TEXT [Commentary]

8. Jesus heals a deaf and mute man (7:31-37; cf. Matt 15:29-31)

31 Jesus left Tyre and went up to Sidon before going back to the Sea of Galilee and the region of the Ten Towns.[*] 32 A deaf man with a speech impediment was brought to him, and the people begged Jesus to lay his hands on the man to heal him.

33 Jesus led him away from the crowd so they could be alone. He put his fingers into the man’s ears. Then, spitting on his own fingers, he touched the man’s tongue. 34 Looking up to heaven, he sighed and said, “Ephphatha,” which means, “Be opened!” 35 Instantly the man could hear perfectly, and his tongue was freed so he could speak plainly!

36 Jesus told the crowd not to tell anyone, but the more he told them not to, the more they spread the news. 37 They were completely amazed and said again and again, “Everything he does is wonderful. He even makes the deaf to hear and gives speech to those who cannot speak.”

NOTES

7:31 Ten Towns. This was the Decapolis, a predominantly Gentile region consisting of ten towns east of the Jordan River. Jesus is now moving outside of Israel, a hint of where the church will go.

7:32 man with a speech impediment. The Gr. term mogilalos [TG3424A, ZG3652] is used only here in the NT and only at Isa 35:6 in the LXX (see commentary).

7:33 touched the man’s tongue. In this verse, either Jesus was making clear by his actions what he intended to do or these actions reflected other healings of this type in the ancient world (cf. Hurtado 1989:117; Mark 8:23; John 9:6; and the healings alleged of Vespasian, an emperor who came after Jesus—Tacitus Histories 4.81; Suetonius Vespasian 7; Taylor 1966:354).

7:34 Looking up to heaven. Jesus showed his connection with heaven.

Ephphatha. Mark again simply repeats the Aramaic (see 3:17 NLT mg; 5:41; 11:9-10 NLT mg; 14:36; 15:22, 34), then translates it into Gr. as “be opened.”

7:35 his tongue was freed. The Gr. metaphor is hard to render in English. It says, “The bonds of his tongue were loosed.” His tongue was “unshackled” (Marcus 2000:475).

7:36 told the crowd not to tell anyone. Since 1:25, Jesus has attempted to silence efforts to promote his healings (1:34, 44-45; 3:12; 8:26; see comments on the “messianic secret” in the Major Themes section of the introduction). The crowds that gathered for the healings were becoming very large, and people continued to speak even more openly. The verbs here are imperfect, so Jesus was continually making such efforts, and the people were continually declaring his work.

COMMENTARY [Text]

Yet another miracle focuses on what God was doing through Jesus. As he looked to heaven, Jesus healed a deaf and dumb man. The entire act evoked the hope of Isaiah 35, an important prediction of a future time when God would heal the blind, deaf, lame, and mute. The last statement of the passage (“He even makes the deaf to hear and gives speech to those who cannot speak”) echoes Isaiah 35:6 and its prediction that at a special time, God would work to heal his people. The statement may allude to the entire context of Isaiah 35:1-10.

God was working through Jesus in a special way to deliver his people. All kinds of astonishing miracles were coming through the hands of one special person. The crowds were “completely amazed” at the scope and consistency of Jesus’ healings (this is the only place where Mark expresses this degree of astonishment). They knew that God had to be at work, but what did it all mean? A further round of miracles in Mark 8 will further explain what was happening.