<p>20:30&nbsp;<em>And two blind men who were sitting by the way side, when they heard that Jesus was passing by, cried out, saying</em>- Mk. 10:52 speaks of how at least one of these blind men followed Jesus &quot;in the way&quot;, using the same word&nbsp;<em>hodos</em>&nbsp;as used here for &quot;the way&quot;. Their sad position, sitting maybe for years day by day&nbsp;<em>para</em>&nbsp;or by, next to &quot;the way&quot;, was in fact putting them in a position when at the right time, they could get up and follow the Lord along that &quot;way&quot;. See on :34&nbsp;<em>Followed Him</em>.&nbsp;<br /><i><br /><em>Lord, have mercy on us, you Son of David</em></i>- These were exactly the words of the two blind men of 9:27, who were likewise cured as the Lord &quot;departed&quot; from a town, just as here the cure happened as He departed from Jericho. The similarity and connection is obvious. From God's side, we see how He works according to pattern in the lives of people. And humanly, the blind men had somehow passed on to other blind men the truth that there was mercy / grace in the Son of David, which could be manifested in the restoration of sight. In this lies the significance of the fact that according to Lk. 18:35, another blind man had very recently said exactly these words and made exactly this request as the&nbsp;Lord&nbsp;<em>approached</em>&nbsp;Jericho. Far from being as supposed by the critics a jumbling up of material by uninspired writers, we see rather the development of a theme- that blind men at various places and times approached the Lord with the same words, and made the same connection between His mercy and Him being the Son of David. They may simply have thought that as the Son of David, He had the characteristics of David- which included remarkable mercy and grace to his enemies. We also see how once a community is broken into with the Gospel, it spreads within that community, expressed in the words and concepts which that community understands, and in the style which originated with the first ones in the community who accepted the Gospel. I have seen this happen in communities of the deaf, Gypsies, HIV patients, ethnic minorities under persecution, language groups etc. And so it happened amongst the blind beggar community in Palestine. Such communities have amazing links to each other and paths of communication.&nbsp;&nbsp;</p><p>The connection between &quot;the son of David&quot; and &quot;mercy&quot; is surely rooted in the description of the promises to David as &quot;the mercies <em>chesed</em> of David&quot; (Is. 55:3; Acts 13:34; 1 Kings 3:6; 2 Chron. 1:8; Ps. 89:49 &quot;The mercies which You promised unto David&quot;; Is. 16:5 &quot;In mercy shall the throne be established... in the tent of David&quot;). These promises were utter grace; &quot;mercy&quot; translates&nbsp;<em>chesed&nbsp;</em>, which is about the closest the OT comes to the NT concept of grace. David rejoiced in this&nbsp;<em>chesed&nbsp;</em>/ mercy shown to him (2 Sam. 22:51; 2 Chron. 7:6; Ps. 101:1). Solomon pleaded for grace on the basis of the fact that God had shown such covenant mercies to David (2 Chron. 6:42 &quot;Remember the mercies of David&quot;). The mercies of David surely also refer to God's mercy, the mercy of grace, shown to David in forgiving him the sin with Bathsheba and Uriah- he begged for forgiveness on the basis of God's &quot;tender mercies&quot; (Ps. 51:1). It could be argued that David's forgiveness was on account of his pleading for the mercies shown to him in the Davidic covenant to be continued to him. For in that covenant God had promised that&nbsp;<em>chesed&nbsp;</em>would not depart from David (2 Sam. 7:15), and David therefore begs for forgiveness on the basis that grace /&nbsp;<em>chesed </em>would indeed not be withdrawn from him (Ps. 51:1). From all this, David pleaded in crisis towards the end of his life to fall into God's hands because &quot;His mercies are great&quot; (2 Sam. 24:14). In response to the <em>chesed</em>&nbsp;&quot;mercy&quot;, or grace shown David, he too was characterized by humanly senseless&nbsp;<em>chesed</em>&nbsp;to his enemies in the family of Saul (s.w. 1 Sam. 20:15; 2 Sam. 2:5 &quot;you have shewed this kindness /&nbsp;<em>chesed</em>&nbsp;unto Saul&quot;; 2 Sam. 3:8; 9:1,7) and to Hanun his Ammonite enemy (2 Sam. 10:2 &quot;I will shew kindness /&nbsp;<em>chesed</em>&nbsp;unto the Hanun&quot;). What is so impressive is that the network of blind men, from Galilee to Jericho, had figured this out, or at least part of it. They saw the connection between grace and David, and were inspired to throw themselves upon the grace of David's Messianic Son. There was in those times as there is in much of the world today a deep belief that blindness was the direct result of sin (Jn. 9:2). These blind men almost certainly felt that their blindness was a result of their sin, and so they felt a moral need for forgiveness, so that the blindness would be lifted. According to Mk. 10:46, one of the blind men was called Bartimaeus, literally 'Son of the unclean'- doubtless this was what he had been dubbed by others, for no Hebrew mother would have named her son that. And they believed that Jesus could indeed cleanse them, morally forgive them, and thereby restore their sight. This would explain why they screamed Gk. &quot;Have mercy on us&quot;. This was a moral request; they didn't simply call out for healing.</p>