John 9 Bible study: One thing I do know

"As he passed by, he saw a man blind from birth" (9:1) (tap blind). His disciples asked him, "Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?" (9:2). Jesus answered, "This man didn’t sin, nor did his parents, but that the works of God might be revealed in him" (9:3), and went on, "I must work the works of him who sent me while it is day. The night is coming, when no one can work" (9:4) (tap work), and "While I am in the world, I am the light of the world" (9:5) (tap light). These are Jesus's words about this one man, and these notes apply them to no one else's blindness, illness or disability. "When he had said this, he spat on the ground, made mud with the saliva, anointed the blind man’s eyes with the mud" (9:6), "and said to him, “Go, wash in the pool of Siloam” (which means “Sent”). So he went away, washed, and came back seeing" (9:7) (tap pool). By the WEB's quotation marks, the words in parentheses are not Jesus's: they are the Gospel's own. It gives the name's meaning and says no more about it, and it doesn't say why Jesus used mud; these notes don't either. Here is what almost everyone misses: the chapter's first words, "As he passed by" (9:1), come straight after the last words of chapter 8, "and so passed by" (8:59). The WEB's John has passed by only in these two verses. These notes build nothing on it.

2 Kings 6:17→leads toJohn 9:39

At Dothan the LORD opened the young man's eyes, "and he saw" (6:17). At Elisha's prayer the army that came to take him was struck "with blindness" (6:18), and in Samaria "The LORD opened their eyes, and they saw" (6:20). After Jesus gave sight to a man born blind (John 9:1-7), he said, "I came into this world for judgment, that those who don’t see may see; and that those who see may become blind" (John 9:39), and he went on to speak of more than eyes (John 9:40-41). John doesn't cite 2 Kings 6. Setting Jesus's words beside this chapter is a reading, not a link the New Testament draws; others read 6:17-20 only as the LORD protecting Elisha, with nothing said about Jesus.

τυφλόςtyphlossay toof-LOS

Thayer: "blind". It comes 15 times in this chapter (counted in RP2018), more than in any other chapter of the New Testament. The first is "a man blind from birth" (9:1). The last three come at the end, in Jesus's words and the question put to him: "that those who see may become blind" (9:39), "Are we also blind?" (9:40), and "If you were blind, you would have no sin" (9:41). These notes say no more of what Jesus means there than his words. John's Greek has it 18 times. Before this it is among those lying at the pool, who "were sick, blind, lame, or paralyzed" (5:3), and after it the word comes twice more, when others speak of eyes opened: "It isn’t possible for a demon to open the eyes of the blind, is it?" (10:21), and "Couldn’t this man, who opened the eyes of him who was blind, have also kept this man from dying?" (11:37).