John 9:7. The application of the clay was not enough. Jesus further said: Ὕπαγε … ἀπεσταλμένος. Elsner shows that “wash into,” νίψαι εἰς, is not an uncommon construction. But John 9:11, which gives the same command in a different form, shows that the man understood that εἰς followed ὕπαγε and not νίψαι, The pool of Siloam, supplied from the Virgin’s fountain (Isaiah 8:6), lay at the south-east corner of Jerusalem in the Kidron Valley. On the opposite side of the valley lies a village Silwan representing the old name. The name is here interpreted as meaning “Sent” [שָׁלוּחַ, missus; not שִׁילוֹחַ, missio sc. aquarum, Meyer]. The word ἀπεσταλμένος is so frequently used by Jesus of Himself that, notwithstanding what Meyer says, we naturally apply it here also to Himself, as if the noiseless Stream which their fathers had despised (Isaiah 7:6) and which they could trace to its source, was a fit type of Him whom the Jews rejected because they knew His origin and because he had no external force. His influence consisted in this, that He was ἀπεσταλμένος. The blind man obeyed and received his sight. Cf. Elisha and Naaman. From the succeeding γείτονες several interpreters conclude that ἦλθε means “came” home. Needlessly.

7. wash in the pool] Literally, wash into the pool, i.e. ‘wash off the clay into the pool,’ or, ‘go to the pool and wash.’ The washing was probably part of the means of healing (comp. Naaman) and was a strong test of the man’s faith.

Siloam] Satisfactorily identified with Birket Silwân in the lower Tyropoean valley, S. E. of the hill of Zion. This is probably the Siloah of Nehemiah 3:15 and the Shiloah of Isaiah 8:6. ‘The tower in Siloam’ (Luke 13:4) was very possibly a building connected with the water; perhaps part of an aqueduct.

which is by interpretation] Literally, which is interpreted.

Sent] This is an admissible interpretation; but the original meaning is rather Sending, i.e. outlet of waters, ‘the waters of Shiloah that go softly’ (Isaiah 8:6). S. John sees in the word ‘nomen et omen’ of the man’s cure. Perhaps he sees also that this water from the rock is an image of Him who was sent from the Father.

and came seeing] ‘Came,’ not back to Christ, who had probably gone away meanwhile (John 9:12), but to his own home, as would appear from what follows. Has any poet ever attempted to describe this man’s emotions on first seeing the world in which he had lived so long?

“The scene in which the man returns seeing and is questioned by his neighbours, is vividly described. So too is the whole of that which follows, when the Pharisees come upon the stage. We may accept it with little short of absolute credence. If the opponents of miracles could produce a single Jewish document, in which any event, known not to have happened, was described with so much minuteness and verisimilitude, then it would be easier to agree with them.” S. pp. 162, 163.

John 9:7. Νίψαι, wash thyself) thy face.—τοῦ Σιλωάμ, Siloam) A name given to this place formerly, because Jesus Christ was about to send thither the blind man. And from this time the name of the place was a memorial of the miracle wrought at it. The derivation is implied in Go, wash thyself.—ὁ ἐρμηνεύεται ἀπεσταλμένος, which is rendered in translation Sent) The Evangelist adds this. Comp. John 9:11, “Go to the pool of Siloam, and wash.”—καὶ ἦλθε, and he went) before going to his parents.

