With regard to the Tariation in tiie reports of the number of blind men, there is little difficulty. There were doubtless two blind persons healed. Mark and Luke, howeyer, only report one case, which was probably tb«t of the man best known at Jericho. Mark tells us that his name was Bartinueus. — Pre- cisely the same yariation may be observed in the accounts giyen by the three Gospel writers of the casting out of the deyils in the country of the Gradarenes. Matthew says that two men were cured. Mark and Luke say that there was one. That one was eyidently the most remarkable case, because he was the one who asked to be allowed to follow oiu* Lord. — The same remark applies to both miracles. Two persons were healed, as Matthew says. One case only was reported by Mark and Luke, because it was for some reason the more noticeable of the two. In either miracle, to suppose that only one person was healed, because Mark and IjUkc were inspired to single out and report only one cure, is surely unreasonable and unfair. There was another cure, but for some wise reason, Mark and Luko did not report it.
The other yariation is undoubtedly more difficult of expla- nation. Why Matthew and Mark should say that the miracle before us was wrought when our Lord was " going out of" Jericho, and Luke, that it was wrought as he " came near " to Jericho, is a hard knot to untie. At any rate the reconciliation of the apparent discrepancy between the two accounts, has occasioned much difference of opinion among commentators.
(1 .) Some think that there were two eases of blind men cured, and that they were cured at two different times, — one as our Lord entered into Jericho, the other as our Lord departed from Jericho, — and that Luke reported one case, and Matthew and Mark another. This is the opinion of Augustine, Chemnitius, Barradius, Stella, Lightfoot, Gill, and Greswell. — ^Euthymiue goes so far as to think that there were four altogether healed, and th at the two in M atthew, the one in Mark, and the one in Luke, were four distinct cases!
(2.) Some think that the words of St. Luke, " as he was come nigh," only mean, " as he was in the neighbourhood of Jeridio,*' and that they do not necessarily mean, " as he was approaching, or coming to." This is the opinion of Grotius, Doddridge, and Scott.
(3.) Some think that the blind man began ciring to our Lord as He was approaching Jericho, but was not healed until our Lord was leaving Jericho, and was accompanied by the second blind man at the time of his healing, though he was alona wiien he first cried. This is the opinion of Poole, Paraus, Bengel, Jansenios, Maldonatus, and Wordsworth.
(4.) Macknight thinks that Jericho consisted of two quarters, an old and a new town, situftted at a little distance one Irom the