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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comAdam Clarke Commentary - John 9:16 - 9:16
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This man is not of God - He can neither be the Messiah, nor a prophet, for he has broken the Sabbath. The Jews always argued falsely on this principle. The law relative to the observation of the Sabbath never forbade any work but what was of the servile and unnecessary kind. Works of necessity and mercy never could be forbidden on that day by him whose name is mercy, and whose nature is love; for the Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath; were it otherwise, the Sabbath would be rather a curse than a blessing.
How can a man that is a sinner, etc. - They knew very well that though magicians and impostors might do things apparently miraculous, yet nothing really good could be performed by them. We might have safely defied all the magicians in Egypt, who are said to have been so successful in imitating some of the miracles of Moses, to have opened the eyes of one blind man, or to have done any essential good either to the body or to the soul.
And there was a division among them - Σχισμα, a schism, a decided difference of opinion, which caused a separation of the assembly.