In Greek the verb wash has no stated object, but it is obvious that the man is not told to go take a bath. In order to remove the ambiguity in the verb wash, Good News Translation translates wash your face and Moffatt “wash them,” referring to “eyes” of the previous verse.

The Pool of Siloam was the pool from which the water was drawn for the ceremonies connected with the Festival of Shelters. It is located within the walls of Jerusalem, at the southern extremity of the eastern hill of the city, near the point where the Kidron and Tyropean valleys came together. In Hebrew the pool is Shiloah (Isa 8.6), which is derived from the Hebrew verb “to send.” This is the basis for John’s remark, This name means “Sent.”

The Pool of Siloam may be rendered “the pool called Siloam” or “Siloam pool.” A translator should adapt the orthography of Siloam to reflect the pronunciation of this term in the dominant language of the area or to follow traditional practice there.

This name means “Sent.” may be rendered in some languages as “the word ‘Siloam’ means ‘sent’ ” or “in our language the word Siloam means ‘sent.’ ”

So the man went, washed his face is literally “so he went and washed.” Here again Good News Translation (so also Die Bibel im heutigen Deutsch) makes explicit that the man did not take a bath.

Came back seeing may be expressed in some instances as “came back, and he could see,” since the coming and the seeing are often treated as coordinate elements, rather than one being subordinate to the other. Since in terms of the events of this story, the seeing is more important than the return, it may be necessary in some languages to translate “and he was able to see as he came back.”

A difficulty may be involved in translating came back, since in some languages this expression can only be understood to mean that he came back to where Jesus was. That is obviously not the case, since Jesus finally went looking for the man and found him (verse 35). The apparent meaning is that he returned to his home, for it is his neighbors who begin to comment about the change in his condition. It may be necessary, therefore, to translate “and went back home, being able to see” or “since he was able to see, he went back home.”

Quoted with permission from Newman, Barclay M. and Nida, Eugene A. A Handbook on the Gospel of John. (UBS Handbook Series). New York: UBS, 1980. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .