Unable to agree among themselves, the Pharisees asked the one person who had felt Jesus' power. The words "that he hath opened thine eyes" assume the man must have an opinion of the One who healed him. The text does not say what answer they hoped for. In the end they rejected his answer, for the next verse says "the Jews did not believe concerning him, that he had been blind" (John 9:18).

"He said, He is a prophet" (John 9:17). Barnes calls it "a noble confession made by the man who was healed, in the face of the rulers," and explains the man's thinking: "it proves that he must have been sent by God." The Pharisees did not accept his answer. They doubted he had ever been blind and "called the parents of him that had received his sight" (John 9:18).

Gill explains why the man chose the word prophet: "The Jews were wont to conclude a man's being a prophet from miracles wrought by him." He adds that "it does not appear that he believed him, as yet, to be that prophet, or the Messiah." The Samaritan woman came to the same first conclusion: "Sir, I perceive that thou art a prophet" (John 4:19). Speaking well of Jesus here carried risk, since the Jews had already agreed to put out