Mark 10

What if our Saviour used this very gesture towards this young man? And that the more conveniently, when he was now upon his knees before him. Some gesture, at least, he used, whereby it appeared, both to the young man and to the standers-by, that the young man did not a little please him, both by his question and by his answer. So I have loved, Psalm 116:1, in the LXX, I have loved, one may render well, it pleaseth me well. So Josephus of David's soldiers, (1 Sam 30:22): "Those four hundred who went to the battle would not impart the spoils to the two hundred who were faint and weary; and said, That they should 'love' [that is, be well pleased] that they had received their wives safe again."

In some parity of sense, John is called the disciple, whom Jesus loved; not that Jesus loved him more than the rest with his eternal, infinite, saving love, but he favoured him more with some outward kindness and more intimate friendship and familiarity. And why? Because John had promised that he would take care of Christ's mother after his death. For those words of our Saviour upon the cross to John, 'Behold thy mother!' and to his mother, 'Behold thy son!' and that from thence John took her home, do carry a fair probability with them, that that was not the first time that John heard of such a matter, but that long before he had so promised.

I have loved thee, Isaiah 60:10, is the rendering of I have had pity upon thee: which may here also agree very well, "Jesus had pity upon him."

46. And they came to Jericho: and as he went out of Jericho with his disciples and a great number of people, blind Bartimaeus, the son of Timaeus, sat by the highway side begging.

[Bartimaeus, the son of Timaeus.] Some suspect the evangelist here guilty of a solecism, by making a tautology: for it was neither necessary, as they think, so to render the Syriac word in Greek; nor is it done so elsewhere in proper names of that nature. For it is not said by any evangelist, Bartholomeus, the son of Tholomeus: Bar Abbas, the son of Abbas: Bar Jesus, the son of Jesus: nor in the like names. True, indeed; but,

I. When the denomination is made from a common name, and not a proper, then it is not so ill sounding to interpret the word: which is done once and again; Mark 3:17, Boanerges, which is, The sons of thunder: Acts 4:36, Barnabas, which is, A son of consolation.

II. Bar Timai may be rendered otherwise than the son of Timaeus: namely, either a son of admiration; or, which is more proper, a son of profit. The Targum in Esther 3:8; To the king ariseth no profit ('Timai') from them. The evangelist therefore, deservedly, that he might shew that this Bartimaeus was not named from this, or that, or some other etymology, but from his father's name, so interprets his name, Bartimeus, the son of Timeus.

III. Perhaps there was a Timeus of some more noted name in that age, either for some good report or some bad: so that it might not be absurd to the Jews that then conversed there to say, This blind Bartimaeus is the son of the so much famed Timaeus. So it is unknown to us who Alexander and Rufus were, chapter 15:21: but they were without doubt of most eminent fame, either among the disciples, or among the Jews.

IV. What if Thima be the same with Simai, blind, from the use of Thau for Samech among the Chaldeans? so that Bartimaeus the son of Timaeus might sound no more than the blind son of a blind father.