUTLINE1. A blind man brought to Jesus, Mar. 8:22. 2. The blind man led out of the city for healing, Mar. 8:23 a. 3. Two stages of healing, Mar. 8:23 b Mar. 8:25. 4. Sent home, Mar. 8:26.

ANALYSIS

A BLIND MAN BROUGHT TO JESUS, Mar. 8:22.

They were in Bethsaida Julias.

An urgent request made for healing.

II.

THE BLIND MAN LED OUT OF THE CITY FOR HEALING, Mar. 8:23 a.

Jesus led him by the hand.

Away from the multitude so the healing would teach the lesson intended.

III.

TWO STAGES OF HEALING, Mar. 8:23 b Mar. 8:25.

Spat on his eyes and laid his hands upon him.

Asked: Do you see anything?

He looked up and saw the disciples in an indistinct manner.

Jesus laid his hands upon his eyeshe looked intently and saw clearly.

IV.

SENT HOME, Mar. 8:26.

He was not from Bethsaida.

He was refused permission to return to Bethsaidasent directly home.

EXPANATORY NOTES

A BLIND MAN BROUGHT TO JESUS.

Mar. 8:22. Mark here records a miracle not given in the other gospels, one of the very few passages entirely peculiar to him. His reason for inserting it cannot be merely that it followed the dialogue above recorded (Mar. 8:14-21); for he often omits multitudes of miracles in writing of the periods to which they belong. So far as his design can be conjectured, it was probably to illustrate and exemplify still further our Lords variety of method in the working of his cures, by stating a case (perhaps the only one) in which the cure was gradual. He cometh, or, according to the older manuscripts, they come, i.e. Jesus and his company, the twelve apostles and perhaps some others who attended him from place to place. To (or into) Bethsaida, or, as a few copies have it, Bethany, an obvious error of transcription, probably occasioned by the resemblance of the names, both which are compounded with the Hebrew beth (a house or place.) Bethsaida is supposed by some to be the town so called in Galilee, the birthplace of Andrew and Peter (Joh. 1:44); but the best interpreters and highest geographical authorities understand it of Bethsaida in Perea, on the north-east shore of the lake in a solitude near which (or belonging to it) the five thousand were fed. This Bethsaida was distinguished from the other by its Greek or Roman name, Julias, which it bore in honour of a daughter of Augustus. They, indefinitely, some men, certain persons, otherwise unknown; or more specifically, the mans relatives, friends, neighbours. A blind (man), not one born blind (as in Joh. 9:1), for he knew the shape of trees (see below, on Mar. 8:24), but blinded by disease or accident. Besought, in Greek beseech, the graphic or descriptive present being still continued. To touch him, literally, that he would (or still more closely, so that, in order that, he might) touch him. These words in the original rather state the motive than the substance of the prayer, a nicety of form without effect upon the meaning yet entitled to attention as an illustration of the difference of idiom. This specific prayer is not a sign of strong but rather of deficient or contracted faith, assuming contact to be necessary to the cure, an error which our Saviour did not think it necessary in the present instance either to reprove or correct.

II.

THE BLIND MAN LED OUT OF THE CITY FOR HEALING.

Mar. 8:23 b. And taking, laying hold upon, the hand of the blind (man), which in the order of the words in the original, although the construction in the version is grammatical and justified by usage; the sense of course remains the same in either case. He led him forth out (or outside) of the village, a term applied with considerable latitude to towns of every size. Out is twice expressed in Greek, once by the compound verb, and once by the adverbial preposition. The reason of this movement has been variously conjectured; some supposing an intention to express displeasure towards the people of the town for reasons now unknown; others a desire to be uninterrupted in the process which was more than commonly protracted. But these and other explanations, which need not be stated, assume that Mark intended to describe this and the following proceedings on our Lords part as having a distinct significance, whereas he rather means to show how far he was from following a fixed routine, or countenancing the idea that a certain outward form was necessary to the curative effect. Against this error he provided by sometimes doing more, sometimes less, sometimes nothing, in the way of gesture or manipulation, and of all these methods we have instances recorded in the book before us.

III.

TWO STAGES OF HEALING.

Mar. 8:23 b Mar. 8:25. Having spit on (or rather into) his eyes, which some regard as a medicinal appliance, healing virtue being ascribed to the human saliva by Tacitus, Suetonius, Pliny, and in various dicta of the Talmud. Others find a symbolical meaning in the transfer of something from the person of the healer to the person of the healed. But the necessity of these conjectures is precluded by the view of the matter just suggested. And putting (laying or imposing) hands upon him, as had been requested by his friends (Mar. 8:22). Asked; interrogated, questioned. If he saw (literally, sees, another instance of the graphic present) ought, an old word, not yet wholly obsolete, for anything. This pause, as it were, in the midst of the cure, to ask him as to its effect, is so unlike the usual immediate restoration, that it may be confidently reckoned as at least one reason for Marks giving a detailed account of this case.

And looking up, raising his eyes, trying to use them. The particle with which the Greek verb is compounded sometimes denotes upward motion, sometimes repetition. Hence the verb itself may either mean to look up or to see again, but the latter, though preferred by some interpreters, is a less natural anticipation of what follows in the next verse. The sensations of the blind man, on his first attempt to see again, are strangely but expressively described in his own language, the peculiarity of which, however, is exaggerated to the English reader by an equivocal construction, quite unknown to the original, and only partially removed by careful punctuation in the version. It is probably one of the most common and inveterate misapprehensions of a scriptural expression, that the participle walking here agrees with trees, and that the blind man intended to describe his partially restored sight by saying that the men around him were like walking trees. But in Greek there is and can be no such ambiguity, the concord being there determined, not by the position of the words, which is far more free and discretionary than with us, but by their form or termination, which distinguishes their gender and requires walking to agree with men, and trees to be taken by itself without any qualifying epithet. The word men also has the article which shows it to mean not men in general, but the men who were passing or at hand, perhaps the twelve apostles; for although he led him out of town, it is not said that they were unaccompanied, or that the place to which he brought him was a solitude. This meaning therefore of the clause, according to the common or received text, is, I see the men walking about as trees, i.e. undefined in form and figure. Except by their motions, which were those of men, he could not distinguish them from trees. It is remarkable however that the oldest manuscripts almost without exception have another reading, which appears to give the patients words more fully. I behold men because as trees I see (them) walking. This is an awkward sentence, it is true, but not on that account less likely to have been pronounced on this occasion, while its very awkwardness may possibly have led to its abbreviation in the later copies. The weight of manuscript authority in favour of this reading is confirmed by its internal fitness, as a broken expression of surprise and joy, beginning with a sudden exclamation, I see the men! then qualifying or explaining it by adding, because (that is, at least), as trees I see (them) walking.

Then, afterwards, or in the next place, a Greek particle often employed to separate the items in an enumeration, and intended here to mark distinctly the successive stages of the healing process, an effect secured still further by the word again, which is the next in the original though not in the translation. As if he had said, having gone thus far and partially restored the mans sight, he proceeded in the next place to impose his hands upon the eyes themselves, as he had previously done upon some other part, perhaps the head. It is possible indeed that even in the former instance he had laid his hands upon his eyes, but this is a less natural construction of the language, spitting in his eyes and laying his hands on him, where the mention of the eyes in one clause and of the person in the other, favours, though it may not peremptorily require, the former explanation. Made him, caused him, i.e. in this case both required and enabled him. Look up, or see again, the same two sense of the verb that are admissible in the verse preceeding, If the latter be adopted here, the meaning of the phrase is, that he caused him to receive his sight; if the former, that he caused him to look up, or try to see, on which he found his sight restored completely. The only objection to the first construction is that the restoration of his sight is then distinctly stated three times, whereas on the other supposition, it is only stated once, the other two expressions being then descriptive of the effort or experiment by which the patient was assured first of partial then of total restoration. He looked up once and saw men like trees; he looked up again and saw them clearly. Was restored to (reinstated in) his sound or normal state, another term implying that he was not born blind, Every (man) or all (things), as the Greek may be either masculine and singular, or neuter and plural. Another reading, found in some editions, removes the ambiguity by making it both masculine and plural, (all men), which may then be understood to mean specifically all those whom he saw before as trees (but) walking. Clearly, an expressive Greek word which originally means farsightedly, in opposition to near (or short) sight, although here, as in the classics it may have the wider secondary sense expressed in the translation and opposed to the dimness of his sight when only partially recovered.

IV.

SENT HOME.

Mar. 8:26. And he sent him away into his house (or to his house), which was not in the town or village, as appears from the ensuing prohibition. The modern philologists deny that the Greek particle repeated here ever corresponds to neither . . . nor in English, as expressing an alternative originally present to the speakers mind; and one of them explains the first to mean not even, and the last nor even, Do not even go into the village, nor so much as speak to any (person) in the village. The supposed inconsistency of these two precepts, or at least the superfluousness of the last, as he could not tell it in the town unless he went there, has produced no less than ten variations in the text of this clause, all intended to remove the incongruity, and therefore all to be rejected as mere glosses. This may serve to show by a remarkable example the extraordinary principle, on which the ancient copyists frequently proceeded, of deciding what the writer should have said, instead of simply telling what he did say. To this single error may be traced a large proportion of existing variations in the text of the New Testament, most of which happily have never become current, but are found exclusively in certain copies or at most in certain families or classes of manuscripts. This erroneous principle or practice is the more to be condemned as the necessity of emendation is in almost every case imaginary. In the one before us, for example, the supposed incongruity arises from the strict fidelity with which the very words of Christ (or their equivalents) are here reported just as he pronounced them, not in a rhetorical or rounded period, but in short successive clauses, the natural form of a peremptory order. The man having just been brought out of the town, though not residing there, would naturally think of going back to tell and show what had been done to him. But this our Lord, for reasons which have often been explained before, is determined to prevent by pointed positive directions, which, without a change of meaning, may be paraphrased as follows: Go homego directly homeno, not into the town, but homenot even for an hour or a momentdo not go into the town at allnot even to tell what I have donedo not so much as speak to any person in the townbut go directly home. (J. A. Alexander)

FACT QUESTIONS 8:22-26

445.

Since Mark is the only gospel writer to record this miracle what is his purpose in giving it?

446.

There is some question as to which Bethsaida is involved herewhy?

447.

Who brought the blind man?

448.

Do you believe the blind man had partial sight before Jesus touched him? Discuss.

449.

What conclusion do you have for the reason of leading the blind man out of the city?

450.

Why spit into the eyes of the blind man?

451.

Why did Jesus ask the blind man if he could see?

452.

Just what did the blind man say?what did he see?

453.

After Jesus place His hands upon the blind man the second time did He make him look up or did the blind man do this of his own will?

454.

Mar. 8:26 is a remarkable example of the mistake of copyistexplain.

Fuente: College Press Bible Study Textbook Series

(22) And he cometh to Bethsaida.This miracle also is recorded by St. Mark only. Judging by the localities named previously, Dalmanutha (Mar. 8:10), the passage across the lake (Mar. 8:13), and afterwards the villages of Csarea Philippi (Mar. 8:27), it is probable that this was the Bethsaida on the northeastern shore of the Sea of Galilee.

Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)

72. GRADUAL CURING OF THE BLIND MAN, Mar 8:22-26 .

This miracle is related by Mark alone.

Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

22. A blind man It is clear from Mar 8:24 that he had not been born blind. Besought him to touch him There was evidently no doubt on their part that a touch from our Lord would do the deed.

Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

‘And they come to Bethsaida, And they bring to him a blind man and plead with him to touch him.’

They have returned to Bethsaida, outside Galilee and north of the sea of Galilee, and a blind man is brought to Him. Notice that as with the deaf and dumb man, (‘to lay His hand on him’ – Mar 7:32) Mark draws attention to the expected method of healing, ‘that He may touch him’. In other words he draws attention to the unusualness of the cure. He is concerned that the special significance of the healing is appreciated.

Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett

A Blind Man Is Healed in Two Stages (8:22-26).

This account comes after the blindness of the disciples has been stressed (Mar 7:18) and before the scales are revealed to have been at least partially dropped from their eyes (Mar 8:29). It is clear that it is heavy in symbolism as with the healing of the deaf and dumb man. It is no accident that the two unusual stories of healing are placed at each side of the emphasis on spiritual significance as opposed to literal (Mar 8:14-21), along with the feeding with bread which was also literal with a spiritual meaning, and follow the spiritual use of the idea of bread with the Syro-Phoenician woman (who was the only one who understood the meaning of the bread straight away).

Thus the pattern is – the spiritual use of bread (Mar 7:27-28), the unusual nature of the healing of the deaf and dumb man where there is a pointer to its spiritual meaning in the connection with Isa 35:5-6 (Mar 7:31-37), the giving of the bread to the crowd which has spiritual significance (Mar 8:1-10), the emphasis of Jesus that His disciples must think not of literal bread but of spiritual, and referring to deafness and blindness which are also spiritual (Mar 8:14-21), all leading up to this unusual healing of the blind man (Mar 8:22-26) which must also be seen as having spiritual significance, as is demonstrated by the fact that it is followed by the eyes of the disciples being partially opened (Mar 8:27-30) and then fully opened (Mar 9:1-8). And it all follows the lesson that it is not what goes into a man that defiles him (what is physical) but what comes out of his heart (what is spiritual) (Mar 7:14-23).

The two accounts of healing, that of the deaf and dumb man, and of the blind man, are parallel in a number of ways. Both take place outside Galilee, both involve the use of saliva, both mention Jesus touching the affected part, both are connected with Messianic expectation (Isa 35:5-6; compare Mat 11:5), both illustrate the spiritual state of men in the context (compare Mar 8:18; and see also Mar 4:12), and both result in a request for secrecy (which was Jesus’ policy when He performed an outstanding miracle and would be staying around).

Analysis.

And they come to Bethsaida, And they bring to Him a blind man and plead with Him to touch him, and He took hold of the blind man by the hand and brought him out of the village (Mar 8:22-23 a).

And when He had spat on his eyes and laid His hands on him, He asked him, “Do you see anything?” (Mar 8:23 b).

And he looked up and said, “I see men, for I behold them as trees, walking” (Mar 8:24).

Then again He laid his hands on his eyes, and he looked steadfastly and was restored and saw all things clearly (Mar 8:25).

And He sent him away to his home saying, “Do not even enter into the village” (Mar 8:26).

Note that in ‘a’ the blind man is brought to Jesus and He takes him out of the village, and in the parallel He sends him away and tells him not to enter the village. In ‘b’ He lays His hands on him, and asks if he sees anything, and in the parallel He lays His hands on him and he sees clearly. Centrally in ‘c’ the man sees men as trees walking, a picture of the half-sightedness of the disciples.

Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett

The Eyes of The Disciples Are Opened (8:22-9:33a).

Following on Jesus’ concern at the lack of understanding of the disciples we now learn how their eyes are gradually opened to see at least something of the truth. The subsection commences with the healing of a blind man in two stages, a picture of what is happening to the disciples, and moves on to the disciples’ recognition that Jesus is the Messiah. The consequence of this is that Jesus then begins to emphasise that His way is to be a way of suffering as the Son of Man, followed by His revelation in glory. And at the same time He gives to Peter, James and John a vision of that glory. It is necessary for them to know both sides of Who He is. From Mark’s viewpoint Jesus at last lays aside the veil that has covered His teaching, and reveals openly what lies ahead. It is a way of suffering and glory, resulting in final triumph. And it has been made possible by their recognition of Him as the Messiah.

Analysis of 8:22-9:33a.

He comes to Bethsaida (Mar 8:22)

a The blind man’s eyes are gradually opened (Mar 8:22-26)

b The disciples recognise Who Jesus is (Mar 8:27-30).

c They learn that He must suffer before His glory is revealed (Mar 8:31 to Mar 9:1).

d In the transfiguration His glory is revealed before the chosen three in the presence of Moses and Elijah (Mar 9:2-8).

c They learn that they must not tell others of what they have seen until after the resurrection and learn that Elijah has already come to restore all things, leading up to the suffering of the Son of Man and of Elijah himself (Mar 9:9-13).

b The demon possessed boy is remarkably healed revealing the uniqueness of Jesus. No other could do what He did (Mar 9:14-29).

a The disciples are alone with Jesus and learn that spiritual storms lay ahead for Him and for themselves. Their eyes are being gradually opened (Mar 9:30-32).

He returns to Capernaum (Mar 9:33 a).

Note that in ‘a’ the eyes of the blind man are gradually opened, and in the parallel Jesus opens the eyes of the disciples to what lies ahead. In ‘b’ the disciples, through Peter their spokesman, recognise that Jesus is the Messiah, and in the parallel they are made aware of His total uniqueness and authority. In ‘c’ they learn that He must suffer before His glory is revealed, and in the parallel they learn the same. Centrally in ‘d’ Jesus is transfigured and His glory is revealed.

Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett

Jesus Heals a Blind Man at Bethsaida Mar 8:22-26 gives the unique account of Jesus healing a blind man at Bethsaida.

Fuente: Everett’s Study Notes on the Holy Scriptures

The Blind Man of Bethsaida. Mar 8:22-26

v. 22. And He cometh to Bethsaida; and they bring a blind man unto Him, and besought Him to touch him.

v. 23. And He took the blind man by the hand, and led him out of the town; and when He had spit on his eyes, and put His hands upon him, He asked him if he saw aught.

v. 24. And he looked up and said, I see men as trees, walking.

v. 25. After that He put His hands again upon his eyes, and made him look up; and he was restored, and saw every man clearly.

v. 26. And He sent him away to his house, saying, Neither go into the town, nor tell it to any in the town.

This is the second miracle whose account is peculiar to Mark, and he relates it in just the same circumstantial, detailed way as the other, 7:31-36. Jesus had crossed the sea with His disciples and landed on the northeast shore. Here, on the east side of the river Jordan, just where it flows into the Sea of Galilee, was the city of Bethsaida-Julias. Philip, the tetrarch of Gaulanitis, had built this city on the site of a former village and had called it, in honor of the daughter of the emperor, Bethsaida-Julias, to distinguish it from the other Bethsaida, on the western shore of the lake. Even in this neighborhood, where the Lord had probably never been for any length of time, His fame had preceded Him. They, the relatives or friends, brought a blind man to Him, and begged Him earnestly that He should touch him, having confidence that a mere touch of His hand would make him whole, restore his sight. The Lord wanted no publicity; He had come for the purpose of being alone with His disciples. So He took the blind man’s hand and led him out of the village or city. Probably only His disciples were present. Having moistened the dead eyes with some spittle, He laid His hands on him, on his eyes, and then asked him whether he could see. The eyesight had been restored to some extent, so that the blind man could now see objects in indistinct, blurred outlines. But a second laying on of hands corrected this defect, enabling him to see things clearly, since he was now restored to the proper use of his sight. He could see all things sharply defined and standing out clearly. The miracle had returned the full use of his dead members to him. The reason for this gradual healing, that the blind man first looked up in the tentative manner peculiar to the blind, then saw things through a mist, and finally was fully restored, is not indicated. It should impress upon all Christian the great value of the sense of sight and of all senses, so that they appreciate and use them properly, never forgetting to give thanks to the Giver of all good gifts for them. In order to avoid a sensation, Jesus did not permit the man to return to his house, nor even to go into the city. He wanted to continue the work for which He had left Galilee.

Fuente: The Popular Commentary on the Bible by Kretzmann

Mar 8:22-26. And they bring a blind man, &c. Two things are remarkable in this miracle: first, our Lord led the man out of the town, before he would heal him; and, when the cure was performed, he forbad him to return thither, or so much as to tell it unto any who lived in the town. The reason was, the people had for a long time been solicitous to have him acknowledged as the Messiah; and every new miracle which they beheld, moved them afresh to make the attempt. Nor could the inhabitants of Bethsaida complain of being ill used, though they were not permitted to be witnesses of the cure, since they had brought this mark of Christ’s displeasure upon themselves, by their ingratitude, impenitence, and infidelity. See Mat 11:21. And as for the man, he could not think it any hardship to be hindered from returning into the city, since it was not the place of his abode, Mar 8:26. Secondly, in giving sight to this blind man, Jesus did not, as on other occasions of the like nature, impart the faculty at once, but by degrees: for at first the man saw things but obscurely; then, by a second imposition of Christ’s hands, he had a clear sight of every object in view. Our Lord’s intention in this might be, to make it evident that in his cures he was not confined to one method of operation, but could dispense them in what manner he pleased. In the mean time, though the cure was performed by degrees, it was accomplished in so small a space of time, as to make it evident that it was not produced by any natural efficacy of our Lord’s spittle or touch, but merely by the exertion of his miraculous power. The blind man’s expression, after the first imposition of Christ’s hands, may easily be accounted for, on the supposition that he was not born blind, but had lost his sight by some accident; for if that was the case, he might have retained the idea both of men and of trees; in which light, his words I see men as trees walking, express the indistinctness of his vision very properly. See Doddridge, and ch. Mar 7:33.

Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke

Mar 8:22-26 are found in Mark only.

It is not the Bethsaida situated on the western shore of the lake (Mar 6:45 ) that is here meant (Theophylact, Euthymius Zigabenus, Heumann, Heupel, Kstlin, Holtzmann; comp. Bleek and several others), but the north- eastern Bethsaida, completed by the tetrarch Philip (called also Julias , in honour of the daughter of Augustus; see Josephus, Bell. ii. 9. 1, iii. 3. 5; Antt. xviii. 2. 1, xviii. 4. 6; Plin. N. H. v. 15; Wieseler, chronol. Synopse , p. 273 f.; Robinson, Pal. III. p. 566 f.; Ritter, Erdk. XV. p. 280.; Ritter, Erdk. XV. p. 280; Ewald, Gesch. Chr. p. 46), from which Jesus goes forth and comes northwards into the region of Caesarea-Philippi (Mar 8:27 ); see Mar 8:13 . The weakly-attested reading (D, Cod. It.) is an ancient alteration, from geographical ignorance of any other Bethsaida than the western one. Ewald, indeed, following Paulus, has again ( Gesch. Chr. p. 378) preferred this reading, because Bethsaida Julias was not a , Mar 8:26 ; but it was Philip who first raised it to the rank of a city, and hence its designation as a village may still have been retained, or may have been used inaccurately by Mark.

The blind man was not born blind. See Mar 8:24 .

Mar 8:23 . ] see on Mar 7:33 .

The spitting is to be apprehended as at Mar 7:33 . As in that place, so here also, Jesus held it as necessary to do more than had been prayed for.

Mar 8:24 . ] after he had looked up (Mar 6:41 , Mar 7:34 ). Erasmus erroneously interprets it: to become seeing again (Mar 10:51 ), which is only conveyed in . . . .

According to the reading (see the critical remarks): I see the men, for like trees I perceive persons walking about , I observe people walking who look like trees (so unshapely and large). This was the first stage of seeing, when the objects appeared in vague outline and enlarged. More harsh is Ewald’s construction, which takes as the recitative , that indicates a new commencement of the discourse.

We cannot decide why Jesus did not heal the blind man perfectly at once, but gradually. But it is certain that the agency does not lose, by reason of its being gradual, the character of an instantaneous operation. Comp. Holtzmann, p. 507; Euthymius Zigabenus: , , , . Comp. Victor Antiochenus and Theophylact. So usually. According to Olshausen, a process too much accelerated would have been hurtful to the blind man. This is an arbitrary limitation of the miraculous power of Jesus (see, on the other hand, Strauss, II. p. 66). According to Lange, Jesus desired in this quiet district, and at this momentous time, “to subdue the powerful effect of His miracles.” As though the miracle would not even as it occurred have been powerful enough. According to Strauss, the gradual character is merely part of Mark’s effort after vividness of representation. [114] A notion unwarranted in itself, and contrary to the analogy of Mark’s other narratives of miracles.

Mar 8:25 . (see the critical remarks): and he looked stedfastly (Plato, Phaed. p. 86 D; comp. on Mat 7:5 ), and was restored. This stedfast look, which he now gave, so that people saw that he fixed his eyes on definite objects, was the result of the healing influence upon his eyes, which he experienced by means of this second laying on of hands, and which the restoration immediately followed.

(see the critical remarks) ] Notice the imperfect , which defines the visual activity from this time continuing ; and how keen this was! He saw everything from afar , so that he needed not to come close in order to behold it clearly. , intueri , see Xen. Mem. iii. 11. 10, al. In the classical writers used with ( Cyrop. i. 3. 2; Plat. Pol. x. p. 609 D), but also with (Anthol. xi. 3). ( far-shining ) with denotes that the objects at a distance shone clearly into his eyes. Comp. Diod. Sic. i. 50: , Suidas: , .

Mar 8:26 . ] He did not dwell in Bethsaida, but was from elsewhere, and was brought to Jesus at Bethsaida. See the sequel.

. . . . ] This is not wrong, as de Wette and Fritzsche judge, under the impression that it ought to be only; but it means: not even : so now Winer also, p. 434 [E. T. 614]. The blind man had come with Jesus from the village ; the healing had taken place outside in front of the village ; now He sends him away to his house; He desires that he shall not remain in this region, and says: not even into the village (although it is so near, and thou hast just been in it) enter thou . The second is: nor yet .

The second clause, . . ., is no doubt rendered quite superfluous by the first; but Fritzsche pertinently remarks: “Jesu graviter interdicentis cupiditatem et ardorem adumbrari Non enim, qui commoto animo loquuntur, verba appendere solent.” Grotius, Calovius, Bengel, Lange, and various others take . to mean: to one of the inhabitants of the village (who may meet thee outside). A makeshift occasioned by their own addition. And why should not Mark have simply written ? As to the prohibition in general, comp. on Mar 5:43 .

[114] In fact, Baur, Markusev. p. 58, thinks that thereby the writer was only making a display of his physiological knowledge on the theory of vision. And Hilgenfeld says, that Mark desired to set forth the gradual transition of the disciples from spiritual not-seeing to seeing primarily in the case of one corporeally blind. Thus the procedure related by Mark would be invented by Mark!

Fuente: Heinrich August Wilhelm Meyer’s New Testament Commentary

2. The Blind Man in Eastern Bethsaida. Mar 8:22-26

22And he cometh10 to Bethsaida; and they bring a blind man unto him, and besought him to touch him. 23And he took the blind man by the hand, and led him out of the town; and when he had spit on his eyes, and put his hands upon him, he asked him if he saw aught. 24And he looked up, and said, I see [the] men as trees, walking.11 25After that he put his hands again upon his eyes, and made him look up: and he was restored, and saw12 every man clearly. 26And he sent him away to his house [home], saying, Neither go into the town, nor tell it to any in the town.13

EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL

Mark alone records this history of Christs healing miracles during the time of His final mountain-travels along the Gaulonite range, on the eastern side of the Jordan and the Sea of Galilee. The remembrances of Peter preserved for us these special treasures, belonging to a time so preminently memorable to him and his spiritual development. But we have too often observed the peculiar feeling of Mark for the gradual, natural, progressive development of the kingdom of God (see his record of the parables, and the final miracles), not to perceive that this period of the ministry and work of Jesus would strongly rivet his attention.

Mar 8:22. To Bethsaida.It is evident that the Bethsaida of the western coast, in Galilee (Joh 12:21), is not here meant, as Theophylact and others have supposed; but, as Grotius rightly perceived, it was Bethsaida Julias, which lay upon the north-eastern coast of the Sea of Tiberias. Reland was the first to indicate that there were two Bethsaidas. Josephus tells us (Antiq. 18, 2, 1), that the tetrarch Philip, who ruled only in the eastern part of Galilee, made the village of Bethsaida into a town, and named it Julias, after the daughter of Augustus. (See also De Bell. Judges 11, 9, 1; and Jerome on Matthew 16) According to Pliny (Hist. Nat. Mar 5:15), Julias was situated on the farther coast of the Sea of Galilee; according to Josephus, on the Jordan, 120 stadia above its junction with the Sea. Pococke thought the ruins of Taluy, on the east side of the Jordan, marked the ancient Julias; Seetzen thought the same of a little village, Tellanihje; and Robinson, the ruins of Et-Tell. According to Luk 9:10, the first miraculous feeding also took place in a desert place near this same Bethsaida. See Von Raumer, Palstina, p. 109. Bethsaida lay in the way from the sea towards Csarea Philippi, in the higher mountain-range, a district to which Jesus subsequently returned.A blind man.What follows shows that he was not born blind, but had become so. He had evidently seen men and trees aforetime.

Mar 8:23. And led him out of the town.Here the separation from all others is still more effectual than in the case of the healing of the deaf and dumb man, Mar 7:33. In addition to the motive already mentioned for performing His works as much as possible in retirement, viz., that He might insure His own decease in Jerusalem, we may assume that there was also a pedagogic element that influenced Him on the present occasion. The deaf and dumb man could not hear His voice, but only see His signs; this blind man could not see Him, he could only hear Him speak and feel His hand. Thus it was a test and a discipline of his faith, when he was led into solitude: a test and exercise which probably was still much needed by him.And when He had spit on his eyes.See the notes on Mar 7:33 and John 9.

