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Joh_9:8-12. Καὶ οἱ θεωροῦντες , etc.] And they who before had seen him that he was a beggar, the previous eye-witnesses of his being a beggar. The καί gives the force of universality: and in general; the partic. praes. has the force of the imperfect.
ὁ καθημ . κ . προσαιτ .] who is accustomed to sit there and beg. They had known him for a long while as occupied in no other way than in begging.
The peculiarly vivid and detailed character of what follows renders it probable that John derived his information from the lips of the man himself after he had become a believer.
Joh_9:11. ἄνθρωπος λεγομ . Ἰησοῦς ] “nescierat caecus celebritatem Jesu,” is the opinion of Bengel and others. But he must surely have learnt something more regarding his deliverer than His mere name. The quondam blind man conducts himself rather throughout the whole affair in a very impartial and judicious manner, and for the present keeps to the simple matter of fact, without as yet venturing on a further judgment.
ἀνέβλεψα ] may signify, I looked up (Mar_16:4; 2Ma_7:25; Plat. Pol. vii. p. 515 C; Ax. p. 370 C; Xen. Cyr. vi. 4. 9). So Lücke; but this meaning is inadmissible on account of Joh_9:15; Joh_9:18, which require, I became again seeing, visum recepi. Comp. Mat_11:5; Tob_14:2; Plat. Phaedr. p. 243 B. As regards the man born blind, indeed, the expression is inexact, but rests on the general notion that even one born blind has the natural power of sight, though he has been deprived of its use from his very birth, and that he recovers it through the healing.[48]
That the man is able to give, at all events, the name of his benefactor, is intelligible enough from the inquiries which he would naturally institute after he had been healed. But the circumstance that whilst at the outset he expresses no opinion regarding the person of Jesus (see previously on ἄνθρ . λεγ . Ἰησ .), he notwithstanding afterwards declares Him to be a Prophet (Joh_9:17), and One sent of God (Joh_9:33), though he was first brought by Jesus Himself to believe in Him as the Messiah in Joh_9:35 ff., is entirely in keeping with the gradual nature of the development through which he passed. Such a gradation is, indeed, natural and necessary in some cases, whereas others differently constituted are at once carried to the goal by the force of the first impression received. This in opposition to Baur’s supposition that the narrator designedly so framed his account that the miracle should be viewed as an ἔργον θεοῦ primarily in its pure objectivity.
εἰς τὸν Σιλωάμ ] here the name of the pool; hence, the Rec. has εἰς τ . κολυμβ . τ . Σιλ .,—a correct gloss.
[48] Comp. Grotius: “Nec male recipere quis dicitur, quod communiter tributum humanae naturae ipsi abfuit.” In Pausanias, also (Messen. iv. p. 240), we read of one who was born blind and received sight, ἀνέβλεψε . Comp. Evang. Nicod. 6, where the man born blind who there speaks says: ἐπέθηκε τὰς χεῖρας ἐπὶ τ . ὀφθαλμούς μου , καὶ ἀνέβλεψα παραχρῆμα .