This parable spake Jesus unto them. The word παροιμία occurs only in this place and in John 16:25-29; 2 Peter 2:22. It is the LXX. rendering of לשָׁםָ proverb, in Proverbs 1:1, a similitude or didactic saying.
The Greek word means any speech (ethos) deviating ( παρὰ) from the common way (Lange). It may deviate by its sententious or parabolical form, which conceals under a closed metaphor a variety of meanings.
But they, the Pharisees, who were confident of their own position, and gloried in their influence over men, and whose moral nature was steeled and armed to resist even a possible reference to themselves as "thieves," or "robbers," or "aliens," and who would not admit any of Christ's claims to their own disparagement, understood not what things they were which he was saying to them.
The blind man had heard Ms voice, obeyed, found healing, advanced step by step from a bare knowledge of "a man Jesus" to a confession of him as one empowered by God; to a belief that he was a "Prophet," able to relax Mosaic Law; and finally to a ready acknowledgment that he was the Son of God.
The Pharisees were conscious of neither need, nor blindness, nor desire of salvation, nor of the Shepherd's care or grace. They will not go to him for life. They can make nothing of his enigmatic words.
They take counsel against him. Their misconception contrasts strongly with the susceptibility of the broken-hearted penitents. So far the parable or proverb corresponds with the parables of the kingdom in the synoptic Gospels, and is open to many interpretations.