Verse 7. - And, having done this, he said to him, Go - depart, haste, there is something for thee to do - wash into the pool of Siloam. Σιλωάμ: this is the Greek form of the Hebrew word שִׁילוחַ, (שִׁלֹחַ with the article הַשִּׁלהַ, the shortened Pihel form שָׁלַחֹ, to send forth, with the omission of the dagesh) adopted in Isaiah 8:6 by the LXX., and also by Josephus ('Bell. Jud.,' 5:04.1). The only other place in the Old Testament where the pool of Siloam is referred to is Nehemiah 3:15. There the Hebrew word is הַשֶּׁלַת, and rendered by the LXX. τῶν κωδίων - i.e. of sheep-skins; that is, the pool that was used to wash sheep before shearing them, or even the tan-pit (so Schleusner and Hesych.) - but it is rendered by Siloe in the Vulgate. Isaiah is contrasting the waters of the Shiloah, which flow softly, with the turbulent streams of the Tigris, which represented the pomp and power of this world. The sweet waters from the pool of Siloam still flow from their apparent source through what once were the king's gardens, into the Kedron near the junction of the Valley of Jehoshaphat with that which used to be called the Valley of the Son of Hinnom. Silwan is the Arabic name of the fountain and pool of Siloam, and also of the village on the opposite side of the valley. Nehemiah is referring, in all probability, to the same pool, the walls of which were in part the walls of the city itself on the lower spur of Mount Ophel, which is now finally determined to be the Zion of Scripture and the city of David. A "tower of Siloam" is also spoken of (Luke 13:4). It is not necessary here to review the arguments in favor of this position, with its accompanying conclusion that the Tyropaeon, the valley of the cheesemongers, which separated Ophel and the temple-mount from the upper city, was the Valley of the Son of Hinnom (see 'Survey of Western Palestine,' pt. it. pp. 345-371; Professor Sayce on "Pre-Exilic Jerusalem" in Quarterly Statement of Palest. Explor. Fund' (1883), pp. 215; and 'Fresh Light from Ancient Monuments,' p. 98, etc.). The position of the fountain and pool of Siloam is one of the best-authenticated sites in Palestine (see Robinson's 'Biblical Researches,' 1:493-507). Sayce gives strong reasons for believing that it was made in the days of Solomon, and that the proceeding of Hezekiah, referred to in 2 Chronicles 32:30, when he diverted the water from Gihon, and brought it to the west side of the city of David, was not on account (as Edersheim, Canon Birch, and others) of the formation of the zigzag tunnel from the Fountain of the Virgin, but referred to the formation of Colonel Warren's tunnel, by which the waters of the same fountain were made available within the city by drawing them further to the north-west, and reaching them by a flight of stairs that go down from the city of David (2 Kings 20:20). He thinks that 2 Chronicles 32:30 is interpreted of the lower pool of Siloam. The contemporary references of Isaiah (Isaiah 7:3; Isaiah 8:6; Isaiah 22:9) apply only to the Siloam tunnel, the Siloam pool, and that lower pool, which was repaired by Hezekiah. The upper pool, and therefore the tunnel which supplied it, were known in the time of Ahaz. Josephus makes frequent reference to the fountain of Siloam, and expressly says that it was situated at the mouth of the Tyro-paeon. The 'Itin. Hier.' and Jerome both say that it was at the foot of Mount Zion (see especially Jerome's 'Comm. in Esa. 8:6'). Antoninus Martyr (in the seventh century), William of Tyre, Benjamin of Tudela (1165), and Phoeas (1185), all refer to it. This remarkable connection with the Fountain of Mary was known to Quaresmius in the seventeenth century, but not fairly discovered till Robinson entered it at both ends, and found that there was a direct subterranean communication between the so-called Fountain of the Virgin and the Fountain of Siloam. In 1881 the accidental discovery of an inscription in pure Hebrew, of uncertain date, describes the process of the excavation, and accounts for the false starts made by the two parties of excavators, who eventually met and discovered the different levels at which they had been working. Whenever made, whether by Solomon, Uzziah, Ahaz, or Hezekiah, it was obviously intended to bring fresh water within the walls of the city. The intermittent character of the flow of water in the Fountain of the Virgin, by which sometimes twice or thrice a day, and at other seasons twice or thrice a week, the water suddenly rises and disappears with gurgling sounds into the conduits made for its removal, was referred to by Jerome, as an eye and ear witness of the occurrence. We leave the question of the identification of the Fountain of the Virgin with any of the fountains mentioned in the Old Testament. The point of singular interest is that the waters of Siloam were in direct communication with the upper spring, which itself may be yet proved to be in relation to some more abundant supply of water in the temple-rock. Into the further intricacies of this problem it is unnecessary to enter. The pools of Siloam are still to be seen near the mouth of the Tyropaeon valley. The print of connection with the Fountain of the Virgin cannot be doubted, nor can the fact be disputed that from Siloam, during the Feast of Tabernacles, the sacred waters were brought in solemn procession and with sacred rite (see John 7.). Our Lord sent the blind man, thus startled into some receptivity of grace, to that which was the symbolic source of the water of life. He did this on the sabbath day, claiming cooperation with Jehovah in his truly sabbatic deed: "My Father worketh hitherto, and I work." Siloam had been already the type of that which Jesus was in reality, when he had cried and said, "If any man thirst, let him come unto me, and drink." Consequently, there is striking appositeness in the language of St. John here parenthetically introduced (which is, being interpreted, Sent); שִׁלוחַ equivalent to missio, from שָׁלַח, equivalent to mittit or missus, which may be synonymous with שָׁלוּחַ, viz. the strengthened participle Kal with passive signification. John is correct in his etymology. Siloam probably derived its name from the fact that its waters were sent from the higher sources, through known channels, with special significance as God's gift for the preservation of the life of the people, and the age-long memorial of his goodness. The old poet Nonnus, Euthymius, and Meyer see here a reference to the man who was "sent" thus to wash and be healed; but a host of commentators, from Theophylact, Calvin, Cornelius a Lapide, down to Luthardt, Godet, and Westcott, rightly urge that "Siloam," as meaning "Sent," was in John's thought emblematic of him who had so often spoken of himself as the Sent of God. The point of the parenthesis is that the very name of this healing and symbolic fountain is a type of Messiah, who thus identifies himself with the Heaven-sent gifts of the Divine hand. He then (therefore) departed, and washed. The blind man needed no guide to Siloam, and if he had clone so there would have been a score of helpers or curious on-lookers anxious to test the meaning of the Lord's command. And he came away from Siloam, seeing; in all the strange and wonderful excitement of a man who, with his first possession of this imperial sense, was moving indeed in a new world. The miracle, of course, provokes the critical school either into repudiating the supernatural element, or doubting the historical fact. Theme dreams through a world of parallels with the healing and apostleship of St. Paul. John 9:7Wash (νίψαι)

