The beggar hears from the passers-by that it is Jesus of Nazareth
who is travelling there. The people call him by the name that had become common at the time.
He is never called Barjoseph; to distinguish him from other Joshuas they name him Jesus of Nazareth, Jesus the Nazarene.
With a slight, mocking exaggeration of the Galilean (dull) pronunciation of the letter a,
they made of it in Judea, Jesus the Nazarene.
1
The way the people point to Jesus suggests how well he is known in Israel: He is that Jesus from Galilee about whom people talk so much.
Compared with this it is striking how differently the blind man speaks to him. He could have followed the crowd and called upon Jesus as Jesus of Nazareth!
(cf. Mark 1:24). He addresses him, however, not with reference to how the people know him but to the expectation he has of him. Son of David
he calls him.
This name Son of David
has a genealogical implication (descendant of David), but more important is the messianic overtone. Joseph is of the house and lineage of David
(Luke 1:27, Luke 2:4) but he is never called the son of David.
This name (the son!) is reserved for the promised Messiah (Luke 20:41). When Jesus once heals a demon-possessed man who is both blind and mute, people ask themselves in amazement, Can this be the son of David?
(Matthew 12:23). This question is not only about the origin but also about whether Jesus is perhaps the promised King of the great future. A few times there have already been people who gave him this title (two blind men, Matthew 9:27; the Canaanite woman, Matthew 15:22). In the period before the days of Jesus’ coming to the holy city there was a heated discussion in Jerusalem among those who were and who were not willing to acknowledge him as the Messiah (John 7:31, John 7:41; John 9:22; John 11:27; John 12:34). An important point thereby was the healing of a person born blind (John 9:21). Especially the blind must have known of this, and certainly so in Jericho where news from Jerusalem was quickly heard. Bartimaeus has apparently made up his mind: for him Jesus is the Messiah. And he makes this clear by calling upon him as the son of David. It is not important in this connection whether Bartimaeus has known to what extent Jesus came from David’s house. Whoever recognizes the Messiah believes this also without a previous study of the often-complicated genealogical reports.2
47 And when he heard that it was Jesus of Nazareth, he began to cry out and say, “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!”