I See People, but They Look Like Trees Walking

Mark 8:22 (NET) Then they came to Bethsaida. They brought a blind man to Jesus and asked him to touch him. 23 He took the blind man by the hand and brought him outside of the village. Then he spit on his eyes, placed his hands on his eyes and asked, “Do you see anything?” 24 Regaining his sight he said, “I see people, but they look like trees walking.” 25 Then Jesus placed his hands on the man’s eyes again. And he opened his eyes, his sight was restored, and he saw everything clearly. 26 Jesus sent him home, saying, “Do not even go into the village.”

Two part healing

This healing took two phases. First, Jesus spit on his eyes and placed his hands on his eyes. Partial sight was restored. Again, Jesus placed his hands on the man’s eyes. This time, he saw clearly.

Modern reports of sight restoration through medical intervention indicate restoring sight only solves part of the problem. The other problem is the brain’s inability to make sense of the new visual information.

One person who had his sight restored was quickly able to recognize human form from other visual information. The problem was depth perception. After a couple days of enjoying sight, he asked, “Why is it that some people are large and some very small.” His problem, People near appeared full size. People at a distance appeared very small. His brain was able to determine shapes, but not distance.

This may have been part of the problem with the man Jesus healed. When Jesus first spat and touched the man’s eyes, he healed his sight. The second touch was to reprogram his brain to understand the new visual information.

He led him out of Bethsaida, and told him not to return

Bethsaida was not a place conductive to faith. In Matthew 11: 21-22, Jesus criticized Bethsaida and Chorazin, saying if the miracles done there had been done in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented.

There is evidence that Bethsaida had become a place of idol worship in Jesus day. Philip Herod build a temple for foreign gods in honor of the deceased wife of Emperor Augustus in order to establish the Roman Imperial cult. The loyalty of the city was with the foreign gods.

This could explain why Jesus led the man out of the city to heal him and then told him not to return.