He—the man there singled out—answered (and said), The Man that is called Jesus made clay, and anointed my eyes, and said to me, Go to the £ Siloam, and wash. So I went, and when I washed I received my sight.
Nothing more as yet than the name of his Benefactor has broken upon him. The name is full of significance to him—the "Savior,': the "Healer;" but he knows nothing of his Messianic claims, nor of his Divine authority.
He began, where all disciples must, with the Man. The manner of man soon wakes within him loftier questionings and a better explanation. At present the process seems magical, altogether inexplicable.
Clay and Siloam water do not cure birth-blindness, tie is in a maze, as well he might be. The ἀνέβλεψα should be rendered, according to Meyer, "I looked up". It cannot be so translated in John 9:15 and John 9:18.
Doubtless it strictly means, "I received sight again;" but there is something in Grotius's explanation, "No one is incorrectly said to receive that which, though he be deprived of it, belongs to human nature as a whole" (see Westcott).
The eyes were there, but unused. Meyer quotes from Pausanias the similar use of ἀναβλέπειν, in reference to the recovery or obtaining of sight by a man born blind.