Matius 9:27-31

Healing the Blind and Mute

9:27 As Jesus went on from there, two blind men followed him, shouting, ¹  “Have mercy ²  on us, Son of David!” ³  9:28 When ⁴  he went into the house, the blind men came to him. Jesus ⁵  said to them, “Do you believe that I am able to do this?” They said to him, “Yes, Lord.” 9:29 Then he touched their eyes saying, “Let it be done for you according to your faith.” 9:30 And their eyes were opened. Then Jesus sternly warned them, “See that no one knows about this.” 9:31 But they went out and spread the news about him throughout that entire region. ⁶ 

Matius 12:22

Jesus and Beelzebul

12:22 Then they brought to him a demon-possessed man who was blind and mute. Jesus ⁷  healed him so that he could speak and see. ⁸ 

Matius 21:14

21:14 The blind and lame came to him in the temple courts, and he healed them.

Mazmur 146:8

146:8 The Lord gives sight to the blind.

The Lord lifts up all who are bent over. ⁹ 

The Lord loves the godly.

Yesaya 29:18

29:18 At that time ¹⁰  the deaf will be able to hear words read from a scroll,

and the eyes of the blind will be able to see through deep darkness. ¹¹ 

Yesaya 35:5-6

35:5 Then blind eyes will open,

deaf ears will hear.

35:6 Then the lame will leap like a deer,

the mute tongue will shout for joy;

for water will flow ¹²  in the desert,

streams in the wilderness. ¹³ 

Yesaya 42:16

42:16 I will lead the blind along an unfamiliar way; ¹⁴ 

I will guide them down paths they have never traveled. ¹⁵ 

I will turn the darkness in front of them into light,

and level out the rough ground. ¹⁶ 

This is what I will do for them.

I will not abandon them.

Yesaya 42:18

The Lord Reasons with His People

42:18 “Listen, you deaf ones!

Take notice, ¹⁷  you blind ones!

Yesaya 59:10

59:10 We grope along the wall like the blind,

we grope like those who cannot see; ¹⁸ 

we stumble at noontime as if it were evening.

Though others are strong, we are like dead men. ¹⁹ 

Yesaya 61:1-2

The Lord Will Rejuvenate His People

61:1 The spirit of the sovereign Lord is upon me,

because the Lord has chosen ²⁰  me. ²¹ 

He has commissioned ²²  me to encourage ²³  the poor,

to help ²⁴  the brokenhearted,

to decree the release of captives,

and the freeing of prisoners,

61:2 to announce the year when the Lord will show his favor,

the day when our God will seek vengeance, ²⁵ 

to console all who mourn,

Markus 10:46

Healing Blind Bartimaeus

10:46 They came to Jericho. ²⁶  As Jesus ²⁷  and his disciples and a large crowd were leaving Jericho, Bartimaeus the son of Timaeus, a blind beggar, was sitting by the road.

Lukas 4:18

4:18 “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,

because he has anointed ²⁸  me to proclaim good news ²⁹  to the poor. ³⁰ 

He has sent me ³¹  to proclaim release ³²  to the captives

and the regaining of sight ³³  to the blind,

to set free ³⁴  those who are oppressed, ³⁵ 

Lukas 7:21

7:21 At that very time ³⁶  Jesus ³⁷  cured many people of diseases, sicknesses, ³⁸  and evil spirits, and granted ³⁹  sight to many who were blind.

