SIL Translator’s Notes on John 9:26

9:26a

What did He do to you?: The leaders wanted the man to tell them how Jesus had healed him. Perhaps they wondered if it could be considered as work and therefore forbidden on the Sabbath.

they asked: The Greek text more literally says “Therefore they said to him.” The Greek word that is usually translated “therefore” here indicates a development in the story. What the leaders said was a question, so this phrase can be translated to indicate this.

9:26b

How did He open your eyes?: This clause indicates that the religious leaders wanted the man to tell them how Jesus had made him able to see. The question does not imply that the man’s eyes were shut before, but that he was blind.

Here are other ways to translate this question:

How did he give you sight? (God’s Word)
-or-
How did he cause you to see? (NET Bible Bible)
-or-
How did he heal your eyes? (Contemporary English Version)

© 2020 by SIL International®
Made available under the terms of a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License (CC BY-SA) creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0.
All Scripture quotations in this publication, unless otherwise indicated, are from The Holy Bible, Berean Standard Bible.
BSB is produced in cooperation with Bible Hub, Discovery Bible, OpenBible.com, and the Berean Bible Translation Committee.

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