Mar 8:24. I see men.Expression of joy.As trees; that is, I see men walking, large and unformed as trees. A distinct figure of an indistinct, twilight beholding. It was the first stage of healing. According to Euthymius Zigabenus, He healed the man by degrees, because his faith was weak, and the gradual experience of recovered sight would lead him to a higher degree of faith. In relation to this, we may observe the strikingly passive bearing of this blind man, as of the deaf and dumb man before: with this we may compare the passiveness of the impotent man at Bethesda, John 5. According to Olshausen, a too rapid process of recovery might have been injurious, and the gradual cure had regard to the eyes themselves. But this and the preceding notion we leave to the readers consideration; they may have a certain degree of force. But if we combine all the traits of this and the foregoing history, we see that Jesus designedly repressed the fame of His miraculous works in a district where He was seeking an asylum of perfect retirement, in order to settle everything with His disciples; at a time, too, when, for their sake and His own, absolute solitude was essentially necessary with reference to the decision of the future, But the symbolical significance of these miraculous dealingsas bringing the divine power into gradual contact and contest with human naturewas more expressly brought out for the instruction of His disciples than in most of His miracles of healing.The persons who appeared to the half-seeing man were probably his companions, and other sympathizing people, who looked on in restless motion.

Mar 8:26. To his house.He did not belong to Bethsaida, and he must go immediately from the place to his own homenot even to the village to which he had already come. Indeed, he was not to mention it to any one belonging to that village, and whom he might meet in the way. This explanation of the last expression [any in the town] is not, as Meyer terms it, an invention to meet the difficulty; it is the obvious and only natural meaning of the expression. Even the mans companions should i find him recovered and seeing, only when they reached home; that is, if they were not permitted to be present at the healing.

DOCTRINAL AND ETHICAL

1. Christ sought with His disciples the deepest solitude among the mountains. His feeling was that of an anticipation of His death, and all things in the signs of the times said, Set Thine house, Thy Church, in order! In this journey the people who brought the blind man interrupted Him, and there seemed danger of His way being embarrassed. It is true that this did not hinder His healing the man, but He healed him in the most undemonstrative and hidden manner. The secrecy of the performance was paralleled by the extraordinary care with which He sent the blind man to his own house, under a prohibition to speak to any man in the neighborhood concerning the miracle. The blind man, however, was not merely a means to an end; his own spiritual edification was in question also. Since his faith was weak, his spiritual state required the protection of solitude: only in the profoundest silence could the blessing of his experience ripen into perfection. But, thirdly, we must not forget the Lords reference to those who surrounded the blind man. They asked that He would touch him. To this demand for an instant act, followed by an instant influence, the Lord opposed His own slow and circumstantial method of procedure. So also in the case of the deaf and dumb man of the same country: they asked Him that He would lay His hand upon the man. And if in this district of indistinct, half-heathen notions there was any idea arising of a magical influence on the part of Christ, His wisdom dispersed these foolish imaginations. He made prominent, 1. the religious aspect of the Acts , 2. the struggle in His own spirit connected with its performance.

2. This present narrative illustrates how Christ performed His miracles in the most absolute self-renunciation (at the most unseasonable time); with the most profound humility (without any desire for honor among men); and with the most supreme wisdom and confidence.
3. The healing of the blind man at Bethsaida, like some other similar miracles, was especially fitted and intended to exhibit the harmony of miracle with nature, the natural elements in the miracle, the gradual entrance of the divine power into the old nature, and its issues in the new nature.

HOMILETICAL AND PRACTICAL

The Lord, deeply occupied with thoughts of His cross and of His death, does not repel as an interruption the cry of the wretched.The festal season of the Prophets miracles is passing away, because the season of the high-priestly miraculous sufferings is drawing near.The healing of the blind man at Bethsaida a testimony of the heavenly wisdom of the Lord: 1. In respect to Himself; 2. in respect to the blind man: he should not first see the multitudes of starers in the street, but the Lord in His solitary glory, and thus would he be taught more fully the lesson of faith; 3. in respect to the people around; 4. in respect to the disciples.Abundant as was the inward life of Christ, His acts are equally abundant in their forms.Christ, in performing His miracles, avoided a fixed and uniform manner, in order to obviate all the idle, superstitious notions of a magical influence.How the mind, contemplating the same unchanging fundamental forms, has a tendency to become mechanical in its views.As the wonderworking power of Christs hand wrought in many fleeting forms of action, so also the fundamental forms of the ministerial work of the Church, in teaching, worship, and life, should be moulded, moved, and inspired by the life of the Divine Spirit.The education of the blind man into faith.The gradual return of the blind mans sight, a type of the gradual illumination of the soul.Even the spiritually awakened see at first men as trees, unformed, without definite distinction.I see men as trees. This represents, as it may be viewed, different conditions of the spiritual life: 1. It is a happy state, if it is the first stage towards clearly seeing in perfect knowledge; 2. it is a gloomy and uncertain state, if the Christian should remain in it; 3. worst of all, if through his own guilt he should return to this stage, falling into the new blindness of despair.The blessed experience of the first believing look: a strengthening of faith, which becomes the transition to perfect sight.Go not into the town: a solemn word concerning Bethsaida.Bethsaida the modern city of the world, with an imperial name, and Bethsaida the town of the fishermen: the bright and the dark side.How Jesus avoids the fame of His works, in order that He may seek in the shame of His sufferings His highest honor and glory.

Starke:Christs gifts within us change with times.Canstein:A weak and slight beginning is yet a beginning; and in Gods methods a little is intended to become gradually greater.Quesnel:The cure of spiritual blindness is only begun on earth; it will be fully accomplished only in heaven.Osiander:God often turns away our misfortune, and mends our unhappiness, by slow degrees: have patience!Solitude and silence after conversion is much safer than much talk and running about.We should let the truth take firm root in us, before we speak much about it.The converted man must take care not to turn round again to the world.Canstein:Fearful judgment, when God reckons a man, or a city, or a land, no longer worthy of the knowledge of His word and works.

Gerlach:The gradualness of the operation is often our first inward assurance of the certainty of the change.Rieger:Do not despise slight means [referring to the application of spittle].Braune:Men must be ever known, not as trees, as perishable plants, but as rational creatures, called to eternal glory.First of all, however, the blind man came to know Jesus aright: to know Him clearly is eternal life.

Schleiermacher:The cure of the blind man in its resemblance to the next section: 1. The withdrawing to a place apart (special reasons for this in both cases respectively); 2. the gradual work (men as trees; obscure views concerning Christ); 3. the Redeemers care as to what men say of Him; 4. the sight restored, and the confession of Peter.

Footnotes:

[10]Mar 8:22.The Plural, , after B., C., D. Lachmann, Tischendorf, [Meyer.]

[11]Mar 8:24.The beautiful reading: , is adopted by Meyer, Lachmann, Tischendorf, following [A., B., C.*, E., F., G., K., L., M., ., Gothic, Theophylact, Euthymius. (D. and most of the Versions have the Received Text).]

[12]Mar 8:25.Tischendorf, [Meyer,] , after B., C.*, L., ., &c.

[13]Mar 8:26.The Received Text and Lachmann follow Cod. A. Tischendorf, following B., L., Coptic, omits the clause .

Fuente: A Commentary on the Holy Scriptures, Critical, Doctrinal, and Homiletical by Lange

(22) And he cometh to Bethsaida; and they bring a blind man unto him, and besought him to touch him. (23) And he took the blind man by the hand, and led him out of the town; and when he had spit on his eyes, and put his hands upon him, he asked him if he saw ought? (24) And he looked up, and said, I see men as trees, walking. (25) After that, he put his hands again upon his eyes, and made him look up: and he was restored, and saw every man clearly. (26) And he sent him away to his house, saying, Neither go into the town, nor tell it to any in the town.

This Bethsaida is the town concerning which the LORD pronounced woe. Mat 11:21 . And yet from thence came Peter and Andrew and Philip. Joh 1:44 . Reader! it is blessed to observe how the Church of CHRIST is gathered from various places, Even Jericho had a Rahab. Jos 2:1 ; Heb 11:31 . And what is more wonderful, from Rahab, after the flesh, sprung CHRIST. Mat 1:5 . And in what numberless instances do we find the children of the kingdom spring after the flesh, out of the loins of the carnal, who are not heirs of the promise. And again, on the contrary, how frequently the children of the kingdom are the progenitors of the ungodly. All which proves that grace is not hereditary. Such are among the mysteries of GOD!

I only detain the Reader over this miracle of the blind, here recorded, to whom Jesus gave sight, to remark, how the LORD was pleased to work this miracle by a progressive cure. It is not said in what state of blindness he was; whether without eyes, or only the eyes he had were totally void of vision. But I beg the Reader, once for all, to observe, and it is, in my view, a very important observation, always to have in remembrance, as well in this instance as in all others, of JESUS giving sight to the blind, that in cases where the sockets of the blind were eyeless, the LORD JESUS, in every cure, must have created eyes, as well as given sight. And this, by the way, became, in every instance, a complete demonstration of his GODHEAD, and proved him to be the Creator. Let the faithful believer never lose sight of it. And let the infidel, who denies the GODHEAD of CHRIST, explain the possibility, upon any of his infidel principles, if he can, how JESUS could create eyes, and yet not be GOD. The LORD challengeth the blind to come forward as his witnesses that he is GOD. And indeed if creation be, as it unquestionably is, the proof of GODHEAD, nothing can be an higher proof. Isa 43:8-10 . See Joh 9 . throughout. In the progressive cure of this man, no doubt the LORD was pleased to shew how the path of the just is as a shining light, which shineth more and more unto a perfect day. But we must not, from hence, conclude, that our being in CHRIST is obtained in a progressive manner, though our enjoyment of that being is increased by an increasing knowledge. Not so. The opening, or the creating of this man’s eyes, became the consequence of a being in CHRIST, but the being itself was from all eternity. I am speaking upon the presumption of a spiritual sight, as well as a bodily, being given to this man.

Fuente: Hawker’s Poor Man’s Commentary (Old and New Testaments)

22 And he cometh to Bethsaida; and they bring a blind man unto him, and besought him to touch him.

Ver. 22. And they bring a blind man unto him ] This is another of those miracles mentioned by St Mark only. SeeMar 7:32Mar 7:32 .

Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)

22 26. ] HEALING OF A BLIND MAN AT BETHSAIDA. Peculiar to Mark . This appears to have been Bethsada Julias, on the N.E. side of the lake. Compare Mar 8:13 : and see on this Bethsada, Jos. Antt. xviii. 4. 6: B. J. iii. 10. 7: Plin. Nat. Hist. Mar 8:15 . Wieseler, Chron. Synops. p. 273 f. See however against the idea that there were two Bethsadas, The Land and the Book, pp. 373 f.

Fuente: Henry Alford’s Greek Testament

Mar 8:22-26 . A blind man cured at Bethsaida , peculiar to Mk.

Fuente: The Expositors Greek Testament by Robertson

Mar 8:22 . . If there were two Beth-saidas, which of the two? If only one of course it was Bethsaida Julias. But against this has been cited the term twice applied to the town (Mar 8:23 ; Mar 8:26 ), which, however, may be regarded as satisfactorily explained by the remark: it had been a village, and was first made a town by Philip, who enlarged and beautified it and called it Julias in honour of the daughter of Augustus (Joseph., B. J., ii., 9, 1, etc.). So Meyer and others.

Fuente: The Expositors Greek Testament by Robertson

Mark

THE GRADUAL HEALING OF THE BLIND MAN

Mar 8:22 – Mar 8:25 .

This miracle, which is only recorded by the Evangelist Mark, has about it several very peculiar features. Some of these it shares with one other of our Lord’s miracles, which also is found only in this Gospel, and which occurred nearly about the same time-that miracle of healing the deaf and dumb man recorded in the previous chapter. Both of them have these points in common: that our Lord takes the sufferer apart and works His miracle in privacy; that in both there is an abundant use of the same singular means-our Lord’s touch and the saliva upon His finger; and that in both there is the urgent injunction of entire secrecy laid upon the recipient of the benefit.

But this miracle had another peculiarity in which it stands absolutely alone, and that is that the work is done in stages; that the power which at other times has but to speak and it is done, here seems to labour, and the cure comes slowly; that in the middle Christ pauses, and, like a physician trying the experiment of a drug, asks the patient if any effect is produced, and, getting the answer that some mitigation is realised, repeats the application, and perfect recovery is the result.

Now, how unlike that is to all the rest of Christ’s miraculous working we do not need to point out; but the question may arise, What is the meaning, and what the reason, and what the lessons of this unique and anomalous form of miraculous working? It is to that question that I wish to turn now; for I think that the answer will open up to us some very precious things in regard to that great Lord, the revelation of whose heart and character is the inmost and the loftiest meaning of both His words and His works.

I take these three points of peculiarity to which I have referred: the privacy, the strange and abundant use of means veiling the miraculous power, and the gradual, slow nature of the cure. I see in them these three things: Christ isolating the man that He would heal; Christ stooping to the sense-bound nature by using outward means; and Christ making His power work slowly, to keep abreast of the man’s slow faith.

I. First, then, here we have Christ isolating the man whom He wanted to heal.

Now, there may have been something about our Lord’s circumstances and purposes at the time of this miracle which accounted for the great urgency with which at this period He impressed secrecy upon all around Him. What that was it is not necessary for us to inquire here, but this is worth noticing, that in obedience to this wish, on His own part, for privacy at the time, He covers over with a veil His miraculous working, and does it quietly, as one might almost say, in a corner. He never sought to display His miraculous working; here He absolutely tries to hide it. That fact of Christ’s taking pains to conceal His miracle carries in it two great truths-first, about the purpose and nature of miracles in general, and second, about His character-as to each of which a few words may be said.

This fact, of a miracle done in intended secrecy, and shrouded in deep darkness, suggests to us the true point of view from which to look at the whole subject of miracles.

People say they were meant to be attestations of His divine mission. Yes, no doubt that is true partially; but that was never the sole nor even the main purpose for which they were wrought; and when any one asked Jesus Christ to work a miracle for that purpose only, He rebuked the desire and refused to gratify it. He wrought His miracles, not coldly, in order to witness to His mission, but every one of them was the token, because it was the outcome, of His own sympathetic heart brought into contact with human need. And instead of the miracles of Jesus Christ being cold, logical proofs of His mission, they were all glowing with the earnestness of a loving sympathy, and came from Him at sight of sorrow as naturally as rays beam out from the sun.

Then, on the other hand, the same fact carries with it, too, a lesson about His character. Is not He here doing what He tells us to do; ‘Let not thy left hand know what thy right hand doeth’? He dares not wrap His talent in a napkin, He would be unfaithful to His mission if He hid His light under a bushel. All goodness ‘does good by stealth,’ even if it does not ‘blush to find it fame’-and that universal mark of true benevolence marked His. He had to solve in His human life what we have to solve, the problem of keeping the narrow path between ostentation of powers and selfish concealment of faculty; and He solved it thus, ‘leaving us an example that we should follow in His steps.’

