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.

[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.