John 9 is the ninth chapter of the

Gospel of John The Gospel of John ( grc, Εὐαγγέλιον κατὰ Ἰωάννην, translit=Euangélion katà Iōánnēn) is the fourth of the four canonical gospels. It contains a highly schematic account of the ministry of Jesus, with seven "sig ...

in the

New Testament The New Testament grc, Ἡ Καινὴ Διαθήκη, transl. ; la, Novum Testamentum. (NT) is the second division of the Christian biblical canon. It discusses the teachings and person of Jesus, as well as events in first-century Chri ...

of the Christian

Bible The Bible (from Koine Greek , , 'the books') is a collection of religious texts or scriptures that are held to be sacred in Christianity, Judaism, Samaritanism, and many other religions. The Bible is an anthologya compilation of texts ...

. It maintains the previous chapter's theme "Jesus is light",Watkins, H. W.
Ellicott's Commentary for Modern Readers
on John 8, accessed 16 May 2016 recording the healing of a man who had been blind from birth, a miracle performed by

Jesus Jesus, likely from he, יֵשׁוּעַ, translit=Yēšūaʿ, label= Hebrew/ Aramaic ( AD 30 or 33), also referred to as Jesus Christ or Jesus of Nazareth (among other names and titles), was a first-century Jewish preacher and religiou ...

, and their subsequent dealings with the Pharisees.Halley, Henry H., ''Halley's Bible Handbook'': an Abbreviated Bible Commentary. 23rd edition. Zondervan Publishing House. 1962. The man born blind comes to complete faith in Jesus, while some of the Pharisees remain in their sin. Kieffer, R., ''John'' in Barton, J. and Muddiman, J. (2001)
The Oxford Bible Commentary
, p. 978 The author of the book containing this chapter is anonymous, but early Christian tradition uniformly affirmed that

John John is a common English name and surname: * John (given name) * John (surname) John may also refer to: New Testament Works * Gospel of John, a title often shortened to John * First Epistle of John, often shortened to 1 John * Secon ...

composed this

Gospel Gospel originally meant the Christian message (" the gospel"), but in the 2nd century it came to be used also for the books in which the message was set out. In this sense a gospel can be defined as a loose-knit, episodic narrative of the words a ...

.Holman Illustrated Bible Handbook. Holman Bible Publishers, Nashville, Tennessee. 2012.

Text

The original text was written in

Koine Greek Koine Greek (; Koine el, ἡ κοινὴ διάλεκτος, hē koinè diálektos, the common dialect; ), also known as Hellenistic Greek, common Attic, the Alexandrian dialect, Biblical Greek or New Testament Greek, was the common supra-reg ...

. This chapter is divided into 41 verses.

Textual witnesses

Some early manuscripts containing the text of this chapter are: *

Papyrus 75 Papyrus 75 (formerly Papyrus Bodmer XIV– XV, now Hanna Papyrus 1), designated by the siglum (in the Gregory-Aland numbering of New Testament manuscripts), is an early Greek New Testament manuscript written on papyrus. It contains text from ...

(AD 175–225) * Papyrus 66 (c. 200). *

Codex Vaticanus The Codex Vaticanus ( The Vatican, Bibl. Vat., Vat. gr. 1209), designated by siglum B or 03 (in the Gregory-Aland numbering), δ 1 ( von Soden), is a fourth-century Christian manuscript of a Greek Bible, containing the majority of the Greek Old ...

(325-350) *

Codex Sinaiticus The Codex Sinaiticus ( Shelfmark: London, British Library, Add MS 43725), designated by siglum [Aleph] or 01 (in the Gregory-Aland numbering of New Testament manuscripts), δ 2 (in the von Soden numbering of New Testament manuscript ...

(330-360) *

Codex Bezae The Codex Bezae Cantabrigiensis, designated by siglum D or 05 (in the Gregory-Aland numbering of New Testament manuscripts), δ 5 (in the von Soden of New Testament manuscript), is a codex of the New Testament dating from the 5th century writ ...

(c. 400) *

Codex Alexandrinus The Codex Alexandrinus (London, British Library, Royal MS 1. D. V-VIII), designated by the siglum A or 02 (in the Gregory-Aland numbering of New Testament manuscripts), δ 4 (in the von Soden numbering of New Testament manuscripts), is a manu ...

(400-440) * Codex Ephraemi Rescriptus (c. 450; extant verses 1–10) *

Papyrus 128 Papyrus 128 (in the Biblical manuscript#Gregory–Aland, Gregory-Aland numbering), designated by , is a copy of a small part of the New Testament in Greek language, Greek. It is a papyrus manuscript of the Gospel of John, containing verses 9:3-4; ...

(6th/7th century; extant verses 3–4)

Sub-divisions

The New King James Version organises this chapter as follows: * = A Man Born Blind Receives Sight * = The Pharisees

Excommunicate Excommunication is an institutional act of religious censure used to end or at least regulate the Koinonia, communion of a member of a congregation with other members of the religious institution who are in normal communion with each other. The ...

the Healed Man * = True Vision and True Blindness

Location

Jesus and His disciples are said to be "passing by" and there is no indication yet that they have left

Jerusalem Jerusalem (; he, יְרוּשָׁלַיִם ; ar, القُدس ) (combining the Biblical and common usage Arabic names); grc, Ἱερουσαλήμ/Ἰεροσόλυμα, Hierousalḗm/Hierosóluma; hy, Երուսաղեմ, Erusałēm. i ...

