John 9:11 MEANING

(11) A man that is called Jesus.--Some of the better MSS. read, "The Man that is called Jesus," implying that He would be known to the blind man and his friends. They can hardly have failed to hear of His teaching at the feast.

Made clay, and anointed mine eyes.--He gives the details in order, omitting the spitting on the ground, which he had not seen.

And I received sight.--The Greek word means exactly, "to see again." The power, though given in this instance for the first time, was usually a restored power, and this is expressed in the word. This man uses the ordinary language of men, though, in strictness it was not applicable to his own case. This use of the word is, moreover, justified by other examples.

Verse 11. - 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, he is in a maze, as well he might be. The ἀνέβλεψα should be rendered, according to Meyer, "I looked up" (see Mark 16:4). It cannot be so translated in vers. 15 and 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.

9:8-12 Those whose eyes are opened, and whose hearts are cleansed by grace, being known to be the same person, but widely different in character, live as monuments to the Redeemer's glory, and recommend his grace to all who desire the same precious salvation. It is good to observe the way and method of God's works, and they will appear the more wonderful. Apply this spiritually. In the work of grace wrought upon the soul we see the change, but we see not the hand that makes it: the way of the Spirit is like that of the wind, which thou hearest the sound of, but canst not tell whence it comes, nor whither it goes.He answered and said, a man that is called Jesus,.... Whom he had as yet little knowledge of, only by some means or another he had learned his name;

made clay and anointed mine eyes, &c. See Gill on John 9:6, John 9:7.