Yohanes 9:1-12

Healing a Man Born Blind

9:1 Now as Jesus was passing by, ⁴⁰  he saw a man who had been blind from birth. 9:2 His disciples asked him, ⁴¹  “Rabbi, who committed the sin that caused him to be born blind, this man ⁴²  or his parents?” ⁴³  9:3 Jesus answered, “Neither this man ⁴⁴  nor his parents sinned, but he was born blind so that ⁴⁵  the acts ⁴⁶  of God may be revealed ⁴⁷  through what happens to him. ⁴⁸  9:4 We must perform the deeds ⁴⁹  of the one who sent me ⁵⁰  as long as ⁵¹  it is daytime. Night is coming when no one can work. 9:5 As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world.” ⁵²  9:6 Having said this, ⁵³  he spat on the ground and made some mud ⁵⁴  with the saliva. He ⁵⁵  smeared the mud on the blind man’s ⁵⁶  eyes 9:7 and said to him, “Go wash in the pool of Siloam” ⁵⁷  (which is translated “sent”). ⁵⁸  So the blind man ⁵⁹  went away and washed, and came back seeing.

9:8 Then the neighbors and the people who had seen him previously ⁶⁰  as a beggar began saying, ⁶¹  “Is this not the man ⁶²  who used to sit and beg?” 9:9 Some people said, ⁶³  “This is the man!” ⁶⁴  while others said, “No, but he looks like him.” ⁶⁵  The man himself ⁶⁶  kept insisting, “I am the one!” ⁶⁷  9:10 So they asked him, ⁶⁸  “How then were you made to see?” ⁶⁹  9:11 He replied, ⁷⁰  “The man called Jesus made mud, ⁷¹  smeared it ⁷²  on my eyes and told me, ⁷³  ‘Go to Siloam and wash.’ So I went and washed, and was able to see.” ⁷⁴  9:12 They said ⁷⁵  to him, “Where is that man?” ⁷⁶  He replied, ⁷⁷  “I don’t know.”

[9:27]  ¹ tn Grk “shouting, saying.” The participle λέγοντες (legontes) is redundant in contemporary English and has not been translated.

[9:27]  ² sn Have mercy on us is a request for healing. It is not owed to the men. They simply ask for God’s kind grace.

[9:27]  ³ sn There was a tradition in Judaism that the Son of David (Solomon) had great powers of healing (Josephus, Ant. 8.2.5 [8.42-49]).

[9:28]  ⁴ tn Here δέ (de) has not been translated.

[9:28]  ⁵ tn Grk “to him, and Jesus.” This is a continuation of the previous sentence in Greek, but a new sentence was started here in the translation.

[9:31]  ⁶ tn For the translation of τὴν γῆν ἐκείνην (thn ghn ekeinhn) as “that region,” see L&N 1.79.

[12:22]  ⁷ tn Grk “And he”; the referent (Jesus) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[12:22]  ⁸ tn Grk “demoniac, and he healed him, so that the mute man spoke and saw.”

[146:8]  ⁹ tn Perhaps “discouraged” (see Ps 57:6).

[29:18]  ¹⁰ tn Or “In that day” (KJV).

[29:18]  ¹¹ tn Heb “and out of gloom and darkness the eyes of the blind will see.”

[29:18]  sn Perhaps this depicts the spiritual transformation of the once spiritually insensitive nation (see vv. 10-12, cf. also 6:9-10).

[35:6]  ¹² tn Heb “burst forth” (so NAB); KJV “break out.”

[35:6]  ¹³ tn Or “Arabah” (NASB); KJV, NIV, NRSV, NLT “desert.”

[42:16]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “a way they do not know” (so NASB); NRSV “a road they do not know.”

[42:16]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “in paths they do not know I will make them walk.”

[42:16]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “and the rough ground into a level place.”

[42:18]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “look to see”; NAB, NCV “look and see”; NRSV “look up and see.”

[59:10]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “like there are no eyes.”

[59:10]  ¹⁹ tn Heb among the strong, like dead men.”

[61:1]  ²⁰ tn Heb “anointed,” i.e., designated to carry out an assigned task.

[61:1]  ²¹ sn The speaker is not identified, but he is distinct from the Lord and from Zion’s suffering people. He possesses the divine spirit, is God’s spokesman, and is sent to release prisoners from bondage. The evidence suggests he is the Lord’s special servant, described earlier in the servant songs (see 42:1-4, 7; 49:2, 9; 50:4; see also 51:16).

