Blind
Wilson's Dictionary of Bible Types [1]
Exodus 23:8 (a) If the judge is bribed with gifts, then he fails to execute true judgment and his decisions are not righteous. You will note that when "Justice" is seen in sculpture or in painting, she has no hands and her eyes are blindfolded. This is to teach us that justice takes no bribes, and is not affected by the standing or the relationship of the person who is being judged.
Leviticus 19:14, (c) This describes the condition of those who teach wrong doctrines or evil practices, especially those who are ignorant of GOD's Word and GOD's ways.
Isaiah 29:18 (b) These people are those who have eyes to see, but do not have the necessary information nor understanding. Somehow or sometime they shall have their understanding enlightened so that they can see and know GOD's truth. (See also Isaiah 35:5; Isaiah 42:7).
Isaiah 42:16 (a) We learn here that GOD leads those who do not see clearly. They have willing spirits and honest hearts. but they have not been taught nor informed by godly teachers. These are described further in verses Isaiah 42:18-19.
Isaiah 43:8 (b) This figure describes those who have heard the Word of GOD, have been reared in Christian surroundings, but have failed to see either their own need or the provision that the Lord has made.
Isaiah 56:10 (a) These people are religious leaders who are ignorant of GOD's plans and do not understand GOD's words. (See also Matthew 15:14; Matthew 23:16; Luke 6:39).
John 9:39 (a) The time may come in a human life, or in national life when GOD will hide Himself because of the constant and definite rejection of His Word. He binds men to their decisions. He hides Himself from those who continually reject Him.
John 12:40 (a) GOD closes the mind and the understanding of those who willingly remain ignorant of GOD's truth, and do not want GOD's revelations. (See Romans 11:7, Romans 11:25).
Romans 2:19 (b) This describes those who are groping for the light and need someone to teach them the truth and to guide them to Jesus Christ
2 Peter 1:9 (b) This is the description of one who has been instructed in the way of righteousness, has learned the precious provisions of the Lord but has failed to take advantage of the blessings thus offered.
Revelation 3:17 (a) There are those who pretend to know GOD's truth, and yet are in the darkness of ignorance. These invent new religions based on their own philosophies. They have never seen the light of life.
Webster's Dictionary [2]
(1): (v. t.) To make blind; to deprive of sight or discernment.
(2): (v. t.) To deprive partially of vision; to make vision difficult for and painful to; to dazzle.
(3): (a.) Abortive; failing to produce flowers or fruit; as, blind buds; blind flowers.
(4): (v. t.) To darken; to obscure to the eye or understanding; to conceal; to deceive.
(5): (v. t.) To cover with a thin coating of sand and fine gravel; as a road newly paved, in order that the joints between the stones may be filled.
(6): (n.) Something to hinder sight or keep out light; a screen; a cover; esp. a hinged screen or shutter for a window; a blinder for a horse.
(7): (a.) Undiscerning; undiscriminating; inconsiderate.
(8): (a.) Not having the faculty of discernment; destitute of intellectual light; unable or unwilling to understand or judge; as, authors are blind to their own defects.
(9): (a.) Destitute of the sense of seeing, either by natural defect or by deprivation; without sight.
(10): (a.) Having no openings for light or passage; as, a blind wall; open only at one end; as, a blind alley; a blind gut.
(11): (n.) A halting place.
(12): (a.) Having such a state or condition as a thing would have to a person who is blind; not well marked or easily discernible; hidden; unseen; concealed; as, a blind path; a blind ditch.
(13): (a.) Unintelligible, or not easily intelligible; as, a blind passage in a book; illegible; as, blind writing.
(14): (a.) Involved; intricate; not easily followed or traced.
(15): (n.) Something to mislead the eye or the understanding, or to conceal some covert deed or design; a subterfuge.
(16): (n.) A blindage. See Blindage.
(17): (n.) Alt. of Blinde
King James Dictionary [3]
Blind a.
1. Destitute of the sense of seeing, either by natural defect, or by deprivation not having sight. 2. Not having the faculty of discernment destitute of intellectual light unable to understand or judge ignorant as authors are blind to their own defects.
Blind should be followed by to but it is followed by of, in the phrase,blind of an eye.
3. Unseen out of public view private dark sometimes implying contempt or censure as a blind corner. 4. Dark obscure not easy to be found not easily discernible as a blind path. 5. Heedless inconsiderate undeliberating.
This plan is recommended neither to blind approbation or blind reprobation.
6. In scripture, blind implies not only want of discernment, but moral depravity.
BLIND, To make blind to deprive of sight.
1. To darken to obscure to the eye.
Such darkness blinds the sky.
2. To darken the understanding as, to blind the mind. 3. To darken or obscure to the understanding.
He endeavored to blind and confound the controversy.
4. To eclipse.
BLIND, or BLINDE, See Blend, an ore.
