John 9:11 - Exposition

He —the man there singled out— answered ( and said ), The Man that is called Jesus made clay, and anointed my eyes, and said to me, Go to the £ Siloam, and wash. So I went, and when I washed I received my sight. Nothing more as yet than the name of his Benefactor has broken upon him. The name is full of significance to him—the "Savior,': the "Healer;" but he knows nothing of his Messianic claims, nor of his Divine authority. He began, where all disciples must, with the Man . The manner of man soon wakes within him loftier questionings and a better explanation. At present the process seems magical, altogether inexplicable. Clay and Siloam water do not cure birth-blindness, tie is in a maze, as well he might be. The ἀνέβλεψα should be rendered, according to Meyer, "I looked up". It cannot be so translated in John 9:15 and John 9:18 . Doubtless it strictly means, "I received sight again;" but there is something in Grotius's explanation, "No one is incorrectly said to receive that which, though he be deprived of it, belongs to human nature as a whole" (see Westcott). The eyes were there, but unused. Meyer quotes from Pausanias the similar use of ἀναβλέπειν , in reference to the recovery or obtaining of sight by a man born blind.