Bartimaeus: The Blind Beggar Sitting by the Road Out of Jericho

A Man of One Verse

Bartimaeus is a man who lived in the time of the New Testament, in the era placed at around 4 BC to AD 33 (era placed on Ussher's chronology, 1650). Everything Scripture records of him fits in one verse: Mark 10:46. That is his first mention and his only mention. One book, one passage, one verse. He is named as the son of Timaeus (Mark 10:46), and that is the whole of his recorded family.

For a Bible reader used to tracing a life across chapters, this is a strange assignment. There is no arc here, no growth, no long obedience or long decline. There is a road, a crowd, and a man sitting beside it.

What the Verse Says

Mark 10:46 reads: "They came to Jericho. As he went out from Jericho, with his disciples and a great multitude, the son of Timaeus, Bartimaeus, a blind beggar, was sitting by the road."

Every detail we are given is in that sentence. There is movement into Jericho and movement out of it. There is a company on the move: "he" with "his disciples and a great multitude" (Mark 10:46). And there is a man who is not moving. Bartimaeus is sitting. The verse gives him three descriptions and no more: he is the son of Timaeus, he is blind, and he is a beggar (Mark 10:46).

Notice how the verse identifies him twice over. He is called "the son of Timaeus" and then "Bartimaeus" (Mark 10:46). The dossier lists Timaeus as his father, and that relationship is the only family tie Scripture gives him. He has a father's name attached to him, which is more than many roadside figures in Scripture receive. Whatever else was lost to him, his lineage was not forgotten by the one who wrote the verse.

A Passing Note, Not a Scene

Honesty about the shape of the record matters here. This is a passing note. Bartimaeus does not speak in the verse we have been given. He does not act. Nothing is reported of what he thought or wanted. He is described where he sat, and that is where the record before us stops.

I will not extend the sentence past its full stop. What Mark 10:46 gives is a location and a condition, and to fill in more from memory would be to write a different story than the one on the page. The verse sets a blind beggar beside a road on the day a great multitude went out of Jericho, and it leaves him there in our sight.

There is something worth sitting with in that. Scripture is full of crowds, and crowds swallow names. A great multitude was moving, and among all those feet the text stops to name one man who was not walking with them. He was at the edge, on the ground, dependent on whatever passers by would give. Scripture knows his name and his father's name.

Nothing Charged Against Him, Nothing Claimed for Him

The record shows no sin of Bartimaeus and no failure to name. It also records no act of faith, no word, no work. That silence should be respected in both directions. He is not held up as an example of anything in the verse we have, and he is not accused of anything either. He is a blind beggar sitting by the road (Mark 10:46). The text neither praises nor blames him.

What We Do Not Know

We are not told his tribe or his people. We are not told whether he had a wife; no children are named. We do not know his age, how long he had been blind, how long he had begged at that place, or what became of him afterward. We are not told his mother's name, and beyond the name Timaeus we know nothing of his father. Every one of these is a real gap, and the honest answer is that Scripture as gathered here does not say.

The Line to Christ

One New Testament reference stands over this man's life: Mark 10:46. On that road out of Jericho, Bartimaeus is placed in the path of the one the Gospel of Mark is following, the one who travels "with his disciples and a great multitude" (Mark 10:46). The verse itself calls him only "he."

That is the line, and it is enough to notice. The whole of what Scripture records about Bartimaeus is that he sat by the road on the day Christ went out of Jericho. His name is preserved in the Bible for one reason: he was there when Christ passed by. A man with nothing to give was written into the Gospel because Christ came near where he was sitting.