Wash the eyes. See on Acts 16:33.

Siloam

By Rabbinical writers, Shiloach: Septuagint, Σιλωάμ: Vulgate and Latin fathers, Siloe. Josephus, generally, Siloa. In scripture always called a pool or tank, built, and not natural. The site is clearly identified in a recess at the southeastern termination of Zion, near the junction of the valley of Tyropoeon with that of the Kidron. According to Dr. Thomson, it is a parallelogram about fifty-three feet long and eighteen wide, and in its perfect condition must have been nearly twenty feet deep. It is thus the smallest of all the Jerusalem pools. The water flows into it through a subterraneous conduit from the Fountain of the Virgin, and the waters are marked by an ebb and flow. Dr. Robinson witnessed a rise and fall of one foot in ten minutes. The conduit has been traversed by two explorers, Dr. Robinson and Captain Warren. See the account of Warren's exploration in Thomson, "Southern Palestine and Jerusalem," p. 460. On the word pool, see on John 5:2.

Sent

The Hebrew word means outflow (of waters); missio, probably with reference to the fact that the temple-mount sends forth its spring-waters. Many expositors find a typical significance in the fact of Christ's working through the pool of this name. Thus Milligan and Moulton, after noting the fact that the water was drawn from this pool for pouring upon the altar during the Feast of Tabernacles; that it was associated with the "wells of salvation" (Isaiah 12:3); and that the pouring out of the water symbolized the effusion of spiritual blessing in the days of the Messiah, go on to say: "With the most natural interest, therefore, the Evangelist observes that its very name corresponds to the Messiah; and by pointing out this fact indicates to us what was the object of Jesus in sending the man to these waters. In this, even more distinctly than in the other particulars that we have noted, Jesus, in sending the man away from Him, is keeping Himself before him in everything connected with his cure. Thus, throughout the whole narrative, all attention is concentrated on Jesus Himself, who is the Light of the world, who was 'sent of God' to open blind eyes." See also Westcott and Godet.

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