What Does John 9:7 Mean?
And he said to him, Go, wash in the pool of Siloam, the Sent. So he went and washed, and came seeing.
Key words are shown with the Hebrew or Greek and what each word meant.
Selah Decoded Version The Selah Decoded Version renders what the Hebrew and Greek words meant to the people who first heard them.
King James wording
King James Version
And said unto him, Go, wash in the pool of Siloam, (which is by interpretation, Sent.) He went his way therefore, and washed, and came seeing.THE KEY
At the pool whose name means “Sent,” the man washes and comes seeing: the verse joins restoration to what is sent forth.
THE MEANING
The verse places the reader inside a movement from a word received to washing and newly opened sight. Restoration is concrete and embodied: the one who could not see comes back seeing.
THE ROOT
ἀπεσταλμένος
apestalmenos
GROWS FROM
ἀποστέλλω
To send out or dispatch.
“the Sent” in this verse is apestalmenos. The verse’s Greek gloss ἀπεσταλμένος (apestalmenos, “sent”) belongs to ἀποστέλλω (apostellō, “send out”). The Hebrew name שִׁלֹחַ (Shiloah, “sent”) echoes שָׁלַח (shalach, “send, release”): two languages converge on sending at the place where sight emerges.
ALSO GROWS
apostolos: A sent messenger.
ἀπόστολος
The same Greek word-family makes sending a defining feature of the messenger; here, the pool itself bears the name “Sent.”
apostolē: A sending or commission.
ἀποστολή
This branch names the act of sending, linking the pool’s name to the movement that leads into washing and sight.
βλέπων
blepōn
GROWS FROM
βλέπω
To see or look.
The participle βλέπων (blepōn, “seeing”) describes the state in which he arrives, not simply an abstract cure. Compounds from βλέπω (blepō, “see, look”) can name both renewed sight and focused looking, holding restored capacity and actual perception in one word-family.
ALSO GROWS
anablepō: To look up or regain sight.
ἀναβλέπω
This compound can describe the return of sight, making the shared stem especially vivid beside the man’s newly seeing.
emblepō: To look at or gaze intently.
ἐμβλέπω
The same seeing-stem can describe directed looking, connecting restored sight with the act of perceiving.
THE PATTERN
When sight opens, what could not be perceived becomes available to the one who sees.
And God opened her eyes, and she saw a well of waters, and went and filled the skin with waters, and gave the boy drink.And Elisha prayed and said, LORD, I pray you, open his eyes, that he may see. And the LORD opened the eyes of the young man, and he saw, and look, the mountain was filled with horses and chariots of fire all around Elisha.THE THREAD
Then he laid his hands again upon his eyes, and made him look up; and he was set back in place, and saw everyone in clear light.John’s βλέπων (blepōn, “seeing”) and Mark’s ἐνέβλεπεν (eneblepen, “he was looking”) share the βλέπω (blepō, “see, look”) stem. The root connects restored sight with the visible act of looking, making perception itself evidence of restoration.
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