Jericho was situated on the Jordan River along the path Jesus took from Galilee to Jerusalem on this “final” journey. Historically, it was the first city the people of Israel invaded in their quest for the “Promised Land” after their exodus from Egypt over 1400 years earlier. Though physical walls did not fall down as they did during Joshua’s invasion, the barriers of physical blindness crumbled, a sign that walls of spiritual blindness would soon fall as well.

Two blind men accosted Him with their desperate need, correctly calling Him “Son of David.” The Lord honored them by inviting them to make their request. They simply wanted their vision. As Matthew records it, “Lord, we want our eyes to be opened.” There are other more straightforward ways to express the desire to see, but this seems to reflect a desire for deeper perception. Indeed, the Lord is concerned with more than a “social gospel” that only deals with the felt-needs of people. If that were the objective, then He would have spent far more time healing everyone, and avoiding at all cost His “premature” death. However, His goal was to restore spiritual sight, through bringing people to repentance and turning them back to God. And that required His suffering and death, which He, on at least two occasions, had revealed to His disciples.

Jesus’ response was one of compassion and with a touch of the hand to their eyes, healed them completely. The beggars immediately joined the crowd and followed Him. Jesus cared for both the physical experience of people, as well as, and more so, the greater spiritual needs—thus, they followed Him.

Note: Mark 10:46 and Luke 18:35 record stories of an event identical to this one, except they note only one beggar, whereas Matthew says two. This is not a contradiction, for we often use language like that today. For example, “I saw John at church this week” and also, “I saw John and Mary at church this week.” The statements are not contradictory. Neither are the gospel accounts.