Tag Archives: Son of David

LUKE’S GOSPEL…”PASSING BY” – 48

February 22, 2026Bible Studya blind man, have mercy, Son of DavidLuella Campbell

“As Jesus approached Jericho, a blind man was sitting by the roadside begging. When he heard the crowd going by, he asked what was happening. They told him, “Jesus of Nazareth is passing by.” He called out, “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!” Those who led the way rebuked him and told him to be quiet, but he shouted all the more, “Son of David, have mercy on me!” Jesus stopped and ordered the man to be brought to him. When he came near, Jesus asked him, “What do you want me to do for you?” “Lord, I want to see,” he replied. Jesus said to him, “Receive your sight; your faith has healed you.” Immediately he received his sight and followed Jesus, praising God. When all the people saw it, they also praised God.”

‭‭Luke‬ ‭18‬:‭35‬-‭43‬ ‭NIV‬‬

Another ”Sunday School” story with a treasure hidden deep in its details!

We know the story of this blind man well. In fact, although he is not even named in Luke’s version, he was just another blind man whom Jesus healed…or was he? A hidden jewel in the story sets him apart.

Let’s unpick the story.

Jesus was on His way to Jericho. Thronged by crowds, hemmed in by an excited mob, the noise around Him must have been ear-splitting. Middle Eastern people are excitable and vocal! Despite the noise, Jesus heard something…the urgent cry of a man in need.

A blind man heard the crowd approaching from a distance. As they came near, he learned from people in the crowd that Jesus of Nazareth was “passing by”.

“When he heard the crowd going by, he asked what was happening. They told him, “Jesus of Nazareth is passing by.”

Jesus of Nazareth! The blind man could not believe his good fortune. Here in Jericho! Miles from Jesus’ stamping ground in the precincts of Jerusalem! What an opportunity! The blind man began to yell! Despite the din, he needed to get the attention of the man who was “passing by”.

Jesus of Nazareth was ”passing by”. What did this mean? Was He just on His way to somewhere?

This phrase appears more than once in Scripture, not just a random expression but with a specific purpose. Let’s examine a few examples.

Moses interceding for Israel…

“And he (the Lord) passed (by) in front of Moses, proclaiming, “The Lord, the Lord, the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness,”

Exodus‬ ‭34‬:‭6‬ ‭NIV‬‬

Elijah at the end of his tether…

“The Lord said, “Go out and stand on the mountain in the presence of the Lord, for the Lord is about to “pass by.” Then a great and powerful wind tore the mountains apart and shattered the rocks before the Lord, but the Lord was not in the wind. After the wind there was an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake.”

‭‭1 Kings‬ ‭19‬:‭11‬ ‭NIV‬‬

The disciples in peril on the lake…

“He (Jesus) saw the disciples straining at the oars, because the wind was against them. Shortly before dawn he went out to them, walking on the lake. He was about to “pass by” them,”…

‭‭Mark‬ ‭6‬:‭48‬ ‭NIV‬

Bartimaeus blind and helpless…

“When he (Bartimaeus) heard the crowd going by, he asked what was happening. They told him, “Jesus of Nazareth is “passing by.”

‭‭Luke‬ ‭18‬:‭36‬-‭37‬ ‭NIV‬‬

A strange expression! What does it mean?

In each of these circumstances, Jesus, (who was God manifested on earth), was about to show up…to reveal something about Himself to the person or people concerned. To Moses, He would reveal His name, mercy… to Elijah, His purpose for the depressed prophet, a new assignment…to His disciples, His presence and power over the storm…and to Bartimaeus, His power to heal.

In each of these circumstances, God’s people were in need of revelation about Himself that would perfectly meet their need. In their distress, He came to them and, in His “passing by”, He revealed His nature and His ability to be to them what they needed at that moment.

Passing ”by” (Greek…parerchomai) can have the meaning of “coming near” or “making an appearance”. This mans that Jesus “showed up” to meet a need in a specific circumstance.

What a difference the presence of Jesus makes in an impossible situation! We know that He is always with us although we cannot see Him. However, when we cultivate an awareness of His presence wherever we are, whatever is happening, the most impossible situation becomes “a piece of cake”.

To Bartimaeus, Jesus’ “appearance” was the beginning of a new life. Gone his blindness, his dependence on others, his hopeless state, even his beggar’s cloak…his badge of office…and life, for him, began again.

No matter what, Jesus is always “passing by”. He is “making an appearance” in our distress, and turning an impossible situation into a revelation of Himself that will change despair into hope.