[61:1]  ²² tn Or “sent” (NAB); NCV “has appointed me.”

[61:1]  ²³ tn Or “proclaim good news to.”

[61:1]  ²⁴ tn Heb “to bind up [the wounds of].”

[61:2]  ²⁵ tn Heb “to announce the year of the Lord’s favor, and the day of our God’s vengeance.

[10:46]  ²⁶ map For location see Map5 B2; Map6 E1; Map7 E1; Map8 E3; Map10 A2; Map11 A1.

[10:46]  ²⁷ tn Grk “he”; the referent (Jesus) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[4:18]  ²⁸ sn The phrase he has anointed me is an allusion back to Jesus’ baptism in Luke 3:21-22.

[4:18]  ²⁹ tn Grk “to evangelize,” “to preach the gospel.”

[4:18]  ³⁰ sn The poor is a key term in Luke. It refers to the pious poor and indicates Jesus’ desire to reach out to those the world tends to forget or mistreat. It is like 1:52 in force and also will be echoed in 6:20 (also 1 Pet 2:11-25). Jesus is commissioned to do this.

[4:18]  ³¹ tc The majority of mss, especially the later Byzantines, include the phrase “to heal the brokenhearted” at this point (A Θ Ψ 0102 ˹ Ï). The phrase is lacking in several weighty mss (א B D L W Ξ Ë¹³ 33 579 700 892* pc lat sy^s co), including representatives from both the Alexandrian and Western texttypes. From the standpoint of external evidence, the omission of the phrase is more likely original. When internal evidence is considered, the shorter reading becomes almost certain. Scribes would be much more prone to add the phrase here to align the text with Isa 61:1, the source of the quotation, than to remove it from the original.

[4:18]  ³² sn The release in view here is comprehensive, both at a physical level and a spiritual one, as the entire ministry of Jesus makes clear (Luke 1:77-79; 7:47; 24:47; Acts 2:38; 5:31; 10:43).

[4:18]  ³³ sn Again, as with the previous phrase, regaining of sight may well mean more than simply miraculously restoring physical sight, which itself pictures a deeper reality (Luke 1:77-79; 18:35-43).

[4:18]  ³⁴ sn The essence of Jesus’ messianic work is expressed in the phrase to set free. This line from Isa 58 says that Jesus will do what the nation had failed to do. It makes the proclamation messianic, not merely prophetic, because Jesus doesn’t just proclaim the message – he brings the deliverance. The word translated set free is the same Greek word (ἄφεσις, afesi") translated release earlier in the verse.

[4:18]  ³⁵ sn Again, as with the previous phrases, oppressed may well mean more than simply political or economic oppression, but a deeper reality of oppression by sin (Luke 1:77-79; 18:35-43).

[7:21]  ³⁶ tn Grk “In that hour.”

[7:21]  ³⁷ tn Grk “he”; the referent (Jesus) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[7:21]  ³⁸ tn Grk “and sicknesses,” but καί (kai) has not been translated since English normally uses a coordinating conjunction only between the last two elements in a series of three or more.

[7:21]  ³⁹ tn Or “and bestowed (sight) on.”

[9:1]  ⁴⁰ tn Or “going along.” The opening words of chap. 9, καὶ παράγων (kai paragwn), convey only the vaguest indication of the circumstances.

[9:1]  sn Since there is no break with chap. 8, Jesus is presumably still in Jerusalem, and presumably not still in the temple area. The events of chap. 9 fall somewhere between the feast of Tabernacles (John 7:2) and the feast of the Dedication (John 10:22). But in the author’s narrative the connection exists – the incident recorded in chap. 9 (along with the ensuing debates with the Pharisees) serves as a real-life illustration of the claim Jesus made in 8:12, I am the light of the world. This is in fact the probable theological motivation behind the juxtaposition of these two incidents in the narrative. The second serves as an illustration of the first, and as a concrete example of the victory of light over darkness. One other thing which should be pointed out about the miracle recorded in chap. 9 is its messianic significance. In the OT it is God himself who is associated with the giving of sight to the blind (Exod 4:11, Ps 146:8). In a number of passages in Isa (29:18, 35:5, 42:7) it is considered to be a messianic activity.

