Mark 10:46-50

Healing Blind Bartimaeus

10:46 They came to Jericho. As Jesus and his disciples and a large crowd were leaving Jericho, Bartimaeus the son of Timaeus, a blind beggar, was sitting by the road. 10:47 When he heard that it was Jesus the Nazarene, he began to shout, “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!” 10:48 Many scolded him to get him to be quiet, but he shouted all the more, “Son of David, have mercy on me!” 10:49 Jesus stopped and said, “Call him.” So they called the blind man and said to him, “Have courage! Get up! He is calling you.” 10:50 He threw off his cloak, jumped up, and came to Jesus.


map For location see Map5-B2; Map6-E1; Map7-E1; Map8-E3; Map10-A2; Map11-A1.

tn Grk “he”; the referent (Jesus) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

tn Grk “to shout and to say.” The infinitive λέγειν (legein) is redundant here and has not been translated.

sn Jesus was more than a Nazarene to this blind person, who saw quite well that Jesus was Son of David. There was a tradition in Judaism that the Son of David (Solomon) had great powers of healing (Josephus, Ant. 8.2.5 [8.42-49]).

sn Have mercy on me is a request for healing. It is not owed the man. He simply asks for God’s kind grace.

tn Or “rebuked.” The crowd’s view was that surely Jesus would not be bothered with someone as unimportant as a blind beggar.

tn Here καί (kai) has been translated as “so” to indicate the implied result of previous action(s) in the narrative.