But that is somewhat aside from the main purpose to which I intended to turn in these first remarks. Christ did not invest the miracle with any of its peculiarities for His own sake only. All that is singular about it, will, I think, find its best explanation in the condition and character of the subject, the man on whom it was wrought. What sort of a man was he? Well, the narrative does not tell us much, but if we use our historical imagination and our eyes we may learn something about him. First he was a Gentile; the land in which the miracle was wrought was the half-heathen country on the east side of the Sea of Galilee. In the second place, it was other people that brought him; he did not come of his own accord. Then again, it is their prayer that is mentioned, not his-he asked nothing.

You see him standing there hopeless, listless; not believing that this Jewish stranger is going to do anything for him; with his impassive blind face glowing with no entreaty to reinforce his companions’ prayers. And suppose he was a man of that sort, with no expectation of anything from this Rabbi, how was Christ to get at him? It is of no use to speak to him. His eyes are shut, so cannot see the sympathy beaming in His face. There is one thing possible-to lay hold of Him by the hand; and the touch, gentle, loving, firm, says this at least: ‘Here is a man that has some interest in me, and whether He can do anything or not for me, He is going to try something.’ Would not that kindle an expectation in him? And is it not in parable just exactly what Jesus Christ does for the whole world? Is not that act of His by which He put out His hand and seized the unbelieving limp hand of the blind man that hung by his side, the very same in principle as that by which He ‘taketh hold of the seed of Abraham,’ and is made like to His brethren? Are not the mystery of the Incarnation and the meaning of it wrapped up as in a germ in that little simple incident, ‘He put out His hand and touched him’?

Is there not in it, too, a lesson for all you good-hearted Christian men and women, in all your work? If you want to do anything for your afflicted brethren, there is only one way to do it-to come down to their level and get hold of their hands, and then there is some chance of doing them good. We must be content to take the hands of beggars if we are to make the blind to see.

And then, having thus drawn near to the man, and established in his heart some dim expectation of something coming, He gently led him away out of the little village. I wonder no painter has ever painted that, instead of repeating ad nauseam two or three scenes out of the Gospels. I wonder none of them has ever seen what a parable it is-the Christ leading the blind man out into solitude before He can say to him, ‘Behold!’ How, as they went, step by step, the poor blind eyes not telling the man where they were going, or how far away he was being taken from his friends, his conscious dependence upon this stranger would grow! How he would feel more and more at each step, ‘I am at His mercy; what is He going to do with me?’ And how thus there would be kindled in his heart some beginnings of an expectation, as well as some surrendering of himself to Christ’s guidance! These two things, the expectation and the surrender, have in them, at all events, some faint beginnings and rude germs of the highest faith, to lead up to which is the purpose of all that Christ here does.

And is not that what He does for us all? Sometimes by sorrows, sometimes by sick-beds, sometimes by shutting us out from chosen spheres of activity, sometimes by striking down the dear ones at our sides, and leaving us lonely in the desert-is He not saying to us in a thousand ways, ‘Come ye yourselves apart into a desert place’? As Israel was led into the wilderness that God might ‘speak to her heart,’ so often Christ draws us aside, if not by outward providences such as these, yet by awaking in us the solemn sense of personal responsibility and making us feel our solitude, that He may lead us to feel His all-sufficient companionship.

Ah! brethren, here is a lesson from all this-if you wish Jesus Christ to give you His highest gifts and to reveal to you His fairest beauty, you must be alone with Him. He loves to deal with single souls. Our lives, many of them, can never be outwardly alone. We are jammed up against one another in such a fashion, and the hurry and pressure of city life is so great with us all, that it is often impossible for us to secure outward secrecy and solitude. But a man maybe alone in a crowd; the heart may be gathered up into itself, and there may be a still atmosphere round about us in the shop and in the market and amongst the busy ways of men, in which we and Christ shall be alone together. Unless there be, I do not think any of us will see the King in His beauty or the far-off land. ‘I was left alone, and I saw this great vision,’ is the law for all true beholding.

So, dear brethren, try to feel how awful this earthly life of ours is in its necessary solitude; that each of us by himself must shape out his own destiny, and make his own character; that every unit of the swarms upon our streets is a unit that has to face the solemn facts of life for and by itself; that alone we live, that alone we shall die; that alone we shall have to give account of ourselves before God, and in the solitude let the hand of your heart feel for His hand that is stretched out to grasp yours, and listen to Him saying, ‘Lo! I am with you always, even to the end of the world.’ There was no dreariness in the solitude when it was Christ that ‘took the blind man by the hand and led him out of the city.’

II. We have Christ stooping to a sense-bound nature by the use of material helps.

No doubt there was something in the man, as I have said, which made it advisable that these methods should be adopted. If he were the sort of person that I have described, slow of faith, not much caring about the possibility of cure, and not having much hope that any cure would come to pass-then we can see the fitness of the means adopted: the hand laid upon the eyes, the finger, possibly moistened with saliva, touching the ball, the pausing to question, the repeated application. These make a ladder by which his hope and confidence might climb to the apprehension of the blessing. And that points to a general principle of the divine dealings. God stoops to a feeble faith, and gives to it outward things by which it may rise to an apprehension of spiritual realities.

Is not that the meaning of the whole complicated system of Old Testament revelation? Is not that the meaning of the altars, and priests, and sacrifices, and the old cumbrous apparatus of the Mosaic law? Was it not all a picture-book in which the infant eyes of the race might see in a material form deep spiritual realities? Was not that the meaning and explanation of our Lord’s parabolic teaching? He veils spiritual truth in common things that He may reveal it by common things-taking fishermen’s boats, their nets, a sower’s basket, a baker’s dough, and many another homely article, and finding in them the emblems of the loftiest truth.

Is not that the meaning of His own Incarnation? It is of no use to talk to men about God-let them see Him; no use to preach about principles-give them the facts of His life. Revelation does not consist in the setting forth of certain propositions about God, but in the exhibition of the acts of God in a human life.

‘And so the Word had breath, and wrought

With human hands the creed of creeds.’

And still further, may we not say that this is the inmost meaning and purpose of the whole frame of the material universe? It exists in order that, as a parable and a symbol, it may proclaim the things that are unseen and eternal. Its depths and heights, its splendours and its energies are all in order that through them spirits may climb to the apprehension of the ‘King, eternal, immortal, invisible,’ and the realities of His spiritual kingdom.

So in regard to all the externals of Christianity, forms of worship, ordinances, and so on-all these, in like manner, are provided in condescension to our weakness, in order that by them we may be lifted above themselves; for the purpose of the Temple is to prepare for the time and the place where the seer ‘saw no temple therein.’ They are but the cups that carry the wine, the flowers whose chalices bear the honey, the ladders by which the soul may climb to God Himself, the rafts upon which the precious treasure may be floated into our hearts.

If Christ’s touch and Christ’s saliva healed, it was not because of anything in them; but because He willed it so; and He Himself is the source of all the healing energy. Therefore, let us keep these externals in their proper place of subordination, and remember that in Him, not in them, lies the healing power; and that even Christ’s touch may become the object of superstitious regard, as it was when that poor woman came through the crowd to lay her finger on the hem of His garment, thinking that she could bear away a surreptitious blessing without the conscious outgoing of His power. He healed her because there was a spark of faith in her superstition, but she had to I earn that it was not the hem of the garment but the loving will of Christ that cured, in order that the dross of superstitious reliance on the outward vehicle might be melted away, and the pure gold of faith in His love and power might remain.

III. Lastly, we have Christ accommodating the pace of His power to the slowness of the man’s faith.

The whole story, as I have said, is unique, and especially this part of it-’He put His hands upon him, and asked him if he saw aught.’ One might have expected an answer with a little more gratitude in it, with a little more wonder in it, with a little more emotion in it. Instead of these it is almost surly, or at any rate strangely reticent-a matter-of-fact answer to the question, and there an end. As our Revised Version reads it better: ‘I see men, for I behold them as trees walking.’ Curiously accurate! A dim glimmer had come into the eye, but there is not yet distinctness of outline nor sense of magnitude, which must be acquired by practice. The eye has not yet been educated, and it was only because these blurred figures were in motion that he knew they were not trees. ‘After that He put His hands upon his eyes and made him look up,’ or, as the Revised Version has it with a better reading, ‘and he looked steadfastly,’ with an eager straining of the new faculty to make sure that he had got it, and to test its limits and its perfection. ‘And he was restored and saw all things clearly.’

Now I take it that the worthiest view of that strangely protracted process, broken up into two halves by the question that is dropped into the middle, is this, that it was determined by the man’s faith, and was meant to increase it. He was healed slowly because he believed slowly. His faith was a condition of his cure, and the measure of it determined the measure of the restoration; and the rate of the growth of his faith settled the rate of the perfecting of Christ’s work on him. As a rule, faith in His power to heal was a condition of Christ’s healing, and that mainly because our Lord would rather make men believing than sound of body. They often wanted only the outward miracle, but He wanted to make it the means of insinuating a better healing into their spirits. And so, not that there was any necessary connection between their faith and the exercise of His miraculous power, but in order that He might bless them with His best gifts, He usually worked on the principle ‘According to your faith be it unto you.’ And here, as a nurse or a mother with her child might do, He keeps step with the little steps, and goes slowly because the man goes slowly.

Now, both the gradual process of illumination and the rate of that process as determined by faith, are true for us. How dim and partial a glimmer of light comes to many a soul at the outset of the Christian life! How little a new convert knows about God and self and the starry truths of His great revelation! Christian progress does not consist in seeing new things, but in seeing the old things more clearly: the same Christ, the same Cross, only more distinctly and deeply apprehended, and more closely incorporated into my very being. We do not grow away from Him, but we grow into knowledge of Him. The first lesson that we get is the last lesson that we shall learn, and He is the ‘Alpha’ at the beginning, and the ‘Omega’ at the end of that alphabet, the letters of which make up our knowledge for earth and heaven.

But then let me remind you that just in the measure in which you expect blessing of any kind, illumination and purifying and help of all sorts from Jesus Christ, just in that measure will you get it. You can limit the working of Almighty power, and can determine the rate at which it shall work on you. God fills the water-pots ‘to the brim,’ but not beyond the brim; and if, like the woman in the Old Testament story, we stop bringing vessels, the oil will stop flowing. It is an awful thing to think that we have the power, as it were, to turn a stopcock, and so increase or diminish, or cut off altogether, the supply of God’s mercy and Christ’s healing and cleansing love in our hearts. You will get as much of God as you want and no more. The measure of your desire is the measure of your capacity, and the measure of your capacity is the measure of God’s gift. ‘Open thy mouth wide and I will fill it!’ And if your faith is heavily shod and steps slowly, His power and His grace will step slowly along with it, keeping rank and step. ‘According to your faith shall it be unto you.’

Ah! dear friends, ‘Ye are not straitened in Me, ye are straitened in yourselves.’ Desire Him to help and bless you, and He will do it. Expect Him to do it, and He will do it. Go to Him like the other blind man and say to Him-’Jesus, Thou Son of David, have mercy on me, that I may receive my sight,’ and He will lay His hand upon you, and at any rate a glimmer will come, which will grow in the measure of your humble, confident desire, until at last He takes you by the hand and leads you out of this poor little village of a world and lays His finger for a brief moment of blindness upon your eyes and asks you if you see aught. Then you will look up, and the first face that you will behold will be His, whom you saw ‘as through a glass darkly’ with your dim eyes in this twilight world.

May that be your experience and mine, through His mercy!

Fuente: Expositions Of Holy Scripture by Alexander MacLaren

NASB (UPDATED) TEXT: Mar 8:22-26

22And they came to Bethsaida. And they brought a blind man to Jesus and implored Him to touch him. 23Taking the blind man by the hand, He brought him out of the village; and after spitting on his eyes and laying His hands on him, He asked him, “Do you see anything?” 24And he looked up and said, “I see men, for I see them like trees, walking around.” 25Then again He laid His hands on his eyes; and he looked intently and was restored, and began to see everything clearly. 26And He sent him to his home, saying, “Do not even enter the village.”

Mar 8:22 “a blind man” One of Isaiah’s prophecies about the Messiah was that He would bring sight to the blind (cf. Isa 29:18 to Isa 35:5; Isa 42:7; Isa 42:16; Isa 42:18-19).

Physical blindness is an OT metaphor for spiritual blindness (cf. Isa 56:10; Isa 59:10). This same play on physical and spiritual blindness is graphically seen in John 9. This is obviously related to the disciples’ blindness in Mar 8:15; Mar 8:18.

Mar 8:23 “brought him out of the village” This was for the purpose of putting the man at ease and keeping the healing a secret (cf. Mar 7:33; Mar 8:26).

“spitting on his eyes and laying His hands on him” These were both cultural ways of healing, one physical and one spiritual. It was meant to build the man’s faith. See SPECIAL TOPIC: LAYING ON OF HANDS at Mar 7:32.

Mar 8:24 “‘I see men, for I see them like trees'” Jesus was not limited in power, but was working with this man’s faith. This is the only partial healing or healing in stages that is recorded in the Gospels.

Mar 8:25 This verse starts with Jesus laying hands on the man’s eyes. Then the action switches to the man (cf. NJB). He must focus and look intently (cf. Mat 7:5). When he cooperates, his sight immediately is restored.

Mar 8:26 This refers to Mark’s repeated references to Jesus emphatically telling people He healed not to broadcast their healing. The Textus Receptus (i.e., KJV or NKJV) even adds a phrase making this more specific. Jesus did not want to be known as a healer. He used healing to show the mercy of God, build the disciples’ faith, and confirm His teaching ministry.

Fuente: You Can Understand the Bible: Study Guide Commentary Series by Bob Utley

And He cometh, &c. This miracle is a Divine supplement in this Gospel. The second part of the Lord’s ministry was drawing to a close. The proclamation of His Person was reaching a climax (verses: Mar 8:17-20). Note the character of “this generation” brought out by the Figure of speech Erotesis (App-6) in verses: Mar 8:12, Mar 8:17, Mar 8:18, Mar 12:21; the un belief of Bethsaida (Mat 11:21), is symbolized by this, the last miracle of that period, which that town was not allowed to witness or be told of. Note also the seeming difficulty and the two stages of the miracle, as though symbolic of verses: Mar 8:17, Mar 8:18.

Betheaida. Where most of His miracles had been wrought. A town on the west shore of Galilee. See App-94and App-169.

Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics

22-26.] HEALING OF A BLIND MAN AT BETHSAIDA. Peculiar to Mark. This appears to have been Bethsada Julias, on the N.E. side of the lake. Compare Mar 8:13 : and see on this Bethsada, Jos. Antt. xviii. 4. 6: B. J. iii. 10. 7: Plin. Nat. Hist. Mar 8:15. Wieseler, Chron. Synops. p. 273 f. See however against the idea that there were two Bethsadas, The Land and the Book, pp. 373 f.

Fuente: The Greek Testament

Mar 8:22. , they bring) The blind man himself does not seem then as yet to have had knowledge of Jesus.

Fuente: Gnomon of the New Testament

Mar 8:22-26

2. A BLIND MAN CURED AT BETHSAIDA

Mar 8:22-26

22 And they come unto Bethsaida.–This is not the Bethsaida in which Peter, Andrew, and Philip had formerly lived, but another Bethsaida, afterward called Julias, which was situated on the east bank of the Jordan, just above its entrance into the lake of Galilee. This is evident from the fact that Jesus and the apostles had crossed from the west to the north-east side of the lake, to reach the place.

And they bring to him a blind man, and beseech him to touch him.–This man had become blind by disease or some other cause as seen from verse 24. His friends brought him to Jesus to be healed by him. They had faith that he could do it.

23 And he took hold of the blind man by the hand, and brought him out of the village;–So as to guide him in walking. This shows his willingness to help the helpless. Why he took him out of the village the sacred writers have not told us. and when he had spit on his eyes, and laid his hands upon him, he asked him, Seest thou aught?–Why this was done no one knows. There was no peculiar power or medical virtue in these acts. The miracle is remarkable for its external applications similar to that of the deaf man. (Mar 7:33.)

24 And he looked up, and said, I see men; for I behold them as trees, walking.–He could see men walking, but indistinctly. This shows he was not born blind, or he would not have known how trees appear as distinguished from men but having lost his sight, when it was partially restored he received distorted vision of the men about him, so that they appeared tall and rough in their outline like trees.

25 Then again he laid his hands upon his eyes; and he looked stedfastly, and was restored, and saw all things clearly.—The second touch of the hand of Jesus completed his restoration. Jesus adopted this method of cure to give variety to the manifestations of his power by showing that he could heal in part and by progressive steps, as well as by his more usual method of effecting a perfect cure at one word. This cure was not less miraculous than others, but rather more so: for it was really the working of two miracles, each effecting instantaneously all that was intended by it. His sight was completely restored. It was foretold that the Messiah should open the eyes of the blind. (Isa 29:18.) We have the account of several miracles of healing the blind. (Mar 10:46-52; Mat 9:27-31; Mat 15:29-31; Joh 9:1-7.) All go to show Christ to be the true Messiah.

26 And he sent him away to his home, saying, Do not even enter into the village.–Had he gone into the town seeing, or had told persons what had occurred, the whole population might have gone out in pursuit of Jesus, and thus the privacy which he was seeking to maintain would have been broken up.

Fuente: Old and New Testaments Restoration Commentary

the Cost of following Jesus

Mar 8:22-38; Mar 9:1

Our attention has been drawn to the Masters sighs; here, however, was another characteristic act. He spat on the eyes of the blind man, perhaps to excite his expectation and faith. Repulsive as ophthalmia is in the East, it did not repel Him nor staunch the flow of His pity.

We do not at once see everything clearly, but step by step we come unto perfect vision. Here we see through a glass darkly, there face to face. There was a great price to be paid; it was only through suffering and death that Jesus could do His greatest work, in redeeming and cleansing the children of men. He might have been the miracle-worker apart from Calvary; but to be the Savior, He must not spare Himself but be willing to pour out His soul even unto death. It was hard for the Apostles to learn this lesson; they wanted the Master to spare Himself. Peter, especially, sought to dissuade Him; but the Lord knew better the desperate need of men and how it must be met. There are three conditions to be fulfilled by those who have resolved to follow the Lamb whithersoever he goeth. 1. We must deny self; 2. Each must take up his cross; 3. We must think more of others than of ourselves. If these are realized, the soul is following Christ and making progress, even though it deems itself stagnant or drifting back.

Fuente: F.B. Meyer’s Through the Bible Commentary

CHAPTER 35

He saw every man clearly.

And he cometh to Bethsaida; and they bring a blind man unto him, and besought him to touch him. And he took the blind man by the hand, and led him out of the town; and when he had spit on his eyes, and put his hands upon him, he asked him if he saw ought. And he looked up, and said, I see men as trees, walking. After that he put his hands again upon his eyes, and made him look up: and he was restored, and saw every man clearly. And he sent him away to his house, saying, Neither go into the town, nor tell it to any in the town.

(Mar 8:22-26)

This is another of those miracles related by none of the other Evangelists. Mark alone was inspired to tell us about the healing of this blind man at Bethsaida.

None of our Lords miracles were accidental or mere representations of his supernatural power over physical things. Every miracle performed by the Master was designed to teach us spiritual, gospel truths, particularly truths about the workings of his grace in his elect. On this occasion, we see a blind man who was healed gradually, by degrees. This is the only time in the New Testament that happened. So, we might properly expect that that is, in itself, highly significant and instructive. The healing of this blind man is a picture of the way God saves chosen, redeemed sinners by the almighty power and grace of his Holy Spirit. As our Lord Jesus took this poor blind man by the hand, he takes chosen sinners by his hand and leads them to himself, giving them light and grace and life by his omnipotent mercy.

Brought by Friends

Mar 8:22. And he cometh to Bethsaida. Bethsaida was a fishing village, the home of Andrew, Peter, and Philip (Joh 1:44). The Lord Jesus came here on an errand of mercy. In Mar 8:13 we read that our Savior left the Pharisees. What solemn words we read there, And he left them! Having left them in judgment, he came to Bethsaida on an errand of mercy, seeking one of his lost sheep for whom the time of love had come, a poor blind man who must now receive his sight. And they bring a blind man unto him, and besought him to touch him. Here is a blind man brought to the Lord Jesus Christ by his friends. Mark tells us three simple, but very important and instructive things in this verse.

First, we are told that the man was blind. In that fact, he is representative of all men in their natural, unregenerate state. Whether religious or irreligious, educated or uneducated, all human beings are spiritually blind. This poor man did not have so much as one faint, glimmering ray of light, until the Lord Jesus touched him. So it is with every man by nature. Those who are without Christ, who alone is Light, live in darkness. They have no sight. They cannot see themselves. They cannot see the kingdom of God, or the things of God. They are blind. That is the condition of all men naturally. It is not that there is a lack of light, but a lack of sight. There is none that understandeth, there is none that seeketh after God (Rom 3:11). The natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned (1Co 2:14). Fallen man is poor, miserable, wretched, and naked; but he cannot see it, because he is blind. Though the Son of God stands before him, he cannot see him, because he is blind. Though Gods salvation is displayed before his very eyes, he cannot see it, because having eyes, he sees not. He is blind.

Second, Mark tells us that this poor blind mans friends brought him to the Master. We are not told that this blind man believed anything or expected anything from the Lord at all. He seems to have come to the place where the Master was simply because his friends persuaded him to do so. What a blessed man he was to have such friends! He did not know Christ, but his friends did. He did not believe Christ, but his friends did. He would never have come to Christ, but his friends brought him.

Third, having done all that they could do, this blind mans friends besought the Lord Jesus to touch him. They could not heal him, but they knew Christ could. This blind man, it appears, did not have sense enough to pray for himself. So his friends prayed for him. Blessed is the man who has such friends! Blessed is the man who is such a friend!

Divine Separation

In Mar 8:23 we see our Savior performing his operation of grace upon this man in a most unusual way. We have no other picture like this in all the Word of God. He performs his work gradually and in private. Surely this is intended to teach us some things we need to learn and remember. This is what the Son of God does for sinners in the saving operations of his grace, when he turns them from darkness to light. And he took the blind man by the hand, and led him out of the town; and when he had spit on his eyes, and put his hands upon him, he asked him if he saw ought.

The Master took the blind man by the hand. Can you imagine how elated, how thrilled, how excited this mans friends were when they saw the Master stretch out that arm which they knew was the arm of omnipotence in mercy, love, and grace to their friend? That was in itself an act of great condescension. But here is a far greater act of condescension. One day he Lord Jesus took me by the hand! He took me in his hand as my Surety in old eternity. Taking me in his hand, he separated me from all the rest of the human race by sovereign election and particular redemption. Then, at the appointed time of his love, the God of all grace stooped to take me by the hand in effectual calling.

If he takes a sinner into his hand, he will open his blind eyes. If he takes you by the hand, he will never let you go. If he takes you by the hand, you are perfectly safe. No man can pluck you out of his hand. If he takes you by the hand in time, he took you in his hand before time began. When the Lord Jesus takes sinners by the hand, he becomes, as John Gill wrote, their guide and leader. A better, and safer guide they cannot have. He brings them by a way they know not, and leads them in paths they had not known before; makes darkness light before them, and crooked things straight, and does not forsake them.

Next, he led him out of the town. As Hosea allured Gomer and brought her into the wilderness, that he might speak comfortably to her, so the Lord Jesus graciously brings the chosen sinner away to himself alone, that he might speak comfortably to his beloved in the time of love.

He led this poor blind man out of the town, because he was not interested in the town, but in this one man. He did not want the applause of the people of Bethsaida, but the heart of this sinner. The people of Bethsaida, because of their unbelief, were declared unworthy even to witness the wondrous works of Christ (Mat 11:21). So he took the blind man by the hand, and led him out of the town. When the Son of God saves his people, he calls them out of the world. He bids us come unto him without the camp: outside the camp of human religion outside the camp of worldly ambition outside the camp of sins dominion outside the camp unto him!

A Despised Means

The next thing our Savior did, if he had allowed anyone to see it, would have been looked upon as an utterly despicable, contemptible, and foolish thing. And when he had spit on his eyes.

Why did our Lord do that? Many suggest that because it was a common medical practice (Doctors believed there was healing, medicinal power in saliva!), our Lord used the common medical practice of the day to heal the man, adding to it his divine power. Needless to say, I do not agree. The Son of God did not employ falsehood to perform his work. However, our all-wise Savior did choose (and still chooses) to use a terribly despicable means to perform his work of grace upon this poor blind man.

God has chosen the foolishness of preaching to save his elect. The spit from the Saviors lips represents the eye salve of the gospel with which the Son of God anoints the eyes of the blind (Rev 3:18).

After spitting on the mans eyes, the Lord Jesus put his hands upon him. The touch of his hand is the symbol of his omnipotent grace, without which the means of grace, the preaching of the gospel, is utterly useless.

A Sovereign Savior

What we have before us is a picture of our Lords sovereignty in the exercise of his grace. God will not be put in a box. He never limits himself and cannot be limited by men. He heals some gradually and others immediately, some with spit and others without any spit. All saved sinners trust the same Savior, experience the same grace and believe the same gospel. But we do not all experience grace the same way. This will come as a shock to some; but God does not deal with us all the same way. In fact, we are told in the New Testament of four other blind men who were healed by our Savior (Mat 9:27-30; Mar 10:46-52; Luk 18:35-43; Joh 9:1-7). Three were healed by his mere word, without his touch. One was healed by the Savior spitting in his eyes and touching them. And another was healed by our Savior spitting on the ground, making clay, and anointing his eyes with the clay. In all five cases, there were certain things that were done differently.

Trees Walking

The Lord Jesus required a confession from this blind man. He asked him if he saw aught. Remember, this man had not expressed any faith in the Son of God. He had not even acknowledged his blindness and need of cure. Now the Master requires him to acknowledge both his infirmity and the power of God he had experienced. There is no salvation apart from a personal confession of faith in the Lord Jesus Christ (Rom 10:1-10; 1Jn 1:9). Secret disciples are always suspect disciples. No one can be looked upon, treated as, or think of himself as a child of God until Christ is confessed. Our Savior requires and deserves that we confess him before men.

After he touched the blind mans eyes, the Savior asked him if he could see anything. He looked up, and said, I see men as trees, walking (Mar 8:24). He could see, but not very clearly. So it is with us. When the Lord God saves a sinner, he is immediately translated from darkness to light. Every saved sinner sees the kingdom of God; but we do not immediately see everything in the kingdom of God.

In Mar 8:24-25 we see that the light of Gods grace usually comes gradually. Christ, who is the Light of the world and came preaching the recovering of sight to the blind (Luk 4:18), gave what he proclaimed and compelled the man who had received his sight to tell what had happened to him. This blind man confessed exactly what he knew and had experienced, no more and no less. He was not delivered from his blindness all at once, but by degrees. He saw a little, but not much; and what he did see he did not see clearly. He did not pretend to see what he did not see.

This blind man received his sight gradually. The work was as truly gracious, miraculous, and glorious as the healing of Bartemaeus, the healing of the woman with the issue of blood, and the healing of the leper. But it was less spectacular. However, it is not a miracle to be despised and ignored because it was gradually performed. Our Lord hereby shows us that his works of grace in the lives of chosen sinners are sometimes gradual. Men and women usually come to light and understanding in spiritual things gradually. J.C. Ryle, made three very simple, but profoundly instructive comments about this mans experience and the lessons it is intended to convey. Ryle said

1.We are all naturally blind and ignorant in the matters which concern our souls.

2.Conversion is an illumination, a change from darkness to light, from blindness to seeing the kingdom of God.

3.Few converted people see things distinctly at first.

While we are rightfully insistent that there is no saving faith, no conversion, no true salvation apart from the knowledge of Christ (Joh 17:3) in his true character, as he is revealed in the gospel, we readily acknowledge that saving knowledge is but limited knowledge while we live in this world. Be sure you understand this. Light is light; but it usually comes to our sin blinded souls by degrees. We all see spiritual things gradually. First we see the sinfulness of our deeds, then the sinfulness of our hearts. First we see the suitableness and ability of Christ to redeem and save, then his willingness to save us. First we see the fact of forgiveness, then the experience of forgiveness. First we see the good news of the gospel, then the great truths of the gospel.

When God first saved me, I knew whom I believed; but I did not know much about him. I knew that the Lord Jesus Christ is my God and Savior; but I did not know much about eternal Sonship and the distinction of persons in the Holy Trinity. I was convinced of my sin; but I did not know the difference between iniquity, transgression, and sin. I was convinced that Christ had brought in everlasting righteousness for me, and that I had no righteousness but him; but I knew nothing about imputation and forensic righteousness. I was convinced that judgment was finished by the judgment of my sin in Christ my Substitute; but I did not know a thing about forensic justification. I knew that it was God who had saved me, that Salvation is of the Lord; but I didnt know a thing about the decrees of God. If you had asked me about lapsarianism, I would probably have said, I dont know anything about Lapland. If someone had asked me about election, I would most likely have said, Im not old enough to vote. I knew my Savior; but I really knew very little about how he had saved me. I could say with the blind man our Lord healed in John 9, Once I was blind, but now I see. Yet, I did not see much. All I saw was men as trees walking.

