Mark 8:23 — Community Reflections

MARK 8:23 — KING JAMES VERSION 0

“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.”

He took the blind man by the hand and led him outside the village. When he had spit on the man's eyes and put his hands on him, Jesus asked, do you see anything? — the taking outside the village is the privacy of the Messianic Secret pattern. The spit on the eyes and hands on him mirror the deaf man's healing (Mark 7:33). The question do you see anything? is unique in the healing narratives — Jesus checks the result mid-process, implying that the healing is not yet complete.

Church Fathers on Mark 8:23

Knowing that the touch of the Lord could give sight to a blind man as well as cleanse a leper.
Bede · 8th century · in Marc., 2, 34

For Bethsaida appears to have been infected with much infidelity, wherefore the Lord reproaches it, 'Woe to thee, Bethsaida, for if the mighty works which were done in you had been done in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes.' [Matt. 11, 21] He then takes out of the town the blind man, who had been brought to Him, for the faith of those who brought him was not true faith.
Theophylact · 11th century

Mystically, however, Bethsaida is interpreted, 'the house of the valley', that is, the world, which is the vale of tears. Again, they bring to the Lord a blind man, that is, one who neither sees what he has been, what he is, nor what he is to be. They ask Him to touch him, for what is being touched, but feeling compunction?
Pseudo-Jerome · 5th century

Read all 13 entries in the readerCatena Aurea · St. Thomas Aquinas, tr. J. H. Newman · public domain

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