What Does John 9:17 Mean?

(17) **They say unto the blind man again.**—The question is not asked by either of the parties, for this must have been noted, but by the assembly generally. They who questioned him in John 9:15, question him again now. They have differed among themselves, and they ask what impression the fact of the miracle had left upon him who was the object of it, with regard to the person of Him who had performed it. **What sayest thou of him, that he hath opened thine eyes?**—Stress is laid on the pronoun. What sayest *thou?* He ought to know better than any one, seeing that his eyes had been opened and this they admit, while the nature of his witness is uncertain; but immediately that is given they disbelieve the fact of the miracle, and soon reject with scorn him they question now (John 9:34). The English reader should observe the punctuation here, which rightly makes the question one. It is sometimes read as though it were, “What sayest thou of Him? that He hath opened thine eyes?” It is not, however, the fact which is here questioned, but the opinion of the man, based upon the fact, for the present assumed as true, which is called for. **He is a prophet.**—The education of the man has been doing its work, and he is convinced that the power which has healed him is direct from God, and that the person who has exercised it is a messenger from God. His words are uttered in the brevity and calmness of clear conviction, and they are the direct negative to the statement of the Pharisees, “This man is not from God.” (Comp John 3:2; John 4:19; John 6:14.) It is important to note, that even in the language of the ordinary people, the word “prophet” did not mean simply a predictor of events in the future, but one who was as the representative of God. He was not only or chiefly a “fore-teller,” but a “forth-teller,” declaring God’s truth, revealing His will and character, bearing the witness of divine works; but as the future is ever present to the divine counsels, prophecy, in the narrower sense, may be part of the work of the true prophet.