[9:2]  ⁴¹ tn Grk “asked him, saying.”

[9:2]  ⁴² tn Grk “this one.”

[9:2]  ⁴³ tn Grk “in order that he should be born blind.”

[9:2]  sn The disciples assumed that sin (regardless of who committed it) was the cause of the man’s blindness. This was a common belief in Judaism; the rabbis used Ezek 18:20 to prove there was no death without sin, and Ps 89:33 to prove there was no punishment without guilt (the Babylonian Talmud, b. Shabbat 55a, although later than the NT, illustrates this). Thus in this case the sin must have been on the part of the man’s parents, or during his own prenatal existence. Song Rabbah 1:41 (another later rabbinic work) stated that when a pregnant woman worshiped in a heathen temple the unborn child also committed idolatry. This is only one example of how, in rabbinic Jewish thought, an unborn child was capable of sinning.

[9:3]  ⁴⁴ tn Grk “this one.”

[9:3]  ⁴⁵ tn Grk “but so that.” There is an ellipsis that must be supplied: “but [he was born blind] so that” or “but [it happened to him] so that.”

[9:3]  ⁴⁶ tn Or “deeds”; Grk “works.”

[9:3]  ⁴⁷ tn Or “manifested,” “brought to light.”

[9:3]  ⁴⁸ tn Grk “in him.”

[9:4]  ⁴⁹ tn Grk “We must work the works.”

[9:4]  ⁵⁰ tn Or “of him who sent me” (God).

[9:4]  ⁵¹ tn Or “while.”

[9:5]  ⁵² sn Jesus’ statement I am the light of the world connects the present account with 8:12. Here (seen more clearly than at 8:12) it is obvious what the author sees as the significance of Jesus’ statement. “Light” is not a metaphysical definition of the person of Jesus but a description of his effect on the world, forcing everyone in the world to ‘choose up sides’ for or against him (cf. 3:19-21).

[9:6]  ⁵³ tn Grk “said these things.”

[9:6]  ⁵⁴ 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]  ⁵⁵ 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]  ⁵⁶ tn Grk “on his.”

[9:7]  ⁵⁷ 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]  ⁵⁸ 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]  ⁵⁹ tn Grk “So he”; the referent (the blind man) is specified in the translation for clarity.

[9:8]  ⁶⁰ tn Or “formerly.”

[9:8]  ⁶¹ tn An ingressive force (“began saying”) is present here because the change in status of the blind person provokes this new response from those who knew him.

[9:8]  ⁶² tn Grk “the one.”

[9:9]  ⁶³ tn Grk “Others were saying.”

[9:9]  ⁶⁴ tn Grk “This is the one.”

[9:9]  ⁶⁵ tn Grk “No, but he is like him.”

[9:9]  ⁶⁶ tn Grk “That one”; the referent (the man himself) is specified in the translation for clarity.

[9:9]  ⁶⁷ tn Grk “I am he.”

[9:10]  ⁶⁸ tn Grk “So they were saying to him.”

[9:10]  ⁶⁹ tn Grk “How then were your eyes opened” (an idiom referring to restoration of sight).

[9:11]  ⁷⁰ tn Grk “That one answered.”

[9:11]  ⁷¹ tn Or “clay” (moistened earth of a clay-like consistency).

[9:11]  ⁷² tn Grk “and smeared.” Direct objects in Greek were often omitted when obvious from the context.

[9:11]  ⁷³ tn Grk “said to me.”

[9:11]  ⁷⁴ tn Or “and I gained my sight.”

[9:12]  ⁷⁵ tn Grk “And they said.”

[9:12]  ⁷⁶ tn Grk “that one.” “Man” is more normal English style for the referent.

[9:12]  ⁷⁷ tn Grk “He said.”