John 9: What the Passage Says

The Chapter in a Sentence

Jesus sees a man who has been blind since birth, makes mud with his spit, puts it on the man's eyes, and tells him to wash in the Pool of Siloam; the man washes and can see. Because Jesus did this on the Sabbath, the Pharisees question the man twice and question his parents, who are afraid of being put out of the synagogue and refer the leaders back to their son. When the man argues that only someone from God could do this, the leaders throw him out. Jesus finds him, and the man believes; Jesus then says he came for judgment, and tells the Pharisees that because they claim to see, their guilt stays.

Claim by Claim

1. 9:1
   • Jesus was passing by.
   • Jesus saw a man.
   • The man had been blind from birth.
2. 9:2
   • Jesus' disciples asked him a question.
   • The disciples addressed Jesus as Teacher.
   • The disciples asked whether this man or his parents had sinned.
   • The disciples' question assumed that the man was born blind as a result of someone's sin.
3. 9:3
   • Jesus answered.
   • Jesus said this man had not sinned.
   • Jesus said the man's parents had not sinned.
   • Jesus said the purpose was that the works of God should be made visible in the man.
4. 9:4
   • Jesus said he must do the works of the one who sent him.
   • Jesus said this work must be done while it is day.
   • Jesus said night is coming.
   • Jesus said that in that night no one can work.
5. 9:5
   • Jesus said that as long as he is in the world, he is the light of the world.
6. 9:6
   • Jesus had said these things.
   • Jesus spat on the ground.
   • Jesus made clay out of the saliva.
   • Jesus put the clay on the blind man's eyes.
7. 9:7
   • Jesus told the man to go and wash in the pool of Siloam.
   • The name Siloam is interpreted as 'Sent'.
   • The man went away.
   • The man washed.
   • The man came back seeing.
8. 9:8
   • The man's neighbors spoke.
   • Those who had previously seen that he was blind spoke.
   • They asked whether this was not the man who used to sit and beg.
9. 9:9
   • Some said this was the man.
   • Others said he only resembled the man.
   • The man himself said that he was the one.
10. 9:10
    • They asked the man how his eyes had been opened.
11. 9:11
    • The man answered.
    • The man said a man called Jesus made clay.
    • The man said Jesus anointed his eyes with it.
    • The man said Jesus told him to go to the pool of Siloam and wash.
    • The man said he went and washed.
    • The man said he received sight.
12. 9:12
    • They asked the man where Jesus was.
    • The man said he did not know.
13. 9:13
    • They brought the man who had formerly been blind to the Pharisees.
14. 9:14
    • The day on which Jesus made the clay was a sabbath.
    • Jesus opened the man's eyes on that day.
15. 9:15
    • The Pharisees also asked the man again how he had received his sight.
    • The man said Jesus put clay on his eyes.
    • The man said he washed.
    • The man said he now sees.
16. 9:16
    • Some of the Pharisees said this man is not from God.
    • They gave as the reason that he does not keep the sabbath.
    • Others said a sinful man could not do such signs.
    • There was a division among them.
17. 9:17
    • They spoke to the blind man again.
    • They asked him what he said about the one who opened his eyes.
    • The man said Jesus is a prophet.
18. 9:18
    • The Jews did not believe that the man had been blind and had received sight.
    • Their disbelief lasted until they summoned the parents of the man who had received sight.
19. 9:19
    • They questioned the parents.
    • They asked whether this was their son.
    • They noted that the parents said he was born blind.
    • They asked how he now sees.
20. 9:20
    • The man's parents answered.
    • The parents said they knew this was their son.
    • The parents said they knew he was born blind.
21. 9:21
    • The parents said they did not know how he now sees.
    • The parents said they did not know who opened his eyes.
    • The parents told them to ask the man himself.
    • The parents said he is of age.
    • The parents said he will speak about himself.
22. 9:22
    • The parents said these things because they feared the Jews.
    • The Jews had already agreed on a policy.
    • The policy was that anyone who confessed Jesus to be the Christ would be put out of the synagogue.
23. 9:23
    • Because of this the parents said he is of age.
    • Because of this the parents said to ask him.
24. 9:24
    • They called the man who had been blind a second time.
    • They told him to give glory to God.
    • They said they knew that this man is a sinner.
25. 9:25
    • The man answered.
    • The man said he did not know whether Jesus is a sinner.
    • The man said he knew one thing.
    • The man said that he was blind and now sees.
26. 9:26
    • They asked the man what Jesus did to him.
    • They asked how Jesus opened his eyes.
27. 9:27
    • The man answered them.
    • The man said he had already told them.
    • The man said they did not listen.
    • The man asked why they wanted to hear it again.
    • The man asked whether they also wanted to become Jesus' disciples.
28. 9:28
    • They reviled the man.
    • They said he was Jesus' disciple.
    • They said they were disciples of Moses.
29. 9:29
    • They said they knew that God had spoken to Moses.
    • They said they did not know where this man is from.
30. 9:30
    • The man answered them.
    • The man said the marvelous thing is this: that they do not know where Jesus is from.
    • The man said that Jesus opened his eyes.
31. 9:31
    • The man said they know that God does not listen to sinners.
    • The man said that if anyone is a worshipper of God and does his will, God listens to that person.
32. 9:32
    • The man said that since the world began it has not been heard that anyone opened the eyes of a person born blind.
33. 9:33
    • The man said that if Jesus were not from God, he could do nothing.
34. 9:34
    • They answered the man.
    • They said he was born entirely in sins.
    • They asked whether he was teaching them.
    • They cast him out.
35. 9:35
    • Jesus heard that they had cast the man out.
    • Jesus found the man.
    • Jesus asked him whether he believed in the Son of God.
36. 9:36
    • The man answered.
    • The man asked who the Son of God is.
    • The man addressed Jesus as Lord.
    • The man said he asked so that he might believe in him.
37. 9:37
    • Jesus said to him that he had seen him.
    • Jesus said that the one speaking with him is that person.
38. 9:38
    • The man said he believed.
    • The man addressed Jesus as Lord.
    • The man worshipped Jesus.
39. 9:39
    • Jesus said he came into this world for judgment.
    • Jesus said the purpose was that those who do not see might see.
    • Jesus said the purpose was that those who see might become blind.
40. 9:40
    • Some of the Pharisees who were with Jesus heard these words.
    • They asked Jesus whether they also were blind.
41. 9:41
    • Jesus answered them.
    • Jesus said that if they were blind they would have no sin.
    • Jesus said that they now claim to see.
    • Jesus said that their sin remains.

Words Worth Explaining

Every language note in this chapter, gathered. These explain what a word meant, never what it means for the reader.

9:2

"Master" in the King James translates "Rabbi," a title for a recognized teacher of the law; it does not mean owner or employer. The disciples' question assumes that a particular sin lies behind a particular affliction. Since the man was blind from birth, that leaves only two candidates in their minds: something his parents did, or, in a line of rabbinic speculation, something the child himself did before birth.

9:3

The Greek here has no punctuation and no verb in the second half of the sentence. It reads, word for word, "but so that the works of God might be shown in him," and a translator has to decide where the sentence breaks and what exactly is being explained.

9:4

The oldest manuscripts read "we must work the works" rather than "I must"; in Greek the two forms differ by a single letter, so copies vary. "Day" and "night" are the ordinary working day: before artificial light, outdoor work simply stopped at sundown.

9:5

Jesus is not talking about a lamp or the sun. Light here means help for people to see and understand.

9:6

Saliva was widely believed in the ancient world to carry healing power, and cures by spittle were credited to doctors and even to emperors. "Anointed" here carries no ceremonial sense; it means smeared or spread on.

9:7

The Pool of Siloam was a large public reservoir at the south end of Jerusalem, fed by water carried through a rock tunnel from the Gihon spring outside the wall. Its Hebrew name, shiloach, comes from a verb meaning "to send," which is the wordplay John stops to point out.

9:8

A blind man in this society had almost no way to earn a living, so begging from a fixed spot was the expected livelihood. That is why a whole neighborhood knew him by sight.

9:13

The Pharisees were a religious movement known for strict and detailed keeping of the law of Moses, including a large body of oral rules developed around it. They were not the priesthood; their influence came from learning and from standing among ordinary people.

9:14

Two points of Sabbath law are in play. Kneading was one of the categories of work forbidden on the Sabbath in the oral tradition, and mixing dirt with spit to make mud counted as kneading. Beyond that, healing a condition that was not life-threatening was held to be something that could wait until the next day.

9:16

"Miracles" here translates the word John normally uses for "signs": an act that points beyond itself to who the doer is, rather than a wonder valued for its own sake.

9:17

A prophet, in this setting, is someone who speaks on God's behalf. Predicting the future can be part of that, but the core meaning is spokesman, not fortune teller.

9:18

"The Jews" in John's Gospel usually means the Judean authorities who are in dispute with Jesus, not the Jewish people generally. Everyone in this scene is Jewish, including Jesus, the healed man, and his parents.

9:21

"He is of age" means he is legally an adult and can give testimony in his own name. The parents are shifting the legal responsibility for the answer onto him.

9:22

"Christ" translates the Greek for "anointed one," the same word as the Hebrew "Messiah": the awaited deliverer of Israel. To be "put out of the synagogue" meant more than losing a place of worship. The synagogue was the center of local community life, so exclusion cut a family off socially as well as religiously.

9:24

"Give God the praise" is not an invitation to thank God for the cure. It is a formal charge to tell the truth under oath, used the same way in Joshua 7:19, where Joshua presses Achan to confess. They are telling the man to come clean, having already announced their verdict on Jesus.

9:27

The man's reply is sarcastic. Asking his interrogators whether they want to become disciples too is a deliberate insult in this setting, and it is what triggers the abuse in the next verse.

9:28

"Reviled" means abused or insulted. To claim to be "Moses' disciples" is to claim the settled, authorized tradition going back to the Law given at Sinai, as opposed to following a teacher nobody can vouch for.

9:29

"This fellow" renders a Greek phrase that is simply "this one," used dismissively; the contempt is in the tone rather than in a separate insulting word. To know "from whence he is" means knowing a man's origin and therefore whether he has any authority to teach.

9:30

Remarkable means surprising. The man is saying, "Isn't it odd that you don't know him?"

9:31

"A worshipper of God" translates a single Greek word for a devout person, someone whose whole manner of life is turned toward God. The principle the man states was a commonplace of the period, which is why he can say "we know."

9:32

"Since the world began" translates an idiom that runs literally "from the age," meaning in all of recorded time.

9:34

"Born in sins" throws the assumption of verse 2 back at the man: to them, his blindness from birth proves he was steeped in sin from the start. "Cast him out" is ambiguous in the Greek. It may mean only that they threw him out of the room, or that they formally excluded him from the synagogue, the punishment mentioned in verse 22.

9:35

The earliest manuscripts read "Son of man," the title Jesus most often uses of himself in the Gospels. "Son of God" appears in later copies, which are the ones the King James translators worked from.

9:36

The word translated "Lord" here is the ordinary Greek term of respect, ranging in force from "sir" to a title for God. At this point the man is addressing a stranger politely; it is the same word he uses in verse 38, after he knows who is speaking.

9:38

The verb translated "worshipped" means to bow low or prostrate oneself. That gesture could be offered to a king or a patron as well as to God, so the word alone does not settle how much the man intends by it. A few of the oldest manuscripts omit verse 38 and the opening words of verse 39 altogether.

9:39

"For judgment" uses a Greek word for the act of judging or the verdict it produces. The sense is a sorting, one group separated from another, rather than a sentence of punishment.

9:41

"Your sin remaineth" is about guilt that stays in place because nothing has been acknowledged, not about an offense being repeated.