Bible Commentaries

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

22And he cometh¹⁰ 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 aught 24 And 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 26 And 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 Christ’s 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 preëminently 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.

Mark 8:22. To Bethsaida.—It is evident that the Bethsaida of the western coast, in Galilee ( John 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 Philippians, 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. Mark 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 Luke 9:10, the first miraculous feeding also took place in a desert place near this same Bethsaida. See Von Raumer, Palœstina, p109. Bethsaida lay in the way from the sea towards Cæsarea 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.

Mark 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, Mark 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 Mark 7:33 and John 9.

Mark 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 reader’s 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 dealings—as bringing the divine power into gradual contact and contest with human nature—was 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.

Mark 8:26. To his house.—He did not belong to Bethsaida, and he must go immediately from the place to his own home—not 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 man’s 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 Lord’s reference to those who surrounded the blind man. They asked that He would touch him. To this demand for an instant Acts, 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 Prophet’s 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 Christ’s 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 man’s 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:—Christ’s gifts within us change with times.—Canstein:—A weak and slight beginning is yet a beginning; and in God’s 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 Redeemer’s care as to what men say of Him; 4. the sight restored, and the confession of Peter.

Footnotes

3. The Opinions of the People, and Peter’s Confession. Pre-announcement of His Sufferings. The Presumption of Peter. Christ’s Teaching concerning Cross-bearing. Mark 8:27 to Mark 9:1

(Parallels: Matthew 16:13-28; Luke 9:18-27)

27And Jesus went out and his disciples into the towns of Cæsarea Philippi: and by the way he asked his disciples, saying unto them, Whom do men say that I am? 28And they answered,¹⁴ John the Baptist: but some say, Elias; and others, One of the 29 prophets. And he said unto them, ¹⁵ But whom say ye that I am? And Peter answer eth and saith unto him, Thou art the Christ 30 And he charged them that they should tell no man of [respecting] him 31 And he began to teach them, that the Son of man must suffer many things, and be rejected of [by] the elders, and of the chief priests, and scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again 32 And he spake that saying openly. And Peter took him, and began to rebuke him 33 But when he had turned about, and looked on his disciples, he rebuked Peter, saying, Get thee behind me, Satan: for thou savourest [mindest] not the things that be of God, but the things that be of men 34 And when he had called the people unto him with his disciples also, he said unto them, Whosoever ¹⁶ will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me 35 For whosoever will save his life ¹⁷ shall lose it; but whosoever shall lose his life for my sake and the Gospel’s, the same shall save it 36 For what shall 37 it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? Or what ¹⁸ shall a man give in exchange [as a ransom] for his soul? 38Whosoever therefore shall be ashamed of me, and of my words, in this adulterous and sinful generation, of him also shall the Son of man be ashamed, when he cometh in the glory of his Father, with the holy angels.

1And he said unto them, Verily I say unto you, That there be some of them that stand here, which shall not taste of death, till they have seen the kingdom of God come with power.

EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL

See on Matthew and Luke.—In respect to time, this is another section which stands in strict internal connection with the preceding crises. There are some important peculiarities in Mark. Matthew mentions the district of Cæsarea Philippi, Mark the villages which surrounded it, as the first goal at which our Lord aimed; and the latter transfers the question to the way thither. Among the people’s thoughts and verdicts concerning Jesus, he omits the mention of Jeremiah. It is observable that he leaves out the benediction of Peter, and the special prerogative assigned to him after his confession. Luke also omits these, while Matthew details them all in full. Here, as elsewhere, Peter, Mark’s informant and voucher, omitted or kept in reserve points which tended to his own honor. On the other hand, Mark states prominently that the Lord’s prediction of His passion was part of the instruction which He openly gave; he also quotes the Saviour’s rebuking word to Peter, “Satan,” without any of the definite explanatory particulars which Matthew gives, and without Christ’s “Thou art to Me a σκάνδαλον.” Mark speaks of the people as also called by Jesus to hear the statement of the universal law of suffering in the kingdom of God. He alone has the emphatic word, that he who is ashamed of the Lord is ashamed of Him (in a disgraceful manner) in an adulterous and sinful generation. In conclusion, Mark represents the coming of Christ more expressly than the other two Evangelists as a coming in power (majesty); while Luke speaks of His kingdom, and Matthew of His appearing in that kingdom.

Mark 8:31. After three days.—General and popular way of speaking, instead of “on the third day,” which afterwards is used as the more definite statement.

Mark 8:34. And when He had called the people unto Him.—This scarcely requires us to understand great multitudes. But Christ makes the people who were present sharers in this part of His instruction, in order to impress it the more upon His disciples that the way of suffering was absolutely imperative, and in order to lay down the fundamental laws of self-denial and holy suffering in all their universality of application.

Mark 8:37. In exchange for: ransom-price.—The ἀντάλλαγμα is the counter-price antithetic to the price, ἄλλαγμα. The price which the earthly-minded gives for the world, the ἄλλαγμα, is his soul. But, after having laid that down as the price, what has he for an ἀντάλλαγμα, to buy the soul back again?

Mark 9:1. There be some of them that stand here.—See on Matthew.

DOCTRINAL AND ETHICAL

1. See on the parallels of Matthew and Luke.

2. According to Mark, Jesus first called and collected the Twelve in the villages outside of Nazareth ( Mark 6:6-7); then, in the villages of Cæsarea Philippi, again gathering them together and confirming them. Solitude and sequestered probation, a condition of establishment and confirmation in the spiritual office.

