What does Mark 8:25 mean?
Giving hearing to the deaf, speech to the mute, and sight to the blind was a Messianic expectation (Psalm 146:8; Isaiah 29:18; 35:5–6). This is not the first time Jesus had healed the blind. When John the Baptist was still alive, he sent his disciples to Jesus who told them, "Go and tell John what you hear and see: the blind receive their sight and the lame walk, lepers are cleansed and the deaf hear…" (Matthew 11:4–5)."Clearly" is from the Greek word telaugos and actually means "at a distance." It may mean that Jesus' first effort made the man near-sighted and the second brought his full vision back. That would explain why he thought the people were walking trees (Mark 8:24).
If so, the man's healing provides an even acuter metaphor of the disciples' spiritual maturity. Even as they are about to affirm Jesus as the Jewish Messiah (Mark 8:29), their vision is near-sighted. They see Jesus, His teaching, and His miracles up close, and they know the Messiah will deliver the Jews from their enemies and establish them as a powerful sovereign nation again, as the blind man must know there are mountains nearby. But in between, Jesus looks like a tree, walking. Soon, the disciples' vision will be healed, and they will see "'the Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders and the chief priests and the scribes and be killed, and after three days rise again'" (Mark 8:31).