To be continued…

MARK’S GOSPEL…BARTIMEUS – 25

September 16, 2025Bible StudyBartimeus, blind, Son of DavidLuella Campbell

“Then they came to Jericho. As Jesus and his disciples, together with a large crowd, were leaving the city, a blind man, Bartimaeus (which means “son of Timaeus”), was sitting by the roadside begging. When he heard that it was Jesus of Nazareth, he began to shout, “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!” Many rebuked him and told him to be quiet, but he shouted all the more, “Son of David, have mercy on me!” Jesus stopped and said, “Call him.” So they called to the blind man, “Cheer up! On your feet! He’s calling you.” Throwing his cloak aside, he jumped to his feet and came to Jesus. “What do you want me to do for you?” Jesus asked him. The blind man said, “Rabbi, I want to see.” “Go,” said Jesus, “your faith has healed you.” Immediately he received his sight and followed Jesus along the road.”

‭‭Mark‬ ‭10‬:‭46‬-‭52‬ NIV

Another of the stories we love, but much packed into it that can elevate our understanding and hone our faith.

Jesus and His disciples, engulfed by a crowd of excited spectators enjoying the entertainment Jesus provided for them, were on their way out of Jericho. Sitting by the wayside was a “nobody”, a blind beggar with his begging bowl in his hands and his beggar’s cloak around his shoulders…a pitiful picture of poverty and despair.

No one noticed him or cared about him as they rushed past, bumping and trampling him in their excitement until he began to shout, “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!”

Treating him as nothing but a nuisance, “Shut up,” they kept yelling at him, but he refused to be quiet. There was no way that he was going to lose this opportunity.

Then the crowd came to a sudden stop. A voice rang out above the hubbub. “Call him!”

The people suddenly changed their tune. “So they called to the blind man, “Cheer up! On your feet! He’s calling you.”

Let’s examine this little scenario. First, the beggar shouted, “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!” What was he saying? Son of David…he identified Jesus as the anticipated Messiah.

Google explains…

“Messianic Title: The title “Son of David” was a well-known reference to the Messiah, who was prophesied to come from King David’s line.
Appeal to Authority: By calling Jesus the “Son of David,” the blind man was acknowledging Jesus’ divine authority and the messianic power to bring healing and salvation.”

Second, “Have mercy on me.”

Mercy, in Hebrew…” chesed” was an appeal to God’s covenant commitment His people.

“And he passed in front of Moses, proclaiming, “The Lord, the Lord, the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness, maintaining love to thousands, and forgiving wickedness, rebellion and sin…”

‭‭Exodus‬ ‭34‬:‭6‬-‭7‬a NIV‬‬

Imagine that! In the face of the unbelief of the religious leaders and the superficial “faith” of the crowd, this despised, nobody, beggar recognised Jesus for who He was and called on Him in faith to do what he believed He would do!

Third, the man stood up, tossing aside his beggar’s cloak, his licence to beg, and pushed through the crowd to Jesus. In this gesture, he was declaring, “ I’m done with begging! I don’t need to beg any more.” So secure was he in the outcome of his faith that he cut loose from his past before it happened.

Now let’s look at Jesus’ response. The interaction between them was simple. Knowing full well the blind man’s need, Jesus asked him, “What do you want me to for you?” Such a simple but such a loaded question! The request offered the beggar the opportunity to ask for anything he desired. This was Jesus, Son of David, in front of him, opening a door to the world for him.

His sight, uppermost in his mind, would mean real life for him. Everything else he desired would follow. So, his answer was simple. “I want sight, Lord! That’s all for now.”

And Jesus said, ”Go!” With a simple affirmation, “Your faith has healed you.” What did Jesus mean? Was faith the means by which he was healed or was his faith the gossamer thread that bound the man to Jesus along which the healing power flowed? Authority…Son of David! Faith…My sight! Done…Go!

Amid all the foolishness of the religious elite and the common people, this blind beggar understood the truth and acted on it.

And, in the hullabaloo, Jesus heard his cry!

THE GOSPEL OF MARK – WHOSE SON IS HE?

September 6, 2020Bible Studymessiah, Son of David, the LordLuella Campbell

WHOSE SON IS HE?

³⁵ While Jesus was teaching in the temple courts, he asked, “Why do the teachers of the law say that the Messiah is the son of David? ³⁶ David himself, speaking by the Holy Spirit, declared:
“‘The Lord said to my Lord:
“Sit at my right hand
until I put your enemies
under your feet.”’
³⁷ David himself calls him ‘Lord.’ How then can he be his son?”
The large crowd listened to him with delight. Mark 12:35-37

Jesus had His own question to put to the people. This one seemed like an unsolvable riddle. “How can David’s Master be his son?” That was a real clanger if you didn’t know the inside story. His opponents, the religion scholars (did Jesus use the term with tongue in cheek?) readily acknowledged that David was inspired by the Holy Spirit when he made that claim.

