Luke 18:35

And it came to pass, that as he was come nigh unto Jericho, a certain blind man sat by the way side begging:

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(35) As he was come nigh unto Jericho.—Better, as He was coming nigh. See Notes on Matthew 20:29-34; Mark 10:46-52. St. Luke, for some reason, passes over the ambitious request of the sons of Zebedee. He agrees with St. Mark, and not with St. Matthew, as to there being one blind man, and as to the miracle being wrought on the approach to Jericho, not on the departure from it.

Benson Commentary

Luke 18:35-43. A certain blind man, &c. — Of the miracle here recorded, see on Matthew 20:29-34; Mark 10:46-52.

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

18:35-43 This poor blind man sat by the wayside, begging. He was not only blind, but poor, the fitter emblem of the world of mankind which Christ came to heal and save. The prayer of faith, guided by Christ's encouraging promises, and grounded on them, shall not be in vain. The grace of Christ ought to be thankfully acknowledged, to the glory of God. It is for the glory of God if we follow Jesus, as those will do whose eyes are opened. We must praise God for his mercies to others, as well as for mercies to ourselves. Would we rightly understand these things, we must come to Christ, like the blind man, earnestly beseeching him to open our eyes, and to show us clearly the excellence of his precepts, and the value of his salvation.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

See this passage explained in the notes at Matthew 20:29-34.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

Lu 18:35-43. Blind Man Healed.

In Mt 20:29-34, they are two, as in the case of the Demoniac of Gadara. In Matthew and Mark (Mr 10:46-52) the occurrence is connected with Christ's departure from Jericho; in Luke with His approach to it. Many ways of accounting for these slight divergences of detail have been proposed. Perhaps, if we knew all the facts, we should see no difficulty; but that we have been left so far in the dark shows that the thing is of no moment any way. One thing is plain, there could have been no collusion among the authors of these Gospels, else they would have taken care to remove these "spots on the sun."

Matthew Poole's Commentary

This blind man was Bartimaeus, the son of Timaeus, as Mark tells us, Mark 10:46. Matthew mentions two, the other two evangelists but one, as being more famous, either upon his own or his father’s account.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

And it came to pass that as he was come nigh unto Jericho,.... Which lay in his way to Jerusalem;

a certain blind man sat by the way side begging: this was not blind Bartimaeus, nor his companion, for they were cured by Christ as he went out of Jericho; but this man before he came to it; for we afterwards read of his entrance into, and passing through Jericho, Luke 19:1 though much the same things are related in this account, as in that of the other two blind men; See Gill on Matthew 20:30.

Geneva Study Bible

{11} And it came to pass, that as he was come nigh unto Jericho, a certain blind man sat by the way side begging:

(11) Christ shows by a visible miracle that he is the light of the world.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Meyer's NT Commentary

Luke 18:35-43. See on Matthew 20:29-34; Mark 10:46-52. Luke, reproducing Mark’s narrative in an abridged form, adds nevertheless independently the important conclusion (Luke 18:43), and follows a variation of the tradition in transposing the circumstance so as to make it precede the entry. But the purpose of annexing the history of Zaccheus was in no wise needed to occasion this departure from Mark (in opposition to Bleek and Holtzmann).

Luke 18:36. τί εἴη τοῦτο] without ἄν (see the critical remarks), asks, quite specifically, what this should be (not: what this might possibly be). See Hermann, ad Viger. p. 742. Comp. Stallbaum, ad Plat. Lach. p. 190 B; Maetzner, ad Antiph. p. 130.

Luke 18:43. The poetic αἶνος (see Buttmann, Lexil. II. p. 112 ff.) appears only here and in Matthew 21:16 (a quotation from the LXX.) in the New Testament; more frequently in the LXX. and the Apocrypha.

Expositor's Greek Testament

Luke 18:35-43. The blind man at Jericho (Matthew 20:29-34, Mark 10:46-52).—τυφλός τις: the blind man is not named, from which J. Weiss (Meyer) infers that the name cannot have been in Lk.’s source. A very precarious inference. Lk. deviates from the tradition in the parallels as to the place of the incident: connecting it with the entrance into Jericho instead of the exit from the town.—ἐπαιτῶν as in Luke 16:3.

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

35-43. Bartimaeus healed at Jericho.

35. as he was come nigh unto Jericho] This would be a week before our Lord’s death—on the evening of Thursday, Nisan 7, or the morning of Friday, Nisan 8. St Mark (Mark 10:46) and St Matthew (Matthew 20:29) say that this miracle took place as He was leaving Jericho. With simple and truthful writers like the Evangelists, we may feel sure that some good reason underlies the obvious apparent discrepancy which would however in any case be unimportant. Possibly it may arise from the two Jerichos—the old town on the ancient site, and the new semi-Herodian town which had sprung up at a little distance from it. And, as Chrysostom says, such discrepancies have their own value as a marked proof of the mutual independence of the Evangelists.

a certain blind man] St Matthew (Matthew 20:30), as in the case of the Gadarene demoniac, mentions two blind men; and in any case a blind man would hardly have been sitting quite alone. The name of Bartimaeus is only preserved by St Mark.

Bengel's Gnomen

[35. Τοφλός τις, a certain blind man) concerning whose companion see the note on Matthew 20:30.—V. g.]

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 35. - And it came to pass; that as he was come nigh unto Jericho. Jericho was once called "the City of Palms," afterwards "the City of Perfumes." It was about eighteen miles from Jerusalem. In the Herodian times it became a popular resort, owing to the affection the great Herod entertained for it. Its palm-groves and balsam-gardens were a present from Antony to Cleopatra. Herod the Great bought them from her, and made it one of his royal cities, and adorned it with many stately buildings, and eventually died there, it is now a miserable village. A certain blind man sat by the wayside begging. An apparent discrepancy exists in the three accounts given of this act of our Lord. St. Luke speaks of one blind man who was healed as our Lord was entering the town. St. Matthew and St. Mark mention that the miracle took place as our Lord was leaving the place, and St. Matthew mentions that two blind men received their sight at the bidding of Jesus. Several solutions of this little difficulty have been proposed. Perhaps the most probable is that the sufferers were sitting near the town gates as the Lord entered. They, hearing who was passing by, eagerly called to him for help. Surrounded by the crowd, he probably did not hear the cry, or possibly wished to test the earnestness of their faith by allowing them to wait. They follow him through the place, and in the open space outside the city they attract his attention, and he heals them. Or, in the words of Dr. Morrison, "the case seems to have begun as he entered into the city, but it culminated in all likelihood as he departed." A later explanation, apparently preferred by Godet and Farrar, is that, as Josephus and Eusebius distinguish between the old and the new Jericho - the old town on the ancient site, and the new Herodian town which had sprung up at a little distance from it - the blind man might, according to some traditions, have been healed as Jesus was leaving old Jericho; according to others, as he was entering the new town. The fact of SS. Mark and Luke only mentioning one blind man is easily explained. There was one evidently (as we shall suggest further on), a well-known character in Christian story - Bartimaeus. Two of the evangelists recorded his cure, as being of special interest to the Church, leaving the second among the numberless unrecorded miracles of healing of Jesus. A certain blind man. St. Mark names him Bartimaeus. It may be inferred that, as St. Mark specially names him, this man was well known in early Christian story. We know that after the cure he joined the company as one of the followers of Jesus. Luke 18:35