Sight
Sight
SIGHT.Christ rejoiced in His power of restoring sight to the physically blind (see below), and points to it as a most fitting exercise for One sent of God (Mat 11:5, Luk 7:21-22; see also art. Sign). When He speaks of Himself as Deliverer, in terms borrowed from the prophets (combining Isa 61:1; Isa 42:6-7), one of the chief features of the commission He announces is the recovering of sight to the blind (Luk 4:18-19). At that rapt moment of high spiritual experience it is certain that, while bodily sight may be referred to, the emphasis lies on the higher vision He had come to impart. The need of man for true inward sight, for the knowledge of God and of self, was ever central to Jesus. That men should see Him and thus see the Father was the one burning passion of His life (Joh 14:9, cf. Joh 16:12-13; Joh 16:16; Joh 17:3; Joh 17:6; Joh 17:25-26). That men should have the capacity of vision and yet be blind to the true significance of Himself and His work, was a sincere embarrassment to Him (Mar 8:18).
In Mat 6:22 and Luk 11:34-36 He employs bodily sight with its commanding relation to the whole of human activities as an image of inward vision. The eye was the means of guidance and surety and power to the whole bodythe lamp () of the body. If the eye be unperverted (single, or, literally, simple, ), the whole body is lighted for all the work it has to do. If evil (), the whole body is darkened, and every part of the complex activity is rendered inefficient if not impossible. So of the inward, mental and spiritual eye. The power of vision is central. If that capacity to see things as they are be unimpaired, the man can be and do that for which God created him. But the man who has lost his power of inward sight is enveloped in the deepest and most hopeless gloom. If the light in a man be darkness, how great is that darkness! On Mat 13:13 ff. see Parable, p. 315 f.; and on Joh 19:30 ff. see Seeing.
In our Lords healing of the multitude which the Gospels on several occasions record, cases of blindness were found, loss of sight being then as now common in Syria. The common cause of loss of sight was and is ophthalmia, which varied in severity from a minor form causing redness of the lids and loss of the eyelashes, to an extreme form affecting the whole eyeball, lachrymal ducts, the glands, eyelids and lashes, and resulting in the total destruction of sight and the eyeball. The disease is still prevalent in the East, and especially in Syria, being traceable to the intensity of light and heat, and to the strong winds bearing sand and other injurious matter. The matter secreted from the inflamed glands is also transferred to other persons, making the disease highly contagious. Ophthalmia might also give rise to blindness from birth, by causing permanent opacity of the cornea.
Other affections of the parts connected with the organ of vision might produce blindness, e.g., affection of the nerves. Mat 12:22 was a case of this kind, being probably also complicated with nervous disorder. The blindness, deafness, and dumbness point to some serious defect or disease in the nervous tissue which controls the organs of vision, hearing, and speech; and the mental disorder is organically connected with the cerebral disorganization.
As a rule, the cases of loss of sight are not sufficiently described to enable us to know what particular cause produces the blindness. Mat 9:27-31 is a case in point, the interest of the narrative being the quick faith of the blind and the sympathetic response of Jesus. The case of the man blind from his birth may have been due to any of the causes above mentioned, or to cataract (John 9). The feature of our Lords cure of the blind is narrated in the above instancesHis touching of the eyes. The blind man of Bethsaida (Mar 8:22-26) was treated similarly. Twice Jesus laid His hands upon the blind eyes. Also He spit upon his eyeshaving previously gently led him by the hand out of the village. He spoke to him also of the healing which they both desired, and called forth the energy of the man in response to His own power: Seest thou aught? In this instance a process was observable in the recovery, or possibly there is indicated the difficulty in one who had never seen of being able to interpret to himself new sensations. In John 9 we note that Jesus speaks concerning the cure to be wrought. His words in Joh 9:3-5 would be spoken in the hearing of the one to be healed, and would have a salutary effect in restoring hopefulness to one who might not unnaturally have given up all hope of restoration. The eyes are anointed with clay and saliva, and the man sent in the obedience of a strong faith to a distant pool.
These two instances in which our Lord uses saliva recall the familiar folk-lore of curing sore eyes. The use of saliva, especially of fasting saliva, for bleared eyes, still persists. The Talmud ascribes special efficacy to the saliva of an eldest son. Royal saliva was greatly in request for healing purposes, and an instance is recorded of Vespasian using his saliva with excellent effect, after having first inquired of the physician if the malady were curable (Tacitus, Hist. iv. 2; Suetonius, Vespasian, 7). Our Lords use of saliva, or of saliva and clay, had no connexion with these as physical remedies, but may have been designed to encourage the mind of the patients, who were familiar with the remedy. And it is significant that all the action of Jesus was upon the psychical side. The means taken were exactly adapted to call out the response of the patient, and to evoke a real co-operation between Healer and healed. Cf. the means used in Mar 8:22-26, and for the deaf mute in Mar 7:31-35, the signs employed being evidently meant for the one to be restored.
