John 9:39

9:39 Jesus ¹  said,] ²  “For judgment I have come into this world, so that those who do not see may gain their sight, ³  and the ones who see may become blind.”

John 9:1

Healing a Man Born Blind

9:1 Now as Jesus was passing by, ⁴  he saw a man who had been blind from birth.

John 1:20

1:20 He confessed – he did not deny but confessed – “I am not the Christ!” ⁵ 

Isaiah 29:10

29:10 For the Lord has poured out on you

a strong urge to sleep deeply. ⁶ 

He has shut your eyes (the prophets),

and covered your heads (the seers).

Ezekiel 14:9

14:9 “‘As for the prophet, if he is made a fool by being deceived into speaking a prophetic word – I, the Lord, have made a fool of ⁷  that prophet, and I will stretch out my hand against him and destroy him from among my people Israel.

Matthew 13:13-15

13:13 For this reason I speak to them in parables: Although they see they do not see, and although they hear they do not hear nor do they understand. 13:14 And concerning them the prophecy of Isaiah is fulfilled that says:

‘You will listen carefully ⁸  yet will never understand,

you will look closely ⁹  yet will never comprehend.

13:15 For the heart of this people has become dull;

they are hard of hearing,

and they have shut their eyes,

so that they would not see with their eyes

and hear with their ears

and understand with their hearts

and turn, and I would heal them.’ ¹⁰ 

Matthew 15:14

15:14 Leave them! They are blind guides. ¹¹  If someone who is blind leads another who is blind, ¹²  both will fall into a pit.”

Mark 4:12

4:12 so that although they look they may look but not see,

and although they hear they may hear but not understand,

so they may not repent and be forgiven.” ¹³ 

Luke 8:10

8:10 He ¹⁴  said, “You have been given ¹⁵  the opportunity to know ¹⁶  the secrets ¹⁷  of the kingdom of God, ¹⁸  but for others they are in parables, so that although they see they may not see, and although they hear they may not understand. ¹⁹ 

Acts 28:26

28:26 when he said,

‘Go to this people and say,

“You will keep on hearing, ²⁰  but will never understand,

and you will keep on looking, ²¹  but will never perceive.

Romans 11:8-11

11:8 as it is written,

“God gave them a spirit of stupor,

eyes that would not see and ears that would not hear,

to this very day.” ²² 

11:9 And David says,

“Let their table become a snare and trap,

a stumbling block and a retribution for them;

11:10 let their eyes be darkened so that they may not see,

and make their backs bend continually.” ²³ 

11:11 I ask then, they did not stumble into an irrevocable fall, ²⁴  did they? Absolutely not! But by their transgression salvation has come to the Gentiles, to make Israel ²⁵  jealous.

[9:39]  ¹ tn Grk “And Jesus.” Because of the difference between Greek style, which often begins sentences or clauses with “and,” and English style, which generally does not, καί (kai) has not been translated here.

[9:39]  ² tc ‡ Some early and important witnesses (Ì⁷⁵ א* W b sa^ms ac² mf) lack the words, “He said, ‘Lord, I believe,’ and he worshiped him. Jesus said,” (vv. 38-39a). This is weighty evidence for the omission of these words. It is difficult to overstate the value of Ì⁷⁵ here, since it is the only currently available papyrus ms extant for the text of John 9:38-39. Further, א is an important and early Alexandrian witness for the omission. The versional testimony and codex W also give strong support to the omission. Nearly all other mss, however, include these words. The omission may have been occasioned by parablepsis (both vv. 37 and 39 begin with “Jesus said to him”), though it is difficult to account for such an error across such a wide variety of witnesses. On the other hand, the longer reading appears to be motivated by liturgical concerns (so R. E. Brown, John [AB], 1:375), since the verb προσκυνέω (proskunew, “I worship”) is used in John 4:20-25 of worshiping God, and again with the same sense in 12:20. If these words were authentic here, this would be the only place in John’s Gospel where Jesus is the explicit object of προσκυνέω. Even if these words are not authentic, such an omission would nevertheless hardly diminish John’s high Christology (cf. 1:1; 5:18-23; 14:6-10; 20:28), nor the implicit worship of him by Thomas (20:28). Nevertheless, a decision is difficult, and the included words may reflect a very early tradition about the blind man’s response to Jesus.

[9:39]  ³ tn Or “that those who do not see may see.”

[9:1]  ⁴ tn Or “going along.” The opening words of chap. 9, καὶ παράγων (kai paragwn), convey only the vaguest indication of the circumstances.

[1:20]  ⁵ tn Or “the Messiah” (Both Greek “Christ” and Hebrew and Aramaic “Messiah” mean “one who has been anointed”).

[29:10]  ⁶ tn Heb “a disposition [or “spirit”] of deep sleep.” Through this mixed metaphor (sleep is likened to a liquid which one pours and in turn symbolizes spiritual dullness) the prophet emphasizes that God himself has given the people over to their spiritual insensitivity as a form of judgment.