3. It is of great significance that Peter does not, in his own Gospel, once mention the word of Christ concerning his own personal priority among the Apostles, least of all as the institution of an official primacy.

4. So it is to be observed how strictly, according to Mark, the confession of Christ is conjoined with the announcement of His passion, and with the requirement of following Him in the way of the Cross.

5. Let him take up his cross.—An obscure intimation of His own approaching suffering upon the cross, which, even in its general terms, gave a definite meaning. Let him hold himself ready to follow Me, regarded as the vilest malefactor, and exposed to the deepest shame and the most cruel death. The cross of Christ, as such, is not a kind of suffering which is the natural consequence of sin, but which crosses the views of an ideal or newly awakened higher life.

HOMILETICAL AND PRACTICAL

See on Matthew; and compare Luke’s parallel.—The question of Christ: “Whom say the people that I am?” a means of exciting a definite Christian consciousness, in opposition to the uncertain notions of the world.—The answer of the disciples in all its significance: 1. No man says, and no man could say without madness, that Christ was nothing, or a person of no importance2. The scorners and slanderers of Christ are not regarded or alluded to3. The testimonies or opinions: a. John the Baptist (according to Herod, returned from the dead): thus Christianity was something ghostly and preternatural. b. Elias (in the sense of Malachi): thus they were not able to distinguish Elias from Christ. Christianity seemed to them as a power exerted after the manner of Elias; thus in a spiritual sense as something legal. c. One of the prophets: something indefinite, a spiritual power, which none could clearly understand.—The question was not, what the people said concerning Christ, but what the Apostles said concerning Him.—Christ could be preached as the Christ of all the world, only after the fulfilment of His passion as the Crucified and the Risen. The confession of His people was to the Lord no sign that He would escape from suffering, but a certain sign that He would suffer.—What it means, that the Lord announces His sufferings to the disciples without any restraint: 1. In reference to Himself, 2. to the disciples, 3. to the world.—Only after we have known the person of our Lord in His word and work, can we understand and bear the knowledge of Christ’s work in His passion.—The true confession of Christ must be confirmed by a readiness to follow Him.—The suffering of Christ is a divine sympathy: 1. As suffering through and for the world, it sprang from His sympathy with the world; 2. it establishes a divine sympathy in the world, as suffering on its own account and with Christ.—Self-renunciation of the believer is the soul of the confession of Christ.—The fundamentals of the Christian fellowship: I. Its fundamental laws: 1. The true denier (of himself) is the true confessor; 2. the true cross-bearer is the true knight of the cross; 3. the true follower (after Christ in obedience) is the true conqueror. II. Its grounds: 1. He who will save his life in self-seeking, shall lose it; he who loses it in devotion to Christ, shall gain it2. He who lays down his soul to win the world, loses with his soul the world also; he who has gained his soul, has with his soul gained the world also3. To seek honor in the world while ashamed of Christ, leads to infamy before the throne of Christ; but shame in the world leads to honor with Him4. Readiness to die with Christ leads through death to the day of eternal glory.—It is in self-denial that we first find our true selves, recovering our personality again.—True self-denial is the raising of our buried personality out of the grave of self-deceptions.—The false and the true self.—How shameful to be ashamed of Christ in an adulterous and sinful generation: 1. As the deification of a vanishing honor, which is eternal shame; 2. as the refusal of a vanishing shame, which is eternal honor.—How Christ detects the thoughts of men in His communion.

Starke:—Canstein:—We may lawfully ask what others hold us for, if the question does not spring from pride, but from a desire to do ourselves or others good.—Hedinger:—It is not wrong to be jealous of one’s public repute. But Christ remains ever what He is, despite all the various opinions concerning Him.—Quesnel:—The true knowledge of the secret mysteries of Christ is attained only by scholars of truth and light.—Here is a catechetical lesson given by Christ Himself.—All truths have a set time for their full revelation: we should be always careful that we do not prematurely speak, or anticipate that time, Ecclesiastes 3:7; we must suffer with willing heart, be rejected of the world, and be crucified with Christ, if we would be raised with Him, Romans 6:6-8.—The ungodly can do nothing against us but what the wise decree of God has already determined.—Bibl. Wirt.:—Flesh and blood always look rather at external danger and damage, han at the solemnity and claims of the call ( Romans 8:6-8; 1 John 2:15-17; 1 Peter 2:11; 1 Peter 2:20-21; Galatians 5:21.)—You must not watch Christ, but follow Him; you must not boast about Him, but act like Him.—Nova Bibl. Tub.:—World gained, nothing gained; soul lost, all lost.—The greatest good is not to be met with in the transitory world, nor in the debauchery of the flesh: he whose soul is united with God has found it.—If thou art ashamed of Christ in His humble and lowly state, thou wilt have no part in His exalted and glorified state.—To die before one has seen the kingdom of God, is a wretched end.

Braune:—The kingdom of God is, in a certain sense, near at all times: there is no season when its beginnings are not manifest.—Gerlach:—(Peter), rash and impetuous, spoke only, as he was wont to do, in the name of all the rest.

Gossner:—He who opposes himself to the cross of Christ and its doctrine, is a Satan, even though his name were Peter.—In the kingdom of God, all the world is inverted.—Losing is there called gaining, and gaining is there called losing.—Bauer. on Mark 9:35 :—The beginning towards eternal life.

Footnotes