Mark 8:22-26
Seeing People Like Trees
22When they arrived at Bethsaida, some people brought a blind man and begged Jesus to touch him.
23So He took the blind man by the hand and led him out of the village. Then He spit on the man’s eyes and placed His hands on him. “Can you see anything?” He asked.
24The man looked up and said, “I can see the people, but they look like trees walking around.”
25Once again Jesus placed His hands on the man’s eyes, and when he opened them his sight was restored, and he could see everything clearly.
26Jesus sent him home and said, “Do not go back into the village.”
Berean Standard Bible
They arrive at Bethsaida and some people bring a blind man to Jesus, begging him to touch the man. Nobody asks for a speech or an explanation. What they want is a hand on him, and that request turns out to be the smallest part of what he gets.
So He took the blind man by the hand and led him out of the village. Then He spit on the man's eyes and placed His hands on him. "Can you see anything?" He asked.
Almost all of that is physical. A hand taken, a walk out of the village, spit, and then hands laid on a man's eyes. Whatever else is going on here, a blind man is being led somewhere by somebody who has hold of him and does not let go until they arrive. The people who brought him asked for a touch and they are getting a good deal more than one.
Then the question, which is the strange part. Can you see anything. Jesus asks, in the middle of it, and waits for an answer.
The man looked up and said, "I can see the people, but they look like trees walking around."
That is an honest answer and it would have been easy to give a different one. He could have said yes. He is standing in front of the man who has just touched him, and what he says instead is that something has happened and it is not finished. Something tall is there and it moves about. People are not trees, though, and he is the one who says so rather than waiting to be told.
Once again Jesus placed His hands on the man's eyes, and when he opened them his sight was restored, and he could see everything clearly.
The second touch comes after the honest answer, not before it. Mark does not tell us why the first touch left him partway, and there is nothing in the account to build a reason out of. What the account does give is the order: a man says plainly what he can and cannot see, and then he is touched again.
Then he is sent home, with an instruction not to go back into the village. He came out of it holding somebody's hand, and the last thing said to him is that he is not to go back in. Whatever was waiting for him there, the decision about it is not left with him.
How We Know
Bethsaida is not a name Mark invents for this scene. He sends the disciples toward it at 6:45, well before this healing, and names it again here as the place they arrive.
John 1:44 names it as the home town of Philip, Andrew and Peter. Mark names it here without stopping to say where it is. Two books naming the same town and neither one locating it fits a place both took as known, which is all it does; neither confirms the other's account of what happened there.
Questions
1 What is the first thing Jesus does with the man?
AnswerHe takes him by the hand and leads him out of the village. Before any healing, a blind man who cannot see where he is going is walked somewhere by somebody holding on to him.
2 Jesus asks a question partway through. What does the man answer?
AnswerThat he can see people, but they look like trees walking around. He is not blind any more and he is not seeing properly either, and he says exactly that rather than rounding it up to something tidier.
3 It would have been easy to answer that question with yes. Why does it matter that he did not?
AnswerBecause the second touch comes after his answer. He tells the truth about what he can and cannot see, standing in front of the person who has just healed him, and then Jesus puts his hands on him again.
4 Does the passage say why it took two touches?
AnswerNo, and there is nothing here to build a reason out of. Mark keeps an account that raises the question and leaves it open, and the one thing he does record is the man's own words about the in-between.
What This Means for Us
Jesus asked, the man answered honestly, and Jesus was not finished with him. That is a kindness and it should steady anybody who reads it. He did not treat a half-finished answer as a complaint, and there is no sign he was disappointed by it, only that he reached out a second time.
So tell him tonight, out of your own mouth, where you still see people like trees, and then thank him that a half answered prayer in his hands is not a refused one.
Prayer
Lord Jesus, thank you for taking a blind man by the hand before you did anything else for him. Thank you that you asked him what he could see and then did not leave him halfway. Where our sight is partial, put your hands on us again, and give this family the nerve to say what we actually see rather than what sounds better. Amen.