Once Jesus has touched the man, he sees moving shapes. Because they are moving, he understands the shapes to be people but he cannot yet see clearly enough to identify them—they might as well be trees.1 We are not told why Jesus healed the man in this way. Perhaps he deliberately healed the man in two stages in order to have this miracle recorded so that we might understand how Jesus works to heal spiritual blindness today.
24 And he looked up and said, “I see people, but they look like trees, walking.”