The people don’t want delays and are hard on beggars.1 The last point especially is important. A delay is easily accepted when Jesus stops on the road (Mark 10:49), but who wants to give attention to a beggar, except to throw a small gift to him? In Jesus’ history we see sick people and invalids come to him: he does not look for them. Beggars do not play a role, except in the case of the one born blind. It is possible that various blind people who came to Jesus were beggars, but in the case of Bartimaeus we do not have someone who comes to Jesus as a blind man (and who normally begs) but with a beggar in exercising his miserable occupation.
Surely Jesus cannot stop for every beggar!
The man will not be forced to stay silent, however. He cries still harder in the darkness of his blindness, when he hears feet that pass him: Son of David, have mercy on me.
2
48 And many rebuked him, telling him to be silent. But he cried out all the more, “Son of David, have mercy on me!”