John 9:6-7

9:6 Having said this, ¹  he spat on the ground and made some mud ²  with the saliva. He ³  smeared the mud on the blind man’s ⁴  eyes 9:7 and said to him, “Go wash in the pool of Siloam” ⁵  (which is translated “sent”). ⁶  So the blind man ⁷  went away and washed, and came back seeing.

John 9:27

9:27 He answered, ⁸  “I told you already and you didn’t listen. ⁹  Why do you want to hear it ¹⁰  again? You people ¹¹  don’t want to become his disciples too, do you?”

Jeremiah 36:17

36:17 Then they asked Baruch, “How did you come to write all these words? Do they actually come from Jeremiah’s mouth?” ¹² 

[9:6]  ¹ tn Grk “said these things.”

[9:6]  ² tn Or “clay” (moistened earth of a clay-like consistency). The textual variant preserved in the Syriac text of Ephraem’s commentary on the Diatessaron (“he made eyes from his clay”) probably arose from the interpretation given by Irenaeus in Against Heresies: “that which the Artificer, the Word, had omitted to form in the womb, he then supplied in public.” This involves taking the clay as an allusion to Gen 2:7, which is very unlikely.

[9:6]  ³ tn Because of the length and complexity of the Greek sentence, the conjunction καί (kai) was replaced by a third person pronoun and a new sentence started here in the translation.

[9:6]  ⁴ tn Grk “on his.”

[9:7]  ⁵ tn The pool’s name in Hebrew is shiloah from the Hebrew verb “to send.” In Gen 49:10 the somewhat obscure shiloh was interpreted messianically by later Jewish tradition, and some have seen a lexical connection between the two names (although this is somewhat dubious). It is known, however, that it was from the pool of Siloam that the water which was poured out at the altar during the feast of Tabernacles was drawn.

[9:7]  ⁶ sn This is a parenthetical note by the author. Why does he comment on the meaning of the name of the pool? Here, the significance is that the Father sent the Son, and the Son sent the man born blind. The name of the pool is applicable to the man, but also to Jesus himself, who was sent from heaven.

[9:7]  ⁷ tn Grk “So he”; the referent (the blind man) is specified in the translation for clarity.

[9:27]  ⁸ tn Grk “He answered them.” The indirect object αὐτοῖς (autois) has not been translated for stylistic reasons.

[9:27]  ⁹ tn Grk “you did not hear.”

[9:27]  ¹⁰ tn “It” is not in the Greek text but has been supplied. Direct objects in Greek were often omitted when they were clearly implied in the context.

[9:27]  ¹¹ tn The word “people” is supplied in the translation to clarify the plural Greek pronoun and verb.

[36:17]  ¹² tn Or “Did Jeremiah dictate them to you?” The words “Do they actually come from Jeremiah’s mouth?” assume that the last phrase (מִפִּיו, mippiv) is a question, either without the formal he (הֲ) interrogative (see GKC 473 §150.a and compare usage in 1 Sam 16:4; Prov 5:16) or with a letter supplied from the end of the preceding word (single writing of a letter following the same letter [haplography]; so the majority of modern commentaries). The word is missing in the Greek version. The presence of this same word at the beginning of the answer in the next verse suggests that this was a question (probably without the he [הֲ] interrogative to make it more emphatic) since the common way to answer affirmatively is to repeat the emphatic word in the question (cf. GKC 476 §150.n and compare usage in Gen 24:58). The intent of the question is to make sure that these were actually Jeremiah’s words not Baruch’s own creation (cf. Jer 42:2-3 for a similar suspicion).