And he looked up, and said, I {f} see men as trees, walking.

(f) He perceived men moving but at the same time could not discern their bodies.

People's New Testament

8:24 I see men as trees, walking. Certain moving forms about him, but without the power of discerning their shape or magnitude; trees he should have accounted them from their heights, but men from their motion.

Wesley's Notes

8:24 I see men as trees walking - He distinguished men from trees only by their motion.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

24. And he looked up, and said, I see men as trees, walking-This is one of the cases in which one edition of what is called the received text differs from another. That which is decidedly the best supported, and has also internal evidence on its side is this: "I see men; for I see [them] as trees walking"-that is, he could distinguish them from trees only by their motion; a minute mark of truth in the narrative, as Alford observes, describing how human objects had appeared to him during that gradual failing of sight which had ended in blindness.

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

8:22-26 Here is a blind man brought to Christ by his friends. Therein appeared the faith of those that brought him. If those who are spiritually blind, do not pray for themselves, yet their friends and relations should pray for them, that Christ would be pleased to touch them. The cure was wrought gradually, which was not usual in our Lord's miracles. Christ showed in what method those commonly are healed by his grace, who by nature are spiritually blind. At first, their knowledge is confused; but, like the light of the morning, it shines more and more to the perfect day, and then they see all things clearly. Slighting Christ's favours is forfeiting them; and he will make those who do so know the worth of privileges by the want of them.