We may note (1) that both Jn. and Mk. in the last two cases, give substantially the same account of the methods employed by Jesus. Considering the wide difference in the standpoint of the two writers, this is most significant, and indicates clearly that both descriptions are drawn from life, and that the actual method of Jesus was remembered and so far understood as to be regarded as memorable. (2) The suggestive likeness between the action of Jesus and modern therapeutic methods. Not that these deeds of Jesus are explained by the latter, but that the Divine life manifested in Him did not work on totally different lines, although His method completely over-passed and overwhelmed them in essential power. See also Blindness, and Seeing.
Literature.Martineau, End. after the Christian Life, p. 463; Phillips Brooks, Candle of the Lord, p. 74; N. Smyth, Reality of Faith (1888), 1; B. Wilberforce, Speaking Good of His Name (1904), 137; Macmillan, Ministry of Nature, ch. xii.; Hastings DB [Note: Dictionary of the Bible.] , art. Medicine; Comm. on passages referred to; Trench and W. M. Taylor on Miracles.
T. H. Wright.
Fuente: A Dictionary Of Christ And The Gospels
Sight
The recovery of sight to the blind was predicted to be among the events which should mark the person and acts of the Messiah. (See Isa 61:1, etc. compared with Luk 4:16-21) But the greatness of the miracle hath not perhaps been considered but by few, equal to its importance, both in its relation to bodily and spiritual blindness. I am free to confess that I did not discover the whole loveliness of it until reading somewhat of the manners and customs among eastern nations.
In many cases of the blind there is not only a loss of vision but a loss of the eyeballs. And in eastern countries, where for capital punishment the eyes are literally scooped from their sockets, it is not simply a restoration to give sight to such miserable eyeless creatures, but it is a new creation. We meet with numberless instances, in the Old Testament Scripture, where such cruel punishments were inflicted. The case of Samson, Jdg 16:21; the case of Zedekiah, Jer 52:11. In the margin of the Bible in the former instance it is, the Philistines bored out his eyes. Now in all such cases there is not only the loss of sight, but the loss of eyes. I beg the reader to connect this idea all along with what is said concerning this feature of character in the Lord Jesus Christ giving sight to the blind, for, it is literally giving eyes also, and consequently a new creation.
Now look at the prediction in this point of view concerning Christ, and it must instantly strike the mind with the fullest conviction that such acts to the bodies of men demonstrated his GODHEAD; for he not only gave vision, but he created eyes. And in respect to the souls of his people, which those miracles to the bodies were intended to set forth, surely here was exhibited the new creation in the most striking manner. Unawakened sinners are represented as “dead in trespasses and sins;”Jesus came to give them life. Jesus came to bind up the broken in heart; and a broken heart is a dead heart. Jesus came to give sight to the blind whose eye-sockets had no eyes, being put out for the capital punishment of high treason, even sin against God. And hence the charter of grace runs in those soul-reviving words: “A new heart will I give you, and a right spirit will I put within you; ye shall be my people, and I will be your God.” (Eze 36:26, etc.)
Fuente: The Poor Mans Concordance and Dictionary to the Sacred Scriptures
Sight
is translated. “sight” in 2Co 5:7; see APPEARANCE, No. 1.
denotes “a spectacle, a sight” (akin to theoreo, “to gaze, behold;” see BEHOLD), in Luk 23:48.
“that which is seen” (akin to horao, “to see”), besides its meaning, “a vision, appearance,” denotes “a sight,” in Act 7:31. See VISION.
“an eye” (Eng. “ophthalmic,” etc.) in Act 1:9 is translated “sight” (plur. lit., “eyes”). See EYE.
denotes “recovering of sight” (ana, “again,” blepo, “to see”), Luk 4:18. In the Sept., Isa 61:1.
Notes: (1) For horasis (akin to No. 3), translated “in sight” in Rev 4:3, AV (RV, “to look upon”), see LOOK, B. (2) In Luk 7:21, the infinitive mood of blepo, “to see,” is used as a noun, “(He bestowed, AV, ‘gave’) sight.” In Act 9:9 it is used in the present participle with me, “not,” “without sight” (lit., “not seeing”). (3) In Heb 12:21 phantazomai, “to make visible,” is used in the present participle as a noun, with the article, “(the) sight.” (4) In Luk 21:11, AV, phobetron (or phobethron), plur., is translated “fearful sights” (RV, “terrors”).
“to look up,” also denotes “to receive or recover sight” (akin to A, No. 5), e.g., Mat 11:5; Mat 20:34; Mar 10:51-52; Luk 18:41-43; Joh 9:11, Joh 9:15, Joh 9:18 (twice); Act 9:12, Act 9:17-18; Act 22:13.