[14:9]  ⁷ tn The translation is uncertain due to difficulty both in determining the meaning of the verb’s stem and its conjugation in this context. In the Qal stem the basic meaning of the verbal root פָּתַה (patah) is “to be gullible, foolish.” The doubling stems (the Pual and Piel used in this verse) typically give such stative verbs a factitive sense, hence either “make gullible” (i.e., “entice”) or “make into a fool” (i.e., “to show to be a fool”). The latter represents the probable meaning of the term in Jer 20:7, 10 and is followed here (see L. C. Allen, Ezekiel [WBC], 1:193; R. Mosis “Ez 14, 1-11 - ein Ruf zur Umkehr,” BZ 19 [1975]: 166-69 and ThWAT 4:829-31). In this view, if a prophet speaks when not prompted by God, he will be shown to be a fool, but this does not reflect negatively on the Lord because it is God who shows him to be a fool. Secondly, the verb is in the perfect conjugation and may be translated “I have made a fool of him” or “I have enticed him,” or to show determination (see IBHS 439-41 §27.2f and g), or in certain syntactical constructions as future. Any of these may be plausible if the doubling stems used are understood in the sense of “making a fool of.” But if understood as “to make gullible,” more factors come into play. As the Hebrew verbal form is a perfect, it is often translated as present perfect: “I have enticed.” In this case the Lord states that he himself enticed the prophet to cooperate with the idolaters. Such enticement to sin would seem to be a violation of God’s moral character, but sometimes he does use such deception and enticement to sin as a form of punishment against those who have blatantly violated his moral will (see, e.g., 2 Sam 24). If one follows this line of interpretation in Ezek 14:9, one would have to assume that the prophet had already turned from God in his heart. However, the context gives no indication of this. Therefore, it is better to take the perfect as indicating certitude and to translate it with the future tense: “I will entice.” In this case the Lord announces that he will judge the prophet appropriately. If a prophet allows himself to be influenced by idolaters, then the Lord will use deception as a form of punishment against that deceived prophet. A comparison with the preceding oracles also favors this view. In 14:4 the perfect of certitude is used for emphasis (see “I will answer”), though in v. 7 a participle is employed. For a fuller discussion of this text, see R. B. Chisholm, Jr., “Does God Deceive?” BSac 155 (1998): 23-25.

[13:14]  ⁸ tn Grk “with hearing,” a cognate dative that intensifies the action of the main verb “you will listen” (ExSyn 168-69).

[13:14]  ⁹ tn Grk “look by looking.” The participle is redundant, functioning to intensify the force of the main verb.

[13:15]  ¹⁰ sn A quotation from Isa 6:9-10. Thus parables both conceal or reveal depending on whether one is open to hearing what they teach.

[15:14]  ¹¹ tc ‡ Most mss, some of which are significant, read “They are blind guides of the blind” (א¹ C L W Z Θ Ë^1,13 33 Ï lat). The shorter reading is read by א*^,2 B D 0237 Epiph. There is a distinct possibility of omission due to homoioarcton in א*; this manuscript has a word order variation which puts the word τυφλοί (tufloi, “blind”) right before the word τυφλῶν (tuflwn, “of the blind”). This does not explain the shorter reading, however, in the other witnesses, of which B and D are quite weighty. Internal considerations suggest that the shorter reading is original: “of the blind” was likely added by scribes to balance this phrase with Jesus’ following statement about the blind leading the blind, which clearly has two groups in view. A decision is difficult, but internal considerations here along with the strength of the witnesses argue that the shorter reading is more likely original. NA²⁷ places τυφλῶν in brackets, indicating doubts as to its authenticity.

[15:14]  ¹² tn Grk “If blind leads blind.”

[4:12]  ¹³ sn A quotation from Isa 6:9-10. Thus parables both conceal or reveal depending on whether one is open to hearing what they teach.

[8:10]  ¹⁴ tn Here δέ (de) has not been translated.

[8:10]  ¹⁵ tn This is an example of a so-called “divine passive,” with God understood to be the source of the revelation (see ExSyn 437-38).

[8:10]  ¹⁶ tn Grk “it has been given to you to know.” The dative pronoun occurs first, in emphatic position in the Greek text, although this position is awkward in contemporary English.

[8:10]  ¹⁷ tn Grk “the mysteries.”

[8:10]  ¹⁸ sn The kingdom of God is a major theme of Jesus. It is a realm in which Jesus rules and to which those who trust him belong. See Luke 6:20; 11:20; 17:20-21.

[8:10]  ¹⁹ sn A quotation from Isa 6:9. Thus parables both conceal or reveal depending on whether one is open to hearing what they teach.

[28:26]  ²⁰ tn Grk “you will hear with hearing” (an idiom).

[28:26]  ²¹ tn Or “seeing”; Grk “you will look by looking” (an idiom).

[11:8]  ²² sn A quotation from Deut 29:4; Isa 29:10.

[11:10]  ²³ sn A quotation from Ps 69:22-23.

[11:11]  ²⁴ tn Grk “that they might fall.”

[11:11]  ²⁵ tn Grk “them”; the referent (Israel, cf. 11:7) has been specified in the translation for clarity.