This question delighted the people. Why? Many of them would have witnessed the on-going debate between the religion scholars and Jesus. Were their sympathies with Him at this point? Perhaps they recognised the unfairness of the attacks of the religious leaders in view of His impeccable life and uniquely authoritative teaching. Since questions were more important than answers and were the measure of a person’s intelligence, the people realised that Jesus was head and shoulders above His contenders in understanding God and His ways.

Unfortunately, their sympathies did not go deep enough for them to seek an answer from Him to His question or to be convinced that He was David’s son in the Messianic sense of the word. It is easy for us to understand what He meant from our post-resurrection, post-New Testament perspective but those who were in the moment had no reference point.

What does Jesus’ question mean to us? Here is the meeting point between God, the second person of the Trinity and humanity in the person of Israel’s greatest king. God had promised David that his dynasty would remain forever. How could that be, since Israel didn’t even have a king at that time? They may not have had a visibly reigning king, but David had a bloodline which traced right to Jesus, hence David’s “son”.

The religion scholars, Pharisees and ruling Jewish council made sure that He was enthroned on a cross and crowned with thorns but, in their mockery and unknown to them, that was God’s way of confirming Jesus’ eternal reign because He would, through His own death and resurrection, conquer sin and death. Now He reigns on the throne of heaven forever.

A Deafening Silence

August 14, 2015Bible Studyenemies, footstool, Lord, messiah, Son of DavidLuella Campbell

A DEAFENING SILENCE

While Jesus was teaching in the temple courts, He asked, ‘Why do the teachers of the law say that the Messiah is the son of David? David himself, speaking by the Holy Spirit, said, ‘The Lord said to my Lord: “Sit at my right hand until I put your enemies under your feet.” David himself called Him “Lord.” How then can He be his son?’ The large crowd listened to Him with delight (Mark 12: 35-37).

Dead silence! They had all exhausted their questions to trap Him, and now it was Jesus’ turn. Asking questions played an important role in the rabbi’s teaching method and an excellent way to get people to think for themselves and to reveal their level of thinking by the questions they asked.

The Pharisees’ big contention with Jesus was: “Blasphemy!” He was a man and yet He was claiming to be God. Many of the people dismissed Him because He was only the son of Mary and Joseph; the village carpenter and one of their locals. The people of Nazareth were enraged with Him and drove Him out of town because He dared to put Himself on the level of their great prophets and even to claim that He was the fulfilment of prophecy!

He was a mere man, therefore He could not possibly be the Messiah, they argued, so Jesus fired a question at them, a very puzzling one at that. Their own Scriptures taught that the Messiah would be the son of David. That meant that He had to be human and one born in the ancestral line of David. Yet, at the same time, speaking prophetically, David addressed Him as “Lord”.

David’s psalm (110) begins with the declaration:

The Lord says to my Lord, “Sit at my right hand until I make your enemies a footstool for your feet.” The Lord will extend your mighty sceptre from Zion saying, “Rule in the midst of your enemies!” (Psa. 110: 1-2).

Speaking prophetically under inspiration of the Holy Spirit, David addressed Messiah as “my Lord” and attributed to Him the functions of deity, and yet the rabbis recognised Him to be the son of David. There could be only one answer and that was the very thing the religious leaders rejected – Messiah a human being born of the line of David. But there was just too much prophetic evidence of Messiah’s ancestry to deny it or to set it aside. He would be of the tribe of Judah, a ruler (Gen. 49:10); called a “Branch” of the stump of Jesse (Isa. 11:1); Matthew’s genealogy traced His ancestry back to Abraham through David.

Seventeen times in the New Testament Jesus was addressed as the son of David. Even the common people knew that Messiah would come from the line of David. So why were the religious leaders so blinded that they refused to recognise Him as their Messiah? Why did the Jews down the centuries reject Him as their Messiah since the evidence is so clear? Prejudice! They have believed the lie and failed to weigh up the evidence.

There is something about human beings that makes them hate to be wrong. It’s called pride. People will cling to their right to be right even if they are dead wrong. And even worse, they will defend their error to the death rather than acknowledge that they could be wrong and open themselves to the possibility that someone else is right.

If the Jews had only been honest enough to consider the evidence, they would have been confronted with the truth. Truth is truth and will stand up to scrutiny. Jesus’ appeal was for them to consider the Scriptures. “Your word is truth”, He declared in His prayer before His death (John 17: 17). The question is not, “Who is right?” but “What is right?” It takes humility to be teachable. A person who has a teachable spirit is the one who will eventually arrive at the truth. Their passion to be right put these men in line to be deceived and deceived they were, bringing judgment on themselves because they refused to listen to the truth.

Only those who receive Jesus’ words with humility and obedience will really understand and know the truth.

To the Jews who had believed Him, Jesus said, ‘If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples. Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.’ (John 8: 31-32).

