What Does John 9:8 Mean in the King James?
The neighbours therefore, and they which before had seen him that he was blind, said, Is not this he that sat and begged?
The analysis reads the King James wording.
King James Version The King James Version, first published in 1611. Selah Verse shows the standard text.
THE KEY
The neighbors measure him by the posture of his need, showing how a remembered struggle can outlast itself in other people’s sight.
THE MEANING
People around you may still identify you by the place you once occupied and the need they once saw. A visible change can arrive before their memory of you changes; their question exposes that lag.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
People’s memory of the condition you had does not prove that the condition still defines you.
THE ROOT
προσαιτῶν
prosaitōn
GROWS FROM
αἰτέω (aiteō), within προσαιτέω (prosaiteō)
αἰτέω (aiteō) means “ask” or “request”; προσαιτέω (prosaiteō) means “ask for alms” or “beg.”
“begged” in this verse is prosaitōn. The Greek word for “begging” is built from προσαιτέω (prosaiteō), itself formed with αἰτέω (aiteō), “to ask.” The neighbors remember him through that repeated asking, revealing how a visible need can harden into a social identity even when the person is no longer in the condition they recall.
ALSO GROWS
aitēma: A request; a thing asked for.
αἴτημα
This noun carries the same asking-root, showing that the beggar’s public role is built around an act of asking.
aitēsis: A request; a petition.
αἴτησις
The same root also names petition, revealing that begging grows from asking under need rather than from a wholly separate verb.
THE PATTERN
When a person changes, observers may still name them by the condition or work they knew before.
Behold, I will do a new thing; now it shall spring forth; shall ye not know it? I will even make a way in the wilderness, and rivers in the desert.But all that heard him were amazed, and said; Is not this he that destroyed them which called on this name in Jerusalem, and came hither for that intent, that he might bring them bound unto the chief priests?Wherefore henceforth know we no man after the flesh: yea, though we have known Christ after the flesh, yet now henceforth know we him no more.THE THREAD
And they came to Jericho: and as he went out of Jericho with his disciples and a great number of people, blind Bartimæus, the son of Timæus, sat by the highway side begging.Mark uses the same Greek word, προσαιτῶν (prosaitōn), “begging,” for Bartimaeus. The repeated image of a man sitting and begging shows how a visible posture can become the shorthand by which others recognize him.
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