, the scene of the narrative in chapters 7 and 8. Jesus sends the man He heals to the

Pool of Siloam The term Pool of Siloam ( ar, بركه سلوان, he, בריכת השילוח, ''Breikhat HaShiloah'') ( gr, Σιλωάμ) refers to a number of Rock-cut architecture, rock-cut pools on the southern slope of the City of David (Silwan), Wadi Hilw ...

, a rock-cut pool on the southern slope of Jerusalem, located outside the walls of the Old City to the southeast. However, there are also references to a Jewish ruling that anyone who believed Jesus to be the

Messiah In Abrahamic religions, a messiah or messias (; , ; , ; ) is a saviour or liberator of a group of people. The concepts of '' mashiach'', messianism, and of a Messianic Age originated in Judaism, and in the Hebrew Bible, in which a ''mashiach ...

would be excluded from the synagogue ( John 9:22). There is no other New Testament reference to Jerusalem having a synagogue, but rabbinical tradition states that there were 480 synagogues in Jerusalem at the time of the Jewish rebellion.

Chronology

The initial events of this chapter occur on a Sabbath (), not necessarily connected with the

Feast of Tabernacles or ("Booths, Tabernacles") , observedby = Jews, Samaritans, a few Protestant denominations, Messianic Jews, Semitic Neopagans , type = Jewish, Samaritan , begins = 15th day of Tishrei , ends = 21st day of Tishre ...

or the days immediately afterwards when the events of John 7- 8 took place. H. W. Watkins suggests that this was the last day, the "great day" of the Feast of Tabernacles referred to in because "nothing has taken place which makes it necessary to suppose any interval, and though the discourses seem long, they would have occupied but a short time in delivery", and the Pulpit Commentary agrees that "the day may have been a festival sabbath". Nicolas Colombel - Christ Healing the Blind

Nicolas Colombel - Christ Healing the Blind

Verse 4

New King James Version :''I must work the works of Him who sent Me while it is day; the night is coming when no one can work.'' This verse begins with "we must" ( gr, ἡμᾶς δεῖ, ''hemas dei'') in the

Westcott-Hort ''The New Testament in the Original Greek'' is a Greek-language version of the New Testament published in 1881. It is also known as the Westcott and Hort text, after its editors Brooke Foss Westcott (1825–1901) and Fenton John Anthony Hort (1828 ...

version and in the New International Version. The

Textus Receptus ''Textus Receptus'' (Latin: "received text") refers to all printed editions of the Greek New Testament from Erasmus's ''Novum Instrumentum omne'' (1516) to the 1633 Elzevir edition. It was the most commonly used text type for Protestant deno ...

and the

Vulgate The Vulgate (; also called (Bible in common tongue), ) is a late-4th-century Latin translation of the Bible. The Vulgate is largely the work of Jerome who, in 382, had been commissioned by Pope Damasus I to revise the Gospels u ...

both use the singular, "I must" ( la, Me oportet). The reference to "Him who sent me" anticipates the evangelist's note that "

Siloam Silwan or Siloam ( ar, سلوان, translit=Silwan; gr, Σιλωὰμ, translit=Siloam; he, כְּפַר הַשִּׁילוֹחַ, translit=''Kfar ha-Shiloaḥ'') is a predominantly Palestinian neighborhood in East Jerusalem, on the outski ...

means 'Sent' (verse 6), meaning that Jesus, who has been sent by his Father, "is also present in this water".

Verse 14

:''Now it was a Sabbath when Jesus made the clay and opened his eyes.'' The circumstances are similar to the healing at Bethesda in John 5.

Verse 22

:''The Jews had agreed already that if anyone confessed that He (Jesus) was Christ, he would be put out of the synagogue.'' "The word for ‘out of the synagogue’ ( gr, ἀποσυνάγωγος) is peculiar to John, occurring n, , and nowhere else". The decision has been linked to the possible

Council of Jamnia The Council of Jamnia (presumably Yavneh in the Holy Land) was a council purportedly held late in the 1st century CE to finalize the canon of the Hebrew Bible. It has also been hypothesized to be the occasion when the Jewish authorities decided ...

which was once thought to have decided the content of the Jewish canon sometime in the late 1st century (c. 70–90 AD). Verse 34 confirms that "they cast him out", the

Amplified Bible ''The Amplified Bible'' (AMP) is an English language translation of the Bible produced jointly by Zondervan and The Lockman Foundation. The first edition as a complete volume was published in 1965. “Amplifications” are words or phrases int ...

and the

New Living Translation The New Living Translation (NLT) is an English translation of the Bible. The origin of the NLT came from a project aiming to revise '' The Living Bible'' (TLB). This effort eventually led to the creation of the NLT—a new translation separat ...

adding text to refer to his exclusion from the synagogue.

Verse 38

:''Then he said, "Lord, I believe!" And he worshiped Him.'' A few manuscripts, such as Papyrus 75 and Codex Sinaiticus, omit the whole of verse 38 and the beginning of verse 39.

Verse 39

:''And Jesus said, "For judgment I have come into this world, that those who do not see may see, and that those who see may be made blind."'': NKJV

Verses 40-41

:''"Surely, we are not blind, are we?" Jesus said to them, "If you were blind, you would not have sin. But now that you say, 'We see', your sin remains."''

References

External links

* King James Bible - Wikisource
English Translation with Parallel Latin Vulgate''Online Bible'' at GospelHall.org
(ESV, KJV, Darby, American Standard Version, Bible in Basic English)
Multiple bible versions at ''Bible Gateway''
(NKJV, NIV, NRSV etc.) {{Gospel of John John 09