59. Understanding Him to claim to be eternal, as He really did, they took up stones to stone Him, the Law commanding that a blasphemer, as they accounted Him, should be stoned (Lev. xxiv. 16). But Jesus hid Himself, most probably rendered Himself invisible, and thus passed out of the temple, showing us that it is sometimes advisable, and conducive to the greater glory of God, that we should flee from danger, even when we are persecuted for God’s sake. Many ancient authorities add at the end of this verse: “And going through the midst of them went His way, and so passed by;” but more probably the words are a gloss. CHAPTER IX. 1‐7. *Jesus cures a man born blind.* 8‐13. *Comments of the man’s neighbours, who bring him to the Pharisees.* 14. *It was on the Sabbath day the cure was wrought.* 15‐23. *Interview between the man and the Pharisees. They refuse to believe that he had been blind, and summon his parents in order to ascertain the truth. The parents declare that he had indeed been born blind.* 24‐34. *Again therefore the Pharisees interrogate the man himself, and at length, wincing under his remarks and indignant with him for his favourable opinion of Jesus, they expel him from their assembly.* 35‐38. *Jesus finds him, and now illumines the darkness of his soul.* 39‐41. *The blindness of the Pharisees.* 1. Et praeteriens Iesus vidit 1. And Jesus passing by, saw a hominem caecum a nativitate: man who was blind from his birth. 1. Some think that the events about to be narrated occurred shortly after Christ left the temple (viii. 59) and had been rejoined by His disciples, who are supposed to have left when He disappeared. This view seems to us more probable than that which places the events about to be narrated on a different day from those referred to in the close of the preceding chapter. When we are told that Jesus went out of the temple (viii. 59), and passing by, saw a man blind from his birth, the natural inference is, that the Evangelist is speaking of Christ’s passing along after He left the temple. This view is confirmed too by the fact, that *Jesus* should not be read in this verse, being spurious according to all critics, but must be supplied from the preceding chapter. The man was *blind from his birth*, so that it was no mere passing affection of the eyes, from which he suffered; and thus the miracle was the more striking. 2. Et interrogaverunt eum 2. And his disciples asked discipuli eius: Rabbi, quis him: Rabbi, who hath sinned, peccavit, hic, aut parentes this man, or his parents, that eius, ut caecus nasceretur? he should be born blind?