BLIND, n. Something to hinder the sight.
Civility casts a blind over the duty.
1. Something to mislead the eye or the understanding as, one thing serves as a blind for another. 2. A screen a cover as a blind for a window, or for a horse.
Easton's Bible Dictionary [4]
Matthew 9:27 12:22 20:30 John 5:3 Leviticus 19:14 Deuteronomy 27:18 1 Samuel 11:2 Jeremiah 39:7 Genesis 27:1 1 Kings 14:4 1 Samuel 4:15 2 Kings 25:7 1 Samuel 11:2 Isaiah 6:10 42:18,19 Matthew 15:14 Ephesians 4:18 Isaiah 29:18 Acts 13:11
Cyclopedia of Biblical, Theological and Ecclesiastical Literature [5]
( עַוֵּר , Ivver', Τυφλός ) . The frequent occurrence of blindness in the East has always excited the astonishment of travellers. Volney says that out of a hundred persons in Cairo he has met twenty quite blind, ten wanting one eye, and twenty others having their eyes red, purulent, or blemished (Travels in Egypt, i, 224). This is principally owing to the Egyptian ophthalmia, which is endemic in that country and on the coast of Syria. Small-pox is another great cause of blindness in the East (Volney, 1. c.). Still other causes are the quantities of dust and sand pulverized by the sun's intense heat; the perpetual glare of light; the contrast of the heat with the cold sea-air on the coast, where blindness is specially prevalent; the dews at night while people sleep on the roofs; old age, etc.; and perhaps, more than all, the Mohammedan fatalism, which leads to a neglect of the proper remedies in time. Ludd, the ancient Lydda, and Ramleh, enjoy a fearful notoriety for the number of blind persons they contain. The common saying is that in Ludd every man is either blind or has but one eye. Jaffa is said to contain 500 blind out of a population of 5000 at most. There is an asylum for the blind in Cairo (which at present contains 300), and their conduct is often turbulent and fanatic (Lane, Mod. Eg. i, 39, 292). In the New Testament blind mendicants are frequently mentioned ( Matthew 9:27; Matthew 12:22; Matthew 20:30; Matthew 21:24; John 5:3), and "opening the eyes of the blind" is mentioned in prophecy as a peculiar attribute of the Messiah ( Isaiah 29:18, etc.). The Jews were specially charged to treat the blind with compassion and care ( Leviticus 19:4; Deuteronomy 27:18).
The blindness of Bar-Jesus ( Acts 13:6) was miraculously produced, and of its nature we know nothing. Some have attempted (on the ground of Luke's profession as a physician) to attach a technical meaning to Ἀχλύς and Σκότος (Jahn, Bibl. Arch. § 201), viz. a spot or "thin tunicle over the cornea," which vanishes naturally after a time; for which the same term, Ἀχλύς , is made use of by Hippocrates ( Προῤῥητικόν , ii, 215, ed. Kuhn), who says that Ἀχλύες will disappear provided no wound has been inflicted. Before such an inference can be drawn, we must be sure that the writers of the New Testament were not only acquainted with the writings of Hippocrates, but were also accustomed to a strict medical terminology. In the same way analogies are quoted for the use of saliva ( Matthew 8:23, etc.) and of fish-gall in the case of the Λεύκωμα of Tobias; but, whatever may be thought of the latter instance, it is very obvious that in the former the saliva was no more instrumental in the cure than the touch alone would have been (Trench, On The Miracles at Matthew 9:27). The haziness implied by the expression Ἀχλύς may refer to the Sensation of the blind person, or to the Appearance of the eye, and in both cases the haziness may have been referable to any of the other transparent media as well as to the cornea. Examples of blindness from old age occur in Genesis 27:1; 1 Kings 14:4; 1 Samuel 4:15. The Syrian army that came to apprehend Elisha was suddenly smitten with blindness in a miraculous manner ( 2 Kings 6:18), and so also was Paul ( Acts 9:9). Blindness is sometimes threatened in the Old Testament as a punishment (q.v.) for disobedience ( Deuteronomy 28:28; Leviticus 26:16; Zephaniah 1:17). Blindness wilfully inflicted for political or other purposes was common in the East, and is alluded to in Scripture ( 1 Samuel 11:2; Jeremiah 22:12). That calamities are always the offspring of crime is a prejudice which the depraved nature of man is but too prone to indulge in, and the Jews in the time of our Lord were greatly under the power of this prejudice. A modern traveller says, " The Hindoos and Ceylonese very commonly attribute their misfortunes to the transgressions of a former state of existence, and I remember being rather struck with the seriousness of a cripple, who attributed his condition to the unknown faults of his former life." On seeing a man who had been born blind, the disciples of our Lord fell into the same mistake, and asked him, "Who did sin, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?" ( John 9:2). Jesus immediately solved the difficulty by miraculously giving him the use of his sight. (See Eye).
