The story of the healing of the blind man at Bethsaida forms a pair with that of the deaf man recorded slightly earlier in the Markan narrative (Mark 7.31–37). In both cases the healings appear to have been accomplished only with difficulty and again in both cases physical means were used in the cure. Further, both stories were closely linked to miracles of feeding. This paper, however, does not address itself, in the first place, to the theological interpretation of the story, but sets out to consider the meaning of the odd response of the blind man to his first glimmerings of sight in the context of the healing as a whole.