Having said these things, prostrate, he spat and made clay from the spittle and anointed the clay upon his eyes and said to him, “Go under! Wash yourself into the bathing pool of the Siloam!” (which is translated “Sent Out one”).
Jesus, “prostrate” on the earth? “Clay made from [his] spittle and anointed the clay upon [the man's] eyes”? The man was instructed to “go under”? And then to “wash” himself in “the Sent Out one”? Are all these pictures - parallels for something else?
Although everything had been done for the blind-from-birth man, something was in fact required from him, He needed to go and wash himself, seemingly completely, in that “bathing pool”. He had not even been told that he might receive his sight. He needed to decide whether or not to go along with it, to “go under” “into the bathing pool of the Sent Out one”.
So he went away and washed himself and came seeing.
He decided. Are those – cleansing and sight-giving – “the works of God”?
So the neighbours, and those observing him the prior time that he was a beggar, were stating, “Is this not the one sitting and begging?” Some stated that, “It is this one.” Others stated, “No, but this one is like him.” He was stating that, “I myself am.”
From this we now know that this sightless-from-birth man was “a beggar”. By "begging" he conirmed that he had negative economic value.
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