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Mat_20:29. Comp. Mar_10:46 ff.; Luk_18:35 ff.
Καὶ ἐκπορ . αὐτῶν ἀπὸ Ἱεριχώ ] The Synoptists make no mention whatever of the visit to Ephraim and the journey to Bethany (mentioned in Joh_11:54; Joh_12:1); indeed, their narrative (Mat_21:1 f.) positively excludes at least the latter of these. This divergence, and not a mere want of precision, should be fairly acknowledged (comp. note on Mat_21:1), and not explained away by means of ingenious conjectures (Paulus, Schleiermacher, Neander, comp. also Sieffert, who suppose that Jesus may have entered Bethany along with the rest of the pilgrims in the evening, and may have left it again next morning or the morning after; see, on the other hand, on Joh_12:17 f., note). A further discrepancy is to be found in the fact that Luke represents the healing as having taken place ἐν τῷ ἐγγίζειν αὐτὸν εἰς Ἱεριχ ., and that Mark and Luke mention only one blind man, although the first mentioned divergence has been turned to account in the way of supporting the hypothesis that Matthew has blended together two distinct cases of healing, one of which is supposed to have taken place when Jesus was entering the town, the other when He was leaving it (Theophylact, Neander, Wieseler, Ebrard, Krafft). The difficulty connected with the mention of two men is not removed by a supposed reminiscence of Mat_9:27 ff. (Strauss), nor explained by supposing that the blind man of Bethsaida, Mar_8:22, may have been included (Holtzmann, Volkmar); but it proves that, in point of authenticity, Matthew’s account compares unfavourably with the characteristic narrative of Mark, which bears traces of being the original account of what took place. Comp. note on Mat_8:28 ff.