The Miracles of Jesus

Healing the Deaf and Mute Man

The Decapolis, beyond Galilee · Mid ministry · Mark 7:31-37

In the region of the Decapolis, east of the Sea of Galilee, people brought Jesus a man who was deaf and could barely speak, begging him to lay a hand on him. Jesus took the man aside from the crowd, put his fingers in his ears, touched his tongue, looked up to heaven, sighed, and said, Ephphatha, that is, Be opened. At once the man's ears were opened, his tongue was loosed, and he spoke plainly. The crowd was astonished beyond measure and said Jesus had done all things well, making the deaf hear and the mute speak. The sign shows Christ restoring a shut-in man to hearing, speech, and human belonging.

The scene

Jesus had crossed into Gentile country, moving from the coasts of Tyre and Sidon back toward the Sea of Galilee through the ten cities of the Decapolis. This was land where the God of Israel was not the household name, yet his fame had traveled ahead of him. Into this open, mixed region a small crowd came bringing a man who lived in a locked world.

The man could not hear the appeal made for him and could not have asked for himself. Others carried his need. Their request was modest and physical: only that Jesus would put his hand upon him. They knew where mercy could be found even when the sufferer could not say a word.

What Jesus did

Jesus did not heal at a distance or with a public flourish. He drew the man out of the multitude, into a place where the two of them could meet apart. Then, using signs the deaf man could feel rather than hear, he acted out what he was about to do: fingers to the ears that were shut, spittle and a touch to the tongue that was bound.

The Aramaic word Ephphatha, which Mark keeps and then translates, is the very sound Jesus made over him: Be opened. He looked up to heaven, tying the cure to the Father, and he sighed, feeling in himself the weight of a world gone deaf and dumb. Then the closed body answered his word.

What the sign reveals

Two doors opened at once: hearing came in, and speech went out. This is the shape of a whole person restored. A man who could not receive the world through his ears nor give himself back to it through his voice was made able to do both by a single command. The healing is not only of an organ but of communion, the ability to be spoken to and to answer.

That Jesus sighed tells us this was no cold display of power. He entered the man's isolation before he ended it. The sigh is the compassion of God feeling the wrongness of a broken world in his own chest, so that the cure is not merely done to the man but shared with him. The look up to heaven says plainly where the authority came from; the word Be opened says plainly that the same voice which opened the sealed body speaks still to sealed lives. What God made and sin unmade, Christ un-shuts with a word.

The crowd reached for the language of Eden restored, that he had done all things well, echoing the verdict over creation that God saw it was good. In one deaf man made to hear, the making of the world was, for a moment, put back together in front of them. The prophets had promised a day when the ears of the deaf would be unstopped, and here was a foretaste, small enough to hold in a single healed body yet large enough to announce a whole new age breaking in.

Its place in the Gospel

Mark sets this cure in a stretch where Jesus is opening the kingdom beyond Israel, having just answered the Syrophoenician woman. The healing on Gentile soil is a quiet promise that the good news is for the nations, not one people only. The prophets had said that in the day of God the ears of the deaf would be unstopped and the tongue of the dumb would sing. Here that day arrives in person.

The crowd's amazement carries the theme of the whole Gospel: who is this? Their answer is a confession dressed as a report. He hath done all things well: he maketh both the deaf to hear, and the dumb to speak. Mark lets their words point past the miracle to the maker.

This scene also prepares the reader for the next chapter, where a blind man will be opened by stages and the disciples themselves will be shown as slow to hear and see. The physical openings in Mark keep asking whether those who watch will let their own ears be opened.

How it meets us

Many people live shut in without ever losing an ear. There are griefs, shames, and habits that stop the voice and close the hearing of the soul, so that God's word does not land and no honest word can go out. This story says the Lord takes such a person aside, deals with them personally, and speaks the one command they most need: Be opened.

Notice that the man was brought. He did not find Jesus on his own; friends carried his need and begged for a touch. If you cannot pray for yourself, others can bring you, and if you know someone locked in silence, you can be the ones who bring them. Intercession is written into the miracle.

Notice too the gentleness. Jesus met the man in the only language he had, through touch, before healing him. Christ still adjusts himself to our frame, coming near in ways we can receive, never healing us as a crowd but always as a person taken aside and known by name. The fingers in the ears, the touch to the tongue, the look to heaven: each was a word to a man who could not hear words, love spoken in the grammar he could understand.

Where it points

The word Ephphatha stands over the whole ministry of Jesus. He came to open what was closed: closed ears, closed eyes, closed tombs, closed hearts, and at last a closed heaven. The deaf man's loosed tongue is a small first day of the new creation, when the ransomed will hear the voice of the Bridegroom and answer with a song they could never have made alone.

To hear the risen Christ is the deepest opening of all. He who said Be opened to a man's ears says the same to any who will come. If you would learn his voice, you can meet Jesus and let him open your hearing, or read the surrounding account and see for yourself in Mark 7. The one who did all things well is still at work, and the same word waits for you: Be opened.

Can these things really happen?

Many honest readers ask whether miracles can happen at all. Since the Enlightenment, some have argued that the laws of nature rule them out, that a report of a wonder is always less likely than a mistake or a legend. Christians answer that the laws of nature describe how the world normally runs; they do not forbid the God who made it from acting within it. A miracle is not nature breaking down but its Author drawing near. You do not have to settle that question before you read; you only have to read honestly and ask what best explains the witness before you. We look at this more fully in miracles and the laws of nature.

Frequently asked questions

What is the meaning of Healing the Deaf and Mute Man?

It shows Jesus restoring a shut-in man to hearing and speech with a single word, Be opened, revealing him as the Lord who reopens what sin and suffering have closed and who welcomes even the nations. Hearing and voice together picture a whole person brought back into communion with God and neighbor.

Where in the Bible is Healing the Deaf and Mute Man?

It is recorded in Mark 7:31-37, set in the region of the Decapolis east of the Sea of Galilee. It is unique to Mark's Gospel.

What does the word Ephphatha mean?

Ephphatha is Aramaic, the everyday language Jesus spoke, and Mark translates it for us as Be opened. It was the actual command Jesus spoke over the man's ears and tongue, and it opened both at once.