Coming from Dalmanutha on the west side of the Sea of Galilee, Jesus and the disciples arrived on the east side of the lake at Bethsaida (Mark 8:22; cp. 10b-13). Immediately, a group of people met him and brought a blind man with them. They asked Jesus to touch (G680) him. As often as this Greek word is used in Mark, it is used for Jesus healing a person[1] except in Mark 10:13, where women sought Jesus to touch their children. This is so also in Matthew, except for one occasion where Jesus touched the three disciples who witnessed his transfiguration (Matthew 17:7, cp. verses 1-2). Likewise, Luke has but one exception (Luke 7:39), which is where a woman, who was a sinner, touched Jesus’ feet.
Nevertheless, the Greek word haptomai (G680) has the sense of affecting a person in some manner. The parents expected Jesus’ touch to affect their children (Mark 10:13). Jesus’ touch caused the vision to vanish and take away the Apostles’ fear (Matthew 17:7), and the woman’s sins in Luke 7:39 were forgiven, and she was saved (Luke 7:48, 50). So, Jesus’ affect upon the people, who touched him or whom he touched, was both physical and spiritual.
Paul is the only other writer of the New Covenant text who uses the Greek word, haptomai (G680). He used it a total of three times. In 1Corinthians 7:1 it refers to the sexual touch between a man and a woman. The word doesn’t simply mean to touch without something within being affected, because it has the sense of arousing one’s sexual desires. In 2Corinthians 6:17 the word has the sense of having fellowship with wicked people. Their sinfulness tends to affect the innocent, and they will become defiled. Therefore, Paul told the Corinthian believers to stay away from such people. Finally, in Colossians 2:21 Paul referred to submitting to the commands of a so-called messenger of God (Colossians 2:18) who isn’t spiritually inclined but is, rather, puffed up in his fleshy mind. Submitting to such a one, believers become subject to the ordinances (commandments and doctrines) of men (Colossians 2:20-22), none of which honors God, but, instead, satisfies or affects only the flesh (Colossians 2:23).
In the context of Mark 8:22, the people who brought the blind man to Jesus simply wanted to see another miracle and be astonished, as though Jesus were a great magician, whose only desire was to entertain the multitudes. Instead of entertaining the group of folks who brought the man to him, Jesus brought the blind man away from the crowd and out of the city (Mark 8:23), and in doing so, he did a strange thing. He spit in his eyes and placed his hands upon him and asked him what he saw.
Apparently, the man wasn’t born blind, because he was able to compare people with trees (Mark 8:24), which he couldn’t have done, if he didn’t know what trees looked like. What this means is the man wasn’t seeing clearly. Just as it would be difficult to distinguish one tree from another in a forest, if one looked at the forest from a distance, the man couldn’t distinguish one person from another (cp. Judges 9:36). He knew what he saw were people moving about, but he wasn’t able to see clearly.
Next, Jesus touched the man again and his vision was restored completely, so he was able to see clearly (Mark 8:25). But, why wasn’t the clarity of the man’s sight restored immediately? This is the only miracle in which Jesus is reported to have healed the person gradually. On all other occasions the healing miracles were immediate. Therefore, we must ask why this wasn’t the case here. What might Mark’s point be in placing such a thing in his narrative? I think Mark’s point might refer to the healing of a man’s spiritual vision. Sometimes, as in the case of Paul, clear spiritual understanding was immediate, but, more often than not, the believer’s spiritual understanding is healed or restored gradually, as was the case of the twelve Apostles.[2] One is able to see more clearly one year or two years and more after his spiritual awakening has occurred (cp. Ephesians 2:1-10).
Jesus then told the man who had just been healed of his blindness to tell no one (Mark 8:26), which is probably sound advice for all new believers today, although there may be exceptions to the rule (cp. Mark 5:19). When spiritual awakening occurs, probably the worst thing one could do is tell it to the Pharisaical minded believer and be rebuked and /or guided into worshiping the messenger (Colossians 2:18) rather than Christ.
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[1] See the leper (Mark 1:41), the woman with the issue of blood (Mark 5:27-28), the sick people in the Gennesaret, the deaf man, also in the Decapolis (Mark 7:33), and now the blind man in Bethsaida (Mark 8:22).
[2] See my previous study Leven and Tempting Jesus.
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