Again therefore the Pharisees, before whom the blind man had been brought, unwilling to rest with mere hearsay evidence of such grievous transgression of the Law, themselves also—or, in their turn—asked him ( ἠρώτων, imperfect, were interrogating) how he received (recovered) his sight (see note on John 9:11).
Not the miracle itself, but the manner of it interested and excited them. And he said to them, (He) put clay upon mine eyes, and I washed, and I see. This is a shorter and significant abridgment of the process already described.
The healed man seems to guess, by their manner, that some charge was being meditated against his Benefactor, and he shrewdly omits the saliva and the making of the clay, and the order of the Savior, and the place whither he had been sent to wash.