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Matthew 9:27 ESV

And as Jesus passed on from there, two blind men followed him, crying aloud, “Have mercy on us, Son of David.” ²⁸ When he entered the house, the blind men came to him, and Jesus said to them, “Do you believe that I am able to do this?” They said to him, “Yes, Lord.” ²⁹ Then he touched their eyes, saying, “According to your faith be it done to you.” ³⁰ And their eyes were opened. And Jesus sternly warned them, “See that no one knows about it.” ³¹ But they went away and spread his fame through all that district.

The two blind men are part of a string of healings Jesus has performed since the beginning of ch.8, but what struck me was their appeal to Jesus: “have mercy on us, Son of David.” I see so much packed into such a simple request.

‘Son of David’ is a Messianic designation. Whether the blind men were fully aware of the weight behind this phrase, their words communicate something extremely significant for Jesus’ identity.¹ This designation is rooted in God’s promise to David in 2 Samuel 7:1-17 (known as the Davidic Covenant) that He would raise up one of David’s offspring and establish him as a king forever. David’s son Solomon served as a partial fulfillment of this promise, but a complete fulfillment had yet to happen, and hope for that fulfillment was still alive in the First Century during the time of Christ. Matthew includes this narrative to illustrate that Jesus is fulfillment of the Davidic Covenant the people had been waiting for.

Second, the blind men appeal for Jesus to “have mercy on them.” This is a curious request. They don’t cry out “heal us!” or “hey! we need help!” They ask for mercy. Again, it is difficult to be 100% sure if the blind men knew the full weight of calling Jesus “Son of David”, but we can have more certainty that Matthew knew of it by the time he wrote his gospel. The Son of David would have been understood to fulfill a political function in Israel. The prophets also spoke of a figure, described as ‘the servant of the Lord’, who would fulfill the function of healing and restoring the people of Israel (see Isaiah 42:1-9; 49:1-26; 52:13-53:12; 61:1-11). Matthew’s inclusion of this narrative makes the claim that Jesus fulfills both functions. He is both Israel’s awaited king that fulfills the Davidic Covenant and the ‘servant of the Lord’ that brings healing and restoration to the generations of Israel.

Footnotes

1. Lawrence R. Farley, The Gospel of Matthew: Torah for the Church, The Orthodox Bible Study Companion (Chesterton, IN: Ancient Faith Publishing, 2009), 133–134.; Leon Morris, The Gospel According to Matthew, Pillar New Testament Commentary. Accordance electronic ed. (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1992), 233. ↩︎