complete verse (John 9:20)

Following are a number of back-translations of John 9:20:

  • Uma: “His mother and father answered: ‘What we know is that he is definitely our (excl.) child, and that he really was blind since birth.” (Source: Uma Back Translation)
  • Yakan: “His parents answered, they said, ‘Yes this is our (excl.) son. It is true that he was born blind.” (Source: Yakan Back Translation)
  • Western Bukidnon Manobo: “And the parents of the cured person answered, they said, ‘We know that this is our child, and we know also that he was blind before he was born.” (Source: Western Bukidnon Manobo Back Translation)
  • Kankanaey: “The parents then answering, said, ‘Yes indeed, that is our (excl.) child and he truly was blind at his birth (lit. coming-out).” (Source: Kankanaey Back Translation)
  • Tagbanwa: “His parents replied, saying, ‘He really is truly our (excl.) son, and he really was already blind when he was born.” (Source: Tagbanwa Back Translation)
  • Tenango Otomi: “Then his father and mother said, ‘We know that this one is our son. And he was blind when he was born.” (Source: Tenango Otomi Back Translation)

inclusive vs. exclusive pronoun (John 9:20)

Many languages distinguish between inclusive and exclusive first-person plural pronouns (“we”). (Click or tap here to see more details)

The inclusive “we” specifically includes the addressee (“you and I and possibly others”), while the exclusive “we” specifically excludes the addressee (“he/she/they and I, but not you”). This grammatical distinction is called “clusivity.” While Semitic languages such as Hebrew or most Indo-European languages such as Greek or English do not make that distinction, translators of languages with that distinction have to make a choice every time they encounter “we” or a form thereof (in English: “we,” “our,” or “us”).

For this verse, translators typically select the exclusive form (excluding Pharisees). The Tok Pisin specifies this even more by using the dual (only including two, the parents of the blind man).

Source: Velma Pickett and Florence Cowan in Notes on Translation January 1962, p. 1ff.

Jesus Cures the Man Born Blind

Following is a 1973 painting of the JESUS MAFA project, a response to New Testament readings from the Lectionary by a Christian community in Cameroon, Africa. Each of the readings was selected and adapted to dramatic interpretation by the community members. Photographs of their interpretations were made, and these were then transcribed to paintings:

In this simply beautiful painting of one of Jesus’ healings, we see a caring Jesus bend over a blind man holding his walking stick. From the story in John’s gospel, we know that the religious leaders struggle with accepting Jesus’ activity and Jesus responds saying, “If you were blind, you would not be guilty of sin; but now that you claim you can see, your guilt remains.” The Pharisees do not look at the blind man as a person, but as a symbol and Jesus points out their error. We are reminded that we should see the humanity in all people, refusing to use them for our own ends. We must look past our own issues and see the individuals.

From Art in the Christian Tradition , a project of the Vanderbilt Divinity Library, Nashville, TN. Image retrieved March 23, 2026. Original source: librairie-emmanuel.fr.

Translation commentary on John 9:20

His parents answered is literally “therefore his parents answered and said.” The redundancy “answered and said” reflects Semitic style, while the use of the particle translated “therefore” (oun) is characteristic of John’s style. For stylistic reasons Good News Translation repeats the verb we know (so also Jerusalem Bible). Moffatt restructures by translating “This is our son, and he was born blind; we know that.”

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 .

SIL Translator’s Notes on John 9:20

9:20a

His parents answered: Refer to the parents in a way that is natural in your language. For example:

The parents
-or-
The man’s parents

We know he is our son: This clause indicates that the parents admitted that the man was their son. There was no doubt about that. Here is another way to translate this clause:

We are certain that this is our son (Contemporary English Version)

9:20b

and we know he was born blind: The word and here introduces a second thing that the parents said that they knew. They knew and were willing to say that the man was born blind. In some languages it may be natural to repeat the verb we know from 9:20a.

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