In Yerushalayim for Feast of Sukkot (Tabernacles) ~ Part 10

In our last post, we learned that Yeshua Declares His External Existence. In this post, we will learn about The Healing of the Man Born Blind.

As in our last several posts, Yeshua is still speaking on the last day of Sukkot, Hoshana Rabbah.

The Healing of the Man Born Blind ~ Part 1

As I shared in my last post, this is one of my favorite chapters in Yochanan. Not only because of the fantastic miracle but later also because of the blind man’s testimony before the P’rushim.

¹ As Yeshua passed along, He saw a man blind from birth. ² His talmidim asked Him, “Rabbi, who sinned – this man or his parents – to cause him to be born blind?”

Yeshua’s talmidim were not the first to attribute all human misfortune and disability to immediately traceable sin: the entire book of Job is devoted to combatting this misunderstanding of how sin has come to affect the present world. Verses 1–5 of this chapter correspond to chapters 1–2 of Job; both set the scene for teaching about sin.

³ Yeshua answered, “His blindness is due neither to his sin nor to that of his parents; it happened so that God’s power might be seen at work in him. ⁴ As long as it is day, we must keep doing the work of the One who sent Me; the night is coming when no one can work. ⁵ While I am in the world, I am the light of the world.” ⁶ Having said this, He spits on the ground, makes some mud with the saliva, puts the mud on the man’s eyes,

He … makes some mud with the saliva. Any kind of building is one of the thirty-nine kinds of work prohibited on Shabbat according to Mishna Shabbat 7:2; Mishna Shabbat 24:3 also says that on Shabbat, “it is permitted to put water into the bran” of animals, “but they must knead it.” It requires kneading to make clay, and clay is a building material, so there are two possible violations of Shabbat, according to P’rushim’s understanding – building and kneading. Put the mud on the man’s eyes. If this was done as a means of healing and with the intention of healing, this, too, would have been regarded as a violation of Shabbat.

⁷ and said to him, “Go, wash off in the Pool of Shiloach!” (The name means “sent.”) So he went and washed and came away seeing.

Hebrew shiloach means “sent,” as Yochanan says. The Pool of Shiloach still exists in the neighborhood of East Jerusalem called Silwan (the Arabic transliteration of “shiloach”). It marks the end of Hezekiah’s Tunnel, constructed by the Judean king around 700 BCE. to bring water from the Gichon spring in the Kidron Valley to the Pool of Shiloach in the City of David.

⁸ His neighbors and those who previously had seen him begging said, “Isn’t this the man who used to sit and beg?” ⁹ Some said, “Yes, he’s the one,”; while others said, “No, but he looks like him.” However, he himself said, “I’m the one.” ¹⁰ “How were your eyes opened?” they asked him. ¹¹ He answered, “The man called Yeshua made mud, put it on my eyes, and told me, ‘Go to Shiloach and wash!’ So I went, and as soon as I had washed, I could see.” ¹² They said to him, “Where is He?” and he replied, “I don’t know.” ^[1]

In our next post, we continue with our new series on Yeshua’s Journey to Yerushalayim for the Feast of Sukkot. In our next post, we continue to explore The Healing of the Man Born Blind.

Click here for the PDF version.

¹ Yochanan 9:1-12