John 9:39-41

9:39 Jesus¹ 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.”

9:40 Some of the Pharisees⁴ who were with him heard this⁵ and asked him,⁶ “We are not blind too, are we?”⁷ 9:41 Jesus replied,⁸ “If you were blind, you would not be guilty of sin,⁹ but now because you claim that you can see,¹⁰ your guilt¹¹ remains.”¹²

¹tn 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.

²tc ‡ 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.

³tn Or “that those who do not see may see.”

⁴sn See the note on Pharisees in 1:24.

⁵tn Grk “heard these things.”

⁶tn Grk “and said to him.”

⁷tn Questions prefaced with μή (mh) in Greek anticipate a negative answer. This can sometimes be indicated by using a “tag” at the end in English (here the tag is “are we?”).

⁸tn Grk “Jesus said to them.”

⁹tn Grk “you would not have sin.”

¹⁰tn Grk “now because you say, ‘We see…’”

¹¹tn Or “your sin.”

¹²sn Because you claim that you can see, your guilt remains. The blind man received sight physically, and this led him to see spiritually as well. But the Pharisees, who claimed to possess spiritual sight, were spiritually blinded. The reader might recall Jesus’ words to Nicodemus in 3:10, “Are you the teacher of Israel and don’t understand these things?” In other words, to receive Jesus was to receive the light of the world, to reject him was to reject the light, close one’s eyes, and become blind. This is the serious sin of which Jesus had warned before (8:21-24). The blindness of such people was incurable since they had rejected the only cure that exists (cf. 12:39-41).