The Healing Of A Deaf Mute
THE HEALING OF A DEAF MUTE
MARK 7:31-37
The witnesses of this miracle could not be constrained to obey Jesus’ command to keep quiet about it, but our temptation is to disobey his command to us to spread the good news.
The route followed by Jesus here is a peculiar one. He went from the area of Tyre to the Sea of Galilee (south-east of Tyre) via Sidon (farther north of Tyre on the coast) and through the region of Decapolis (which lay east and south-east of Galilee). Certainly this was one of the most indirect routes that Jesus could possibly have taken back to Galilee! Some manuscripts have instead “from the region of Tyre and Sidon” (see KJV); this would simplify the geography and leave us with a journey round the north of the Sea of Galilee to Decapolis. The purpose of the journey was evidently unknown to Mark, and we can only guess why Jesus stayed in these parts. But 3:8 speaks of his fame spreading to this area, and he may well have ministered here; there were Jews throughout these areas, so that it is not necessarily implied that he went to the Gentiles.
Whether the deaf and dumb man was a Gentile is uncertain. He lived in a predominantly Gentile area, but Jesus’ use of Aramaic to speak to him and the quotation from Isaiah in 7:37 may be pointers that he was a Jew. He is described as having an impediment in his speech (7:32,35), but it was apparently so bad that he was virtually dumb (cf. 7:37). The various gestures of Jesus were meant to indicate to the man by sign language what he intended to do. “His tongue was released” (7:35) is a paraphrase of the Greek which he literally says “The bond of his tongue was loosed.” Did Jesus regard the man as enslaved by evil or Satan (cf. Luke 13:16)? Once again Jesus commanded silence about the miracle, but the wonder was so great that it could not be kept secret.
What is the point of the story? It lies in the comment of the spectators. Their exclamation embodies the words of Isaiah 35:5f., a passage that prophesies the coming of the era of salvation. The miracle was a sign that that age was dawning. If so, the question becomes all the more pressing: who is this whose presence brings the signs of the age of the Messiah? Matthew 11:2-6 is a good commentary on this incident.