If they had a mind to receive it, the answer was quite simple. Messiah was both son of David and Son of God. God in the flesh – Immanuel – God with us. John stated it in a nutshell:

The Word became flesh and made His dwelling among us. We have seen His glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth (John 1:14).

There was a deafening silence. They knew the answer but they refused to speak it out.

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The Bleat Of A Lost Lamb

August 5, 2015Bible StudyBartimaeus, mercy, Son of DavidLuella Campbell

THE BLEAT OF A LOST LAMB

Then they came to Jericho. As Jesus and His disciples, together with a large crowd, were leaving the city, a blind man, Bartimaeus (which means son of Timaeus), was sitting by the roadside begging. When he heard that it was Jesus of Nazareth, he began to shout, ‘Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!’ Many rebuked him and told him to be quiet, but he shouted all the more, ‘Son of David, have mercy on me!’

Jesus stopped and said. ‘Call him.’ So they called to the blind man, ‘Cheer up! On your feet! He’s calling you.’

Throwing his cloak aside, he jumped to his feet and came to Jesus. ‘What do you want me to do for you?’ Jesus asked him. The blind man said, ‘Rabbi, I want to see.’

‘Go,’ said Jesus, ‘your faith has healed you.’ Immediately he received his sight and followed Jesus along the road (Mark 10. 42-52).

A well-worn story but so full of little surprises! Every child who ever attended Sunday school knows the story of blind Bartimaeus, but does every child understand the significance of the details? I don’t think so. Not even every Gentile adult understands the layers underneath the facts.

As a blind man, Bartimaeus was not permitted to beg without authorisation. There were many opportunists around who would rather beg than work. Therefore genuine beggars needed some sort of identification to be recognised as bona fide beggars. There was no tag identifying him as a beggar so he wore beggar’s cloak. An important detail in the story.

As a beggar, he was considered a “nobody” in society. In fact he was a nuisance. Notice how the people in the crowd treated him. ‘Shut up,’ they told him, as though he were nothing but a noisy intrusion. People were milling around, trying to get a glimpse of Jesus, not bothered with a smelly beggar. But the more they tried to shut him up, the louder and more insistent were his cries. From the crowds round about him he gathered that all the excitement was about Jesus of Nazareth.

Bartimaeus had heard of Him. Wasn’t He the rabbi who went around doing miracles and healing people? This was his once-in-a-lifetime opportunity and he was not about to let it slip through his fingers. There was no way he could get near to Jesus but he could shout. And shout he did! What did he shout?

‘Son of David, have mercy on me!’ Who was the Son of David? Solomon? No way! Solomon began his reign after David with such promise and ended up in failure. Jesus was definitely not a replica of Solomon. Who, then, was the Son of David? This was a Messianic term. Prophets in the Old Testament spoke of one who would come from the dynasty of David, from the tribe of Judah, who would be God’s Messiah and deliverer.

A shoot will come up from the stump of Jesse; from his roots a Branch will bear fruit (Isa. 11: 1).

Was this unwashed, blind beggar, a reject of society and a nuisance to people, filled with a longing for the Son of David to come? Did he have a hope and a conviction beating inside of him that this man who healed people and spoke of the kingdom of God was the one God would send? His words, “Son of David” betrayed that desire.

Try as they would, the crowd could not silence him. And in the midst of the noise, Jesus heard his voice. Was His heart so in tune with the Father that He heard the bleat of the lost lamb? I think so. So He called him. Funny how the attitude of the crowd changed – from “nuisance” to “Cheer up, He’s calling you.” He was suddenly the focus of attention – from nobody to somebody!

Barimaeus’ cry touched the nerve centre of Jesus’s being. “Have mercy on me.” Was His mission not to reveal the true nature of the Father – one who was full of mercy and compassion? It was a cry He would never ignore.

How significant the blind man’s action – he threw his beggar’s cloak away! Why would he do that? In a symbolic act of faith he declared, “I will never need this again.” He would need a cloak but not one that shouted out his blindness. His action did not go unnoticed. It was his unspoken declaration of faith in Jesus.

The next step sealed it for him. Jesus’ question, ‘What do you want me to do for you,’ was not asked out of ignorance. It was the final step in Bartimaeus’s faith journey. “Tell me exactly what you want,” said Jesus. No beating about the bush. “I want to see,” was his terse reply.

And the rest, they say, is history. Jesus commended his faith. There were steps to his faith. He heard about Jesus. He came to a conclusion – Son of David. He heard that Jesus was there – he began to yell for attention. He refused to be silenced. When he was called, he knew it was his moment. He threw away his dependence on his old life. Never again would he need to beg. He knew what he wanted – and he got it.

And the outcome – he followed Jesus.