John 9:8

8 Then the neighbors and those who saw him previously (because he was a beggar) began to say, "Is this man not the one who used to sit and beg?"

John 9:8 Meaning and Commentary

John 9:8

The neighbours therefore, and they which before had seen
him
For it seems the blind man was not a stranger, one that came out of the country to the city to beg; but a native of Jerusalem, that had long lived in a certain neighbourhood in it, and was well known to be what he was;

that he was blind;
the Alexandrian copy, and one of Beza's exemplars, and the Vulgate Latin version read, "that he was a beggar"; to which agree the Syriac, Arabic, and Ethiopic versions: wherefore they

said, is this not he that sat and begged?
they particularly remark his begging posture; he was not laid all along, as the lame man in ( Acts 3:2 ) ; nor did he go from door to door, as others were used to do, but he sat in some certain place, as blind men generally did; see ( Matthew 20:30 ) .

John 9:8 In-Context

6 [When he] had said these [things], he spat on the ground and made clay with the saliva, and smeared the clay on his eyes.

7 And he said to him, "Go, wash in the pool of Siloam" (which is translated "sent"). So he went and washed and came back seeing.

8 Then the neighbors and those who saw him previously (because he was a beggar) began to say, "Is this man not the one who used to sit and beg?"

9 Others were saying, "It is this man"; others were saying, "No, but he is like him." That one was saying, "I am [he]!"

10 So they began to say to him, "How were your eyes opened?"

Footnotes

• [a] *The imperfect tense has been translated as ingressive here ("began to say")