Yet, the Son of God never does his work partially. This mans healing was soon completed. Once he has begun his work of grace in a mans soul, he never stops working until he says, It is finished. He which hath begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ (Php 1:6).

The healing of this blind man gives us a picture of both the present and future condition of Gods saints. As long as we live in this world we see as through a glass darkly. We are like men traveling by night. We see what the light before us reveals; but we see very little around us. We see many things here that we simply do not understand, particularly in matters of providence. There are many things in the Word of God as well, which we simply do not understand. We are at best able to perceive spiritual things, like this man, as trees walking, so long as we live in his world. But the time will soon come when we shall see all things clearly. When the Lord Jesus comes again, our spiritual eyesight will be greatly improved!

The Second Touch

After that he put his hands again upon his eyes, and made him look up: and he was restored, and saw every man clearly (Mar 8:25). When the Master touched this mans eyes a second time and made him look up, he was restored and saw every man clearly. It is written, The path of the just is as the shining light, that shineth more and more unto the perfect day (Pro 4:18).

So it is with us. Our shining light increases, and shines more and more unto the perfect day. The fact is, as long as we live in this world, the light we have is far from perfect, even among those who see the most and see most clearly. I am sorry to have to tell you this, but there are some things you do not yet know, and some things you know, about which you know very little. It must be acknowledged, if we are truthful, that we see through a glass darkly.

After reading this passage in one of our evening worship services several years ago, Bro. Rex Bartley said, When Christ heals a sinner, restores his sight, and makes him look up to him, he sees every man clearly. Then he named four men spoken of in Holy Scripture, and said, When a sinner is taught of God, he sees these four men clearly.

When a sinner is taught of God, he sees the first man, Adam, clearly, as both a representative man representing all the human race (1Co 15:45) and a typical man typifying our Lord Jesus Christ (Rom 5:12-21).

Every saved sinner sees the second man, Christ our Lord, clearly. The first man, Adam, was made in the image and likeness of the second Man, the Lord Jesus Christ. He is the God-man, our Mediator, our divine Surety, Jehovahs righteous Servant, our sin-atoning Substitute, the Lord our Righteousness (1Co 1:30-31). In him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily. And ye are complete in him, which is the head of all principality and power (Col 2:9-10).

Then, the Scriptures speak of the natural man, that is man in his lost, ruined condition, without Christ. All who are taught of God see the natural man clearly. The natural man is dead in trespasses and in sins, without Christ, an alien from the commonwealth of Israel, a stranger to the covenant of promise, having no hope, without God in this perishing world.

There is another man set before us in the Book of God; and all who are taught of God see him clearly, too. The Holy Spirit calls him the new man (2Co 5:17; Eph 4:24; Col 3:10). This new man is that holy thing in you called, Christ in you, the hope of glory, that which is born of God, his seed that remaineth in you, the spirit, the divine nature. John tells us he cannot sin, because he is born of God. The new man created in righteousness and true holiness. The new man, the spirit, that is in you is at war with the old man, the natural man, the flesh. The new man delights in the law of God (Gal 5:16-25). This new man is a new creature in Christ (2Co 5:17; Eph 2:13-15; Col 3:10-11).

We see every man clearly, but not perfectly. Soon, that will change. Soon, we shall see face to face and know even as we are known. How clearly will all things be seen in the new Jerusalem. There will be no need of the light of the sun or the moon of gospel ordinances there; but Christ, the Lamb, will be the everlasting light of that City, in which the nations of them that are saved shall walk! Then, when we see our Savior face to face, and not until then, will we see all things perfectly.

Tell it Not

There is one more thing I want you to see in this passage. It may seem strange, and it should. In Mar 8:26 the Lord Jesus Christ, our God who delighteth in mercy, performs an act of judgment. That, too, is his work; but it is his strange work. And he sent him away to his house, saying, Neither go into the town, nor tell it to any in the town. Our Savior told this man to go home, specifically commanding him not to go back to Bethsaida and not to tell anyone in that town what the God of all grace had done for him. Why?

The Lord Jesus had done many wonderful works among the inhabitants of Bethsaida; but they did not believe him. Therefore, because they would not hear him and would not believe him, he left them to themselves. As Matthew Henry observed, Bethsaida, in the day of her visitation, would not know the things that belonged to her peace, and now they are hid from her eyes. They will not see, and therefore shall not see. This is horrible to consider; but it is his just judgment upon men who will not receive his Word (Pro 1:23-33). What great wrath our God heaps upon those who refuse to believe him! He orders his servants to preach no more to them. He allows none to tell them of the good news of life and salvation by him. He even commands his prophets not to pray for them. And even if they try to do otherwise, they simply cannot.

As soon as our Lord had healed this man, he took his disciples and left town (Mar 8:27), but not until he had healed the man he came to Bethsaida to heal.

Fuente: Discovering Christ In Selected Books of the Bible

Bethsaida: Mar 6:45, Mat 11:21, Luk 9:10, Luk 10:13, Joh 1:44, Joh 12:21

they bring: Mar 2:3, Mar 6:55, Mar 6:56

to touch: Mar 5:27-29, Mat 8:3, Mat 8:15, Mat 9:29

Reciprocal: Isa 32:3 – General Isa 35:5 – the eyes Mat 9:20 – touched Mat 9:27 – two Luk 6:19 – sought Luk 15:24 – this

Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge

Chapter 12.

The Healing of the Blind Man at Bethsaida

“And He cometh to Bethsaida; and they bring a blind man unto Him, and besought Him to touch him. And He took the blind man by the hand, and led him out of the town; and when He had spit on his eyes, and put His hands upon him, He asked him if he saw ought. And he looked up, and said, I see men as trees, walking. After that He put His hand again upon his eyes, and made him look up: and he was restored, and saw every man clearly. And He sent him away to his house, saying, Neither go into the town, nor tell it to any in the town.”-Mar 8:22-26.

Christ and the Twelve.

The clue to our Lord’s movements at this stage of His career is that desire for quietness, and the opportunity for speech and converse with His disciples which quietness would afford, to which I have already referred more than once. How urgent was the need for instructing and teaching the Twelve the conversation about leaven that took place as they crossed the sea only too plainly revealed. There is a sense of disappointment in Christ’s word to them, “Why reason ye, because ye have no bread? do ye not yet perceive, neither understand?… Having eyes, see ye not? and having ears, hear ye not? and do ye not remember?” (Mar 8:17-18). It was saddening to Jesus that, in spite of all their associations with Him, when He talked of the leaven of the Pharisees and of the leaven of Herod, they should think that He was talking of bread. It was disheartening that, in spite of the miracle of the 5000, and the subsequent miracle of the 4000, these disciples should get into something like a panic, because they had only with them one loaf. And these were the men upon whom would rest the whole burden of the work when He was gone, and upon whose zeal and understanding (humanly speaking) the future of the Kingdom would depend. In view of all this, you can understand our Lord’s anxiety for quietness, wherein to devote Himself to the instruction and the discipline of these disciples. Indeed, it is not too much to say that from this time forth this was the work upon which Christ concentrated His energies. In the first part of His career He gave Himself up to the work of public preaching; in the second part of His career He gave Himself specially to the work of “training the Twelve.” In His desire for quiet, in order to be able to undertake this “training” work, He had gone from place to place. But always something intervened. He had gone to the borders of Phnicia, and the woman with a sick daughter had found Him out; and after that there was no privacy for Him. He had come down into the coasts of Decapolis; but His fame had preceded Him, until soon there was a crowd of 4000 men hanging on His lips for days at a time in the wilderness. He escaped to Dalmanutha; but even in that obscure and out-of-the-way place hate discovered Him, and the Pharisees and Herodians dogged His steps. So once again Jesus moved on.

At Bethsaida.

Leaving Dalmanutha He took ship, sailed to the other side, and came to Bethsaida. This is not the Bethsaida, the city of Andrew and Peter, situated near Capernaum, and so frequently referred to in the Gospel story. This is Bethsaida Julias, once a mere village, but now raised by one of the Herods to the rank of a city, situated on the north-eastern corner of the Sea of Galilee, near the river Jordan. Jesus was really on His way to the coasts of Csarea Philippi, in the north, for it seemed hopeless to expect privacy anywhere in Galilee. He visited Bethsaida Julias only because it was on His route. But, passing visit though it was, someone recognised Him, and soon He was confronted by a little company of people who brought to Him a man who was blind, and besought Him to touch him. And the five verses that follow tell us of the miracle Christ wrought upon this particular sufferer. I have said that Christ wherever He went left His monument behind Him, in the shape of a household blessed, or a man or woman or child healed. He was only passing through this city of Bethsaida Julias, and yet He left His monument there too, in the person of this blind man restored to sight. It was a case of goodness by the way.

Now this miracle, like that of the healing of the deaf and dumb man which we have already studied together, is peculiar to St Mark. And in several of their details the two are very much alike, and suggest very much the same reflections and lessons. Upon these similarities I shall only very lightly touch, in order that I may have time to emphasize the one or two lessons that are special and peculiar to this narrative.

The Blind Man.

“And they bring to Him a blind man” (Mar 8:22). There is no deprivation more pitiable than that of blindness, and in the East, especially in Egypt and Syria, there is none more common. The conditions of climate and life, the glare of the sun, the dust, account for this. One-tenth of the population of Joppa suffer from ophthalmia. In Cairo, out of a quarter of a million of people, there are 4000 blind. Sightless, blear-eyed, fly-infected, miserable men and women confront travellers in every Syrian town and village to-day, and make one of the most distressing spectacles of Eastern life. I suppose it was the prevalence of this terrible affliction that made the prophet anticipate, as one of the blessings that Messiah would bring with Him, that, “the eyes of the blind shall be opened.” So, when John the Baptist sent from prison to ask Jesus if He really were the long-expected Messiah, Jesus bade the messengers go back, and tell John what they had seen and heard, and amongst other things this, that “the blind receive their sight.”

-Led to Jesus.

It was one of this sorry, afflicted class that was brought to Jesus as He passed through Bethsaida. Some preachers have made a great deal of the word “bring”-“they bring to Him a blind man.” They have pressed the word, to suggest that the desire and faith were all in the friends of the sufferer, and not in the sufferer himself; some going so far as to make out that the patient was a passive and even unwilling subject. And on this exegesis they have built homilies about the duty of our bringing our friends to Jesus for help and healing. The lesson they teach is admirable enough; the highest service one friend can render to another is to introduce him to Jesus, but the exegesis upon which in this particular instance it is based is quite unwarranted. The word “bring” in this case carries with it no implication of unwillingness; it has reference solely and simply to the man’s blindness. Just because he was blind, he had to be brought, led to Jesus. And then Jesus does two things to this blind man, similar to two things He had done in the case of the deaf and dumb man.

Privacy Sought.

First of all, the miracle is performed in privacy. “He took hold of the blind man by the hand, and brought him out of the village” (Mar 8:23). He Himself led him out, upon which Bengel makes the remark, “wondrous humility!” Yea, so it is, but not rare or uncommon in the case of Jesus. That is what He was always doing. Jesus was not like an Eastern monarch, haughty, inaccessible, dispensing favours from a throne. He stooped to become a friend of the poorest. Indeed, this is what He did for the whole race when He took flesh. He took hold upon the seed of Abraham. He took our fallen, guilty, sin-stained race by the hand. He took this blind man by the hand, and I do not think it is fanciful to suppose that there would be something in the warm pressure of our Lord’s hand that would assure the sufferer that he was in the company of a friend. Had he been able to look into the Master’s face, he would have seen love and kindness shining there; the handclasp was meant to assure him of the love he could not see. “He took hold of the blind man by the hand, and brought him out of the village” (Mar 8:23). He took him aside from the staring and gaping crowd. Partly, no doubt, for the man’s own sake. For Christ’s best lessons are taught when He can get a man alone. But partly also, as the narrative makes abundantly clear, for His own sake. Jesus was in search of privacy. A great wonder wrought before the eyes of a great crowd would entirely have defeated His object. It would have brought the multitudes about Him. It would have created a dangerous enthusiasm. So He did His act of beneficence by stealth. He took the blind man out of the village, and when He had accomplished His act of healing, He sent him away to his home, saying, “Do not even enter into the village” (Mar 8:26).

Symbolic Action Used.

And secondly, in this case, as in the case of the deaf and dumb man, He used symbolic action. “When He had spit on his eyes,… He laid His hands upon him” (Mar 8:23). Now saliva was supposed to have some healing medicinal quality. And the object Christ had in anointing the blind man’s eyes with His saliva was-as in the case of boring the deaf man’s ears-to quicken a spirit of expectancy and faith within him. All of which, says Dr. Alexander Maclaren, is the way in which Christ stoops to the use of material helps, in order to minister to sense-bound natures. The ordinances of worship, the Sacraments, they are great means of grace; but from one point of view they are accommodations to our human weakness. The pure spirits in heaven need no such aids for their worship. “I saw no temple therein.” But, composed as we are of flesh and spirit, an absolute and naked spirituality of worship is impossible to us; we need the sacred day and the sacred place, and the sacred symbols of bread and wine. Only let us always remember this-that, just as the healing power was not in this saliva with which Jesus anointed the blind man’s eyes, but in the Lord Himself, in His will and commanding word, so the grace is not in the ordinance, or in the place, or in the symbols, but in the present living Christ. The holy place is visited in vain, and the worship is shared in in vain, and the bread and wine are partaken of in vain, unless we come into direct and immediate contact with the saving and redeeming Christ.

But now I pass on from these points of similarity, to points which are special and peculiar to this particular miracle.

The Gradual Illumination.

And the first point I want you to notice is that of the gradualness of the cure. Usually in the record of our Lord’s miracles, the sick man, whatever his disease might be, was cured at once by a word. But in this case the man was healed not at once, but at twice. After spitting on his eyes and laying His hands on them, Jesus asked the blind man if he could see anything. “And he looked up, and said, I see men; for I behold them as trees, walking” (Mar 8:24). That is to say, he could discern large objects in motion; and though they looked like trees, he concluded that they were men, for the simple reason that they were walking about. So again Jesus “laid His hands upon his eyes; and he looked steadfastly, and was restored, and saw all things clearly” (Mar 8:25).

The Lord’s Way with Souls.

The commentators make a great deal of the fact that all this is in closest accord with later scientific discovery. But I confess it is not its truth to scientific discovery, but the broad fact of the gradual nature of the cure, that interests me. For it seems to me that we have in this miracle a symbol, a parable of the way in which Christ works in the matter of the illumination of the soul. Take it on the broadest platform, to begin with. What is the Bible? It is the story of the progressive revelation of God to the human race. But there is a vast difference between the first beginnings of revelation, as we have them in Genesis, let us say, and the full and perfect revelation given to us in Jesus Christ. God, we are assured, spoke “unto the fathers in the prophets by divers portions and in divers manners” (Heb 1:1). He revealed Himself, the verse seems to suggest, in fragments. These patriarchs of our race saw God, they were vividly and intensely conscious of Him; but you cannot read the Old Testament books without seeing that they did not see God clearly. There is much of error and mistake in their ideas about God. But their knowledge grew from more and more, until at length it was granted unto men to see the full light of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ

Progressive Spiritual Vision.

Take it on the narrower platform of the individual life, and there again it is true that our spiritual vision is progressive. We do not see everything clearly at the first touch of Christ. The whole teaching of the New Testament insists upon progression in our apprehension of Christian truth. When Christ first opens our eyes to eternal things, all does not at once become clear. We see things dimly, darkly, indistinctly. The heights and depths of Christian truth are not revealed to us. The lengths and breadths of God’s love are not comprehended by us. The meaning and power of the cross of Christ, for instance-that is not something that breaks upon us in a flash; it grows upon us more and more. I suppose my own experience is but a sample of that of thousands of others. It was but a poor and imperfect vision of the cross of Christ I had when I started my Christian life. But it has become clearer and clearer to me as the years have rolled by. My study of God’s Word, my experience of life, my better acquaintance with the sins and wants of my own heart, all these things have helped me to fuller understanding of the great mystery of Christ’s death and passion. I do not say that “I see clearly” even yet; but I see heights and depths, glories and mercies in the cross of Christ to-day that were hidden from me twenty years ago. And this is only an example. The same truth could be illustrated in the matter of prayer and providence, and the person of Christ. We do not see all or know all at once. The knowledge is progressive. And vision grows in clearness as we receive “grace for grace,” unceasingly renewed, and enter into the secret of the Lord which is with them that fear Him.

-But Contact with Christ.

But notice that a man may have been really touched by Christ, even though his vision may be vague and dim. “I see men,” said this sufferer, “for I behold them as trees walking.” And yet he had really experienced the touch of Christ. And so there are men and women whose notions of truth may be very crude and ignorant, who yet have come into that direct and immediate contact with Christ which really constitutes the salvation of the soul.

The Perfect Vision.

But while the story teaches the truth that spiritual illumination is gradual, it also brings us the assurance that Christ will not leave His work till He has given us perfect vision. He was not content to leave this man in that condition of imperfect and uncertain sight when men appeared to him as trees walking. Our Lord touched his eyes again, and he was restored, and saw all things clearly. And this is just a parable of what Christ will do for the soul. Before He has finished with us, we too shall see all things clearly. “The path of the righteous is as the shining light, that shineth more and more unto the perfect day” (Pro 4:18). Light, the “shining light.” And you have perhaps watched the light of dawn. You have seen it first touch the hills, while the valley lay shrouded in darkness and night; and then gradually creep down the hill-side, sweeping the night before it, until at length it has invaded every nook and cranny, and filled them with sunshine and brightness. The path of the just shall be like that; it shall lead him into fuller and fuller light, until at length it is “perfect day” with him-perfect day. I know how hard it is to bear the dim twilight of the dawn. I know how fiercely some of us long to see and to know. How we chafe at the limitations of our vision! I had a letter only a few days ago from a father who had just lost a daughter of fifteen. How that father wants to know! He wrote to me pathetically, asking me questions that are as much hidden from me as from him. But Christ will not leave us for ever in the twilight, with only a groping and uncertain knowledge. He will bring us into the “perfect day.” I do not know that the “perfect day” will ever be ours in this life. The skies will grow brighter for us, and the vision clearer year by year, if we really follow on to know the Lord; yet to the end there will be many things that are not plain. But as to the life beyond, “there shall be no night there,” no shred of darkness left, sacred high eternal noon, the “perfect day.” And then at length we shall “see clearly.”

-To be attained at the Last.

There were two stages in this man’s experience. He saw men as trees, the stage of imperfect vision. He saw all things clearly, the stage of perfect sight. There are two similar stages in our experience. This is how Paul states them: “Now we see in a mirror darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I have been known” (1Co 13:12). Let us live in hope. Christ will in His own good time complete the work He has begun. He who is the Author is also the Finisher of our faith. He will not leave us in the night; He will bring us at length into the perfect day, when we shall see all things clearly.

Fuente: The Gospel According to St. Mark: A Devotional Commentary

The request for Jesus to touch the man showed their faith in his power.

Fuente: Combined Bible Commentary

WE do not know the reason of the peculiar means employed by our Lord Jesus Christ, in working the miracle recorded in these verses. We see a blind man miraculously healed. We know that a word from our Lord’s mouth, or a touch of His hand would have been sufficient to effect a cure. But we see Jesus taking this blind man by the hand-leading him out of the town-spitting on his eyes-putting His hands on him, and then, and not till then, restoring his sight. And the meaning of all these actions, the passage before us leaves entirely unexplained.

But it is well to remember, in reading passages of this kind, that the Lord is not tied to the use of any one means. In the conversion of men’s souls there are diversities of operation, but it is the same Spirit which converts. So also in the healing of men’s bodies there were varieties of agency employed by our Lord, but it was the same divine power that effected the cure. In all His works God is a sovereign. “He giveth not account of any of His matters.” (Job 33:13.)

One thing in the passage demands our special observation. That thing is the gradual nature of the cure which our Lord performed on this blind man. He did not deliver him from his blindness at once, but by degrees. He might have done it in a moment, but He chose to do it step by step. First the blind man said that he only saw “men as trees walking.” Afterwards his eyesight was restored completely, and he “saw every man clearly.” In this respect the miracle stands entirely alone.

We need hardly doubt that this gradual cure was meant to be an emblem of spiritual things. We may be sure that there was a deep meaning in every word and work of our Lord’s earthly ministry, and here, as in other places, we shall find a useful lesson.

Let us see then in this gradual restoration to sight, a vivid illustration of the manner in which the Spirit frequently works in the conversion of souls. We are all naturally blind and ignorant in the matters which concern our souls. Conversion is an illumination, a change from darkness to light, from blindness to seeing the kingdom of God. Yet few converted people see things distinctly at first. The nature and proportion of doctrines, practices, and ordinances of the Gospel are dimly seen by them, and imperfectly understood. They are like the man before us, who at first saw men as trees walking. Their vision is dazzled and unaccustomed to the new world into which they have been introduced. It is not till the work of the Spirit has become deeper and their experience been somewhat matured, that they see all things clearly, and give to each part of religion its proper place. This is the history of thousands of God’s children. They begin with seeing men as trees walking-they end with seeing all clearly. Happy is he who has learned this lesson well, and is humble and distrustful of his own judgment.

Finally, let us see in the gradual cure of this blind man, a striking picture of the present position of Christ’s believing people in the world, compared with that which is to come. We see in part and know in part in the present dispensation. We are like those that travel by night. We know not the meaning of much that is passing around us. In the providential dealings of God with His children, and in the conduct of many of God’s saints, we see much that we cannot understand-and cannot alter. In short, we are like him that saw “men as trees walking.”

But let us look forward and take comfort. The time comes when we shall see all “clearly.” The night is far spent. The day is at hand. Let us be content to wait, and watch, and work, and pray. When the day of the Lord comes, our spiritual eyesight will be perfected. We shall see as we have been seen, and know as we have been known.

Fuente: Ryle’s Expository Thoughts on the Gospels

Mar 8:22. And they come to Bethsaida. They had not landed there, but probably stopped there to procure provisions. Our Lord did not intend to remain there; He was seeking retirement, to prepare His disciples for the future.

A blind man. Probably not born blind. See on Mar 8:24.

To touch him, as though the touch was necessary to heal him.

Fuente: A Popular Commentary on the New Testament

Here we have recorded a special miracle wrought by our Saviour at Bethsaida, in curing a blind man brought unto him.

Where observe, 1. What evident proof the Pharisees had of Christ’s divine power and godhead: he had before caused the deaf to hear, the dumb to speak, and the lame to walk; now he makes the blind to see; yet did the Pharisees obstinately resist all means of their conviction, and continued in their opposition to truth, to their inevitable and unutterable condemnation.

Observe, 2. The wonderful humility, the great condescension of Jesus Christ towards this blind man; He took him by the hand, and led him, himself. A great evidence of his condescending humility, and of his goodness and mercy; shewing how ready and willing he was to help and heal him; see here a singular pattern of humility and condescending grace and mercy in our dear Redeemer, in that he vouchsafed with his own hands to take and lead a poor blind man through the streets of Bethsaida, in the sight of all the people. Let us learn of him, who was thus meek, and lovely in heart.

Observe, 3. Our Lord leads the blind man out of the town before he heals him, not in the town where all the people might take notice of it. Thereby teaching us to avoid all shews of ambition, all appearance of vain-glory; in what we do. Even as Christ sought not his own glory, but the glory of him that sent him.

Observe, 4. The manner of the cure wrought upon this blind man; it was gradual, and by degrees; not instantaneous, and at once: he had first a dark, dim, and obscure sight, afterwards a clear, and a perfect sight. Christ thereby, gave evidence of his absolute and omnipotent power, that he was not tied to any particular means, or manner, or order of working; but wrought his miracles variously, as he saw to be most fit for the glory of God, and the benefit of his people.

Observe lastly, The charge, given by our Saviour not to publish this miracle in the town of Bethsaida; a place where Christ had so often preached, and wrought so many miracles; but the inhabitants had obstinately and contemptuously undervalued and despised both his doctrine and miracles; therefore we read, Mat 11:21 that our Saviour denounced a woe against Bethsaida, assuring her, that it would be more tolerable for Tyre and Sidon than for her. The higher a people rise under the means, the lower they fall if they miscarry. Such a people as have been nearest to conversion, being not converted, shall have the greatest condemnation when they are judged.

Fuente: Expository Notes with Practical Observations on the New Testament

Mar 8:22-26. And he cometh to Bethsaida Where he had done many mighty works, without their producing the desired effect, the people remaining in impenitence and unbelief, Mat 11:21. The following miracle, it may be observed, is recorded by Mark only; a plain proof that he is not to be considered as a mere abridger of Matthew. And they bring him a blind man, and besought him to touch him Here appears the faith of those that brought him; they doubted not but one touch of Christs hand would restore his sight; but the man himself did not show that earnest desire for, or expectation of, a cure, that many others did. He took and led him out of the town Declaring hereby, that those of Bethsaida, who had seen so many miracles in vain, were unworthy to behold this: for had our Lord herein only designed privacy, he might have led him into a house, or into an inner chamber, and have cured him there. And when he had spit on his eyes, &c. Our Lord could have cured this man, as he did some others, with a words speaking, but he was pleased thus to use signs, as he did on some other occasions, probably with a view to assist the mans faith, which it seems was very weak; it was evident, however, that the signs which he used had no natural tendency to effect a cure, nor indeed had any of the signs which our Lord ever used on such occasions: He asked him if he saw aught, &c. Jesus did not, as on other occasions of a like nature, impart the faculty of sight to this blind man all at once, but by degrees: for the man at first saw things obscurely, and could not distinguish men from trees, otherwise than that he could discern them to move. His expression may be easily accounted for, on supposition that he was not born blind, but had lost his sight by some accident; for if that was the case, he might have retained the idea both of men and trees. By a second imposition of Christs hands he received a clear sight of every object in view. Our Lords intention in this might be to make it evident that in his cures he was not confined to one method of operation, but could dispense them in what manner he pleased. In the mean time, though the cure was performed by degrees, it was accomplished in so small a space of time, as to make it evident that it was not produced by any natural efficacy of our Lords spittle or touch, but merely by the exertion of his miraculous power. Christ perhaps intended, by restoring the mans sight gradually, to signify in what way those who are by nature spiritually blind, are generally healed by his grace. At first, their knowledge of divine things is indistinct, obscure, and confused; they see men as trees walking; but afterward, by a second or third imposition of the Saviours hands, a further degree of spiritual discernment is communicated, and they see all things clearly. Their light, like that of the morning, shines more and more unto the perfect day. Let us, then, inquire if we have any sight of, or acquaintance with, those things of which faith is the evidence; and if, through grace, we have any true knowledge of them, we may hope that it will increase more and more, till we are fully translated out of our natural darkness of ignorance and folly, into the marvellous light of truth and wisdom. And he sent him away, saying, Neither go into the town Where probably some who had seen Christ lead him out of the town, were expecting to see him return; but who, having been eye-witnesses of so many miracles, had not so much as the curiosity to follow him. Such therefore were not to be gratified with the sight of him when he was cured, that would not show so much respect to Christ as to go a step out of the town to see the cure wrought. Nor tell it to any in the town Christ does not forbid him to tell it to others, but he must not tell it to any of the inhabitants of Bethsaida. Observe, reader, the slighting of Christs favours is forfeiting them; and he will make those know the worth of their privileges by the want of them, that would not know them otherwise. Bethsaida, in the day of her visitation, would not know the things that belonged to her peace, and therefore they are now hid from her eyes.

Fuente: Joseph Bensons Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

HEALING THE BLIND MAN

Mar 8:22-26. And He comes into Bethsaida [i.e., it is Bethsaida Julias, as He did not sail toward the other Bethsaida, the birthplace of Peter, Andrew, and Philip]; and they bring to Him a blind man, and entreat Him that He may touch him. Taking the blind man by the hand, He led him off out of the village; spitting in his eyes, putting His hands on him, He asked him if he sees anything. And looking up, he continued to say, I see men like trees walking around. Then again He placed His hands on his eyes, and made him look up; and he was restored, and saw all men distinctly. And He sent him to his house, saying, Go not into the village, nor tell any one. I find the inspired writers call this Bethsaida a village, and the other a city. There evidently is some unrevealed reason why Jesus led this blind man off out of the village in order to heal him, and admonished him not to go back into it. The latent idea of Divine retribution seems to linger in the narrative, our Lord doubtless having some unrevealed reason for not permitting them to witness His mighty work. The spittle used here, and the clay in Jerusalem in another case, were evidently to attract the attention of the blind men to the afflicted organism, at that moment receiving the Omnific touch. Here we have an irrefutable argument in favor of the two distinct works of grace, wrought in the restoration of spiritual eyesight. The sinner walks in Satans rayless midnight, like this man, without a solitary gleam of the day. In regeneration, the day dawns, and, to our infinite rapture, glows and broadens all around. O what a wonderful blessing is regeneration! Out of darkness into light which we never saw before! While the transition is unutterably glorious, causing us to leap for joy, yet it is a significant fact, amid this glorious world of life into which this new birth brings us, that cloudy streaks and segments hang about and belt around, and we are soon cognizant to the fact that we do not see all things distinctly. Fifty years ago I passed out of darkness into light; but nineteen years rolled away before I received distinct vision, and walked beneath a cloudless sky, with no shadows hanging round. During this interval, I saw men like trees walking. In my early boyhood becoming a preacher and a circuit rider, my presiding elder and bishop, the collegiate president, the doctor, the colonel, and even the captain, and especially the rich people, were great, tall trees, bending over me, ready to fall on me, and crush me into smithereens. When the Lord gloriously sanctified me, thirty- one years ago, I immediately saw that they were not trees at all, but only men, fallible like myself, my friends and sympathizers, ready to help me rather than brain me with the club of ridicule and criticism. O it is blessed and ineffably glorious to see all things distinctly! If you are not there, fly to Jesus at once, and receive the second touch.

Fuente: William Godbey’s Commentary on the New Testament

Mar 8:22-26. The Blind Man of Bethsaida.This cure is described and wrought in a thoroughly popular manner. The use of spittle (Mar 7:33) was widespread in those days. A similar cure is attributed to Vespasian (Suet. Vesp. ch. 7). HNT adds a Greek parallel, Alcetas Halicus. The same being blind saw a vision. The god seemed to come to him and force open his eyes with his fingers, and he first saw the trees which were in the temple. To take this story as symbolizing either the education of the disciples (Loisy) or the conversion of Israel in two stages (Bacon) is to misunderstand the nave popular character of the gospel.

Fuente: Peake’s Commentary on the Bible

8:22 And he cometh to Bethsaida; and they bring a blind man unto him, and besought him to touch him. 23 And he took the blind man by the hand, and led him out of the town; and when he had spit on his eyes, and put his hands upon him, he asked him if he saw ought. 24 And he looked up, and said, I see men as trees, walking. 25 After that he put his hands again upon his eyes, and made him look up: and he was restored, and saw every man clearly. 26 And he sent him away to his house, saying, Neither go into the town, nor tell it to any in the town.

And we have an illustration for the apostles. We spoke of a couple of items in the previous section – to perceive and understand. This blind man perceived when Christ first touched his eyes, but only after the second touch did he have proper understanding. Christ was almost sick in his humor when teaching His disciples.This was not a miracle gone bad, it was a two step process to show the disciples that there was perception and that there was understanding.

So what is the spitting in the eyes all about. Again in that day spit was thought to have medicinal value. We are not told by the commentaries just how this was thought to be true, only that it was the thought of the day. Whether this is related to the question or not we do not know. I suspect that it was as with the deaf and dumb man – something drawing his attention to what Christ was doing or about to do.

Christ again was on the secretive side taking the man away from the crowd and telling him to tell no one. As a semi Calvinist, I often wonder at some of the miracles. Were these individuals just a few that were not run of the mill people that God was bestowing His grace upon – people that had responded to revelation to the point that they needed further revelation to come to a full knowledge of God. I suspect this might be the case. No other explanation has come to mind for the numerous occurrences of individual grace and attention.

Bethsaida was on the northeastern shore of the Sea of Galilee. Most of Christ’s travels can be mapped out and have been by many authors over the years. Normally his ministry on earth is broken up into the geographical areas where He worked. These divisions can be seen in the outlines presented and there are charts available on maps to show His movements if anyone is interested in seeing the many trips that are mentioned in the Gospels.

The term translated “spit” is simply spit. There is nothing unique about this word nor its meaning. It is used of spitting in the face in the Septuagint and John uses the same word when Christ spit on the ground and made clay to anoint another blind man’s eyes (Joh 9:6).

The fact that Christ did not want the man to tell anyone, not even to go to town so that others might notice that he could see, pictures just how quiet He wanted to keep his ministry at the time.

He most likely knew of the time of His betrayal and knew that if the Jews found opportunity that they would cause trouble for him. His crucifixion was to occur at a precise time in history and He did not want the Jews interfering in that correct and precise moment. One can only imagine the conflict going on in the spiritual plain. The Devil knowing his time was short, and God knowing that His plan would not be compromised.

The utter audacity and foolishness of the Devil has always caused me to wonder at his aspirations to usurp Almighty God his creator. How could a created being find it within himself to think that he could overturn the plans of his Creator? It does not make a lot of sense but then some of the things men do are on a plain of similar ignorance in my mind.

When a pastor begins to take over a church and set himself up as dictator instead of allowing Christ to be the Head. When a man begins setting himself up as dictator of his family instead of allowing Christ to be the Head. When a wife begins setting herself up as ruler of the house instead of her husband and Christ. Maybe we are not so different than the Devil in the arrogance audacity and foolishness department.8:27 And Jesus went out, and his disciples, into the towns of Caesarea Philippi: and by the way he asked his disciples, saying unto them, Whom do men say that I am? 28 And they answered John the Baptist: but some say, Elias; and others, One of the prophets. 29 And he saith unto them, But whom say ye that I am? And Peter answereth and saith unto him, Thou art the Christ. 30 And he charged them that they should tell no man of him.

Caesarea Philippi is north and a little east of the Sea of Galilee. Not a short walk across town. I would guess it to have been about a twenty mile trek from the looks of the maps. There are two towns named Caesarea, one of which is identified as Caesarea of Philippi. There are also small villages around that Caesarea, thus it is the general area around Caesarea Philippi that Christ was visiting. Gill mentions “…into the towns Caesarea Philippi; in the jurisdiction of Philip, tetrarch of Iturea and Trachonitis; for this Caesarea was rebuilt by him and called so in honour of Tiberius Caesar; and the towns and villages adjacent to it are here intended:”

Christ asked the apostles two questions. First he wondered at the publics perception of Him and then of the apostles perception.

“Whom do men say that I am? And they answered, John the Baptist: but some say, Elias; and others, One of the prophets.”

Mar 6:14 was an account of Herod and his thinking about Christ. The two accounts are very similar and one might wonder if the apostles knew of Herod’s thinking or if it was just the common thinking of the people and they were tuned into how the people were reacting to the Lord. “And king Herod heard [of him]; (for his name was spread abroad:) and he said, That John the Baptist was risen from the dead, and therefore mighty works do shew forth themselves in him. 15 Others said, That it is Elias. And others said, That it is a prophet, or as one of the prophets.”

The thinking of the people was that He was a spook. He was someone raised from the dead even though they did not know who He was. To be able to do these miracles He had to be from the spirit world.

This should give us some indication of the common man’s thoughts on the afterlife. There must have been a prevailing view that the dead continued on in existence and further that they could return to this life with miraculous powers.

One might wonder if this was the common mindset, if they did not wonder at the why of this spooks entrance into their time and space.

I might mention that this may be part of the feeling of some of the early church false doctrine which suggested that Christ was a spook and that he left no foot prints. The false doctrine is seen to be false in the teaching of Paul in his letter to the Colossians and his refutation of the Gnostics.

My thoughts off the top would be that if the disciples had followed Christ over so many dusty roads would not they have seen that He left no footprints and do you not think that one of themwould have mentioned this in one of their books? You would think so.

“But whom say ye that I am?” Oh this is the question that is important, not what the people say but what do you say. This is a personal question for you my select followers.

Oh how important this is for the reader as well. It is your answer to this question that will forever seal your position in either heaven or hell. It does not matter what you mother thought nor what your father thought, nor your boy/girl friend/spounse thought, it is what you do with Christ personally that will be the basis for your judgment. Only you can answer this question and only you will be held responsible for this question.

Is this the Christ, the Lamb of God that came to die for your sins or is He just another fake that was trying to make a buck. If the latter He failed miserably for He died with no fortune and He lived with none either.

“And Peter answereth and saith unto him, Thou art the Christ.” Peter’s declaration was right on the money though we do not know if he had bought that concept yet or not. “Christ” is the Greek word “christos” which means annointed one. Gill mentions “the Messiah that was long ago promised and so often prophesied of in the books of Moses and the prophets; and whom the Jews have so much and long expected.” Mat 16:16 adds “son of the living God.” Why Mark dropped this full statement is not clear. To Matthew’s Jewish readers the full phrase would have had much more meaning that for Mark’s readers. The reader of Mark’s book would be simply interested in the Messiah, the one that would conquer all for His people.

“And he charged them that they should tell no man of him.” Christ has been telling different people to keep quiet about Him for some time now, but here he charges the apostles to keep it mum. The word translated “charged” is a strong word relating to forbid or censure, He really did not want them to speak to others about Him.

Now, this is not a verse that we in this time should apply to ourselves. We are charged with taking the Gospel to the world, not to keep His saving grace quiet and secure within the walls of the church. We are to declare the Gospel! Yet, at this time in Christ’s life He needed the apostles to be quiet about Him.

Again, this likely relates to the need of time control. He knew that the time of the Passover was the time of his betrail and death, and He did not want that timing to be upset.

Fuente: Mr. D’s Notes on Selected New Testament Books by Stanley Derickson

8:22 {4} And he cometh to Bethsaida; and they bring a blind man unto him, and besought him to touch him.

(4) A true image of our regeneration, which Christ, separating us from the world, works and accomplishes in us gradually.

Fuente: Geneva Bible Notes

5. The healing of a blind man near Bethsaida 8:22-26

Mark is the only evangelist who recorded this miracle. It corresponds to the healing of the deaf man with the speech impediment (Mar 7:31-36), the only other miracle that Mark alone recorded. This is the only miracle in Mark that was not instantaneous; it happened gradually. Sight is a common metaphor for understanding. The disciples should have seen the deaf man as a picture of themselves unable to comprehend what Jesus said. This blind man also represented them in their inability to understand what Jesus showed them (cf. Mar 8:21). Jesus could and would make them whole, as He healed these two physically limited men.

Fuente: Expository Notes of Dr. Constable (Old and New Testaments)

As mentioned above, Bethsaida Julius stood on the northeast shore of the lake (cf. Mar 6:45). Evidently friends of the blind man led him to Jesus.

Fuente: Expository Notes of Dr. Constable (Old and New Testaments)

CHAPTER 8:22-26 (Mar 8:22-26)

MEN AS TREES

“And they come unto Bethsaida. And they bring to Him a blind man, and beseech Him to touch him. And He took hold of the blind man by the hand, and brought him out of the village; and when He had spit on his eyes, and laid His hands upon him, He asked him, Seest thou aught? And he looked up, and said, I see men; for I behold them as trees, walking. Then again He laid His hands upon his eyes; and he looked steadfastly, and was restored, and saw all things clearly. And He sent him away to his home, saying, Do not even enter into the village.” Mar 8:22-26 (R.V.)

WHEN the disciples arrived at Bethsaida, they were met by the friends of a blind man, who besought Him to touch him. And this gave occasion to the most remarkable by far of all the progressive and tentative miracles, in which means were employed, and the result was gradually reached. The reasons for advancing to this cure by progressive stages have been much discussed. St. Chrysostom and many others have conjectured that the blind man had but little faith, since he neither found his own way to Jesus, nor pleaded his own cause, like Bartimaeus. Others brought him, and interceded for him. This may be so, but since he was clearly a consenting party, we can infer little from details which constitutional timidity would explain, or helplessness (for the resources of the blind are very various), or the zeal of friends or of paid servants, or the mere eagerness of a crowd, pushing him forward in desire to see a marvel.

We cannot expect always to penetrate the motives which varied our Savior’s mode of action; it is enough that we can pretty clearly discern some principles which led to their variety. Many of them, including all the greatest, were wrought without instrumentality and without delay, showing His unrestricted and underived power. Others were gradual, and wrought by means. These connected His “signs” with nature and the God of nature; and they could be so watched as to silence many a cavil; and they exhibited, by the very disproportion of the means, the grandeur of the Worker. In this respect the successive stages of a miracle were like the subdivisions by which a skillful architect increases the effect of a facade or an interior. In every case the means employed were such as to connect the result most intimately with the person as well as the will of Christ.

It must be repeated also, that the need of secondary agents shows itself, only as the increasing willfulness of Israel separates between Christ and the people. It is as if the first rush of generous and spontaneous power had been frozen by the chill of their ingratitude.

Jesus again, as when healing the deaf and dumb, withdraws from idle curiosity. And we read, what is very impressive when we remember that any of the disciples could have been bidden to lead the blind man, that Jesus Himself drew him by the hand out of the village. What would have been affectation in other cases was a graceful courtesy to the blind. And it reveals to us the hearty human benignity and condescension of Him Whom to see was to see the Father, that He should have clasped in His helpful hand the hand of a blind suppliant for His grace. Moistening his eyes from His own lips, and laying His hands upon him, so as to convey the utmost assurance of power actually exerted, He asked, Seest thou aught?

The answer is very striking: it is such as the knowledge of that day could scarcely have imagined; and yet it is in the closest accord with later scientific discovery. What we call the act of vision is really a two-fold process; there is in it the report of the nerves to the brain, and also an inference, drawn by the mind, which previous experience had educated to understand what that report implies. For want of such experience, an infant thinks the moon as near him as the lamp, and reaches out for it. And when Christian science does its Master’s work by opening the eyes of men who have been born blind, they do not know at first what appearances belong to globes and what to flat and square objects. It is certain that every image conveyed to the brain reaches it upside down, and is corrected there. When Jesus then restored a blind man to the perfect enjoyment of effective intelligent vision, He wrought a double miracle; one which instructed the intelligence of the blind man as well as opened his eyes. This was utterly unknown to that age. But the skepticism of our century would complain that to open the eyes was not enough, and that such a miracle would have left the man perplexed; and it would refuse to accept narratives which took no account of this difficulty, but that the cavil is anticipated. The miracle now before us refutes it in advance, for it recognizes, what no spectator and no early reader of the marvel could have understood, the middle stage, when sight is gained but is still uncomprehended and ineffective. The process is shown as well as the completed work. Only by their motion could he at first distinguish living creatures from lifeless things of far greater bulk. “He looked up,” (mark this picturesque detail,) “and said, I see men; for I behold them as trees, walking.”

But Jesus leaves no unfinished work: “Then again laid He His hands upon his eyes, and he looked steadfastly, and was restored, and saw all things clearly.”

In this narrative there is a deep significance. That vision, forfeited until grace restores it, by which we look at the things which are not seen, is not always quite restored at once. We are conscious of great perplexity, obscurity and confusion. But a real work of Christ may have begun amid much that is imperfect, much that is even erroneous. And the path of the just is often a haze and twilight at the first, yet is its light real, and one that shineth more and more unto the perfect day.

Fuente: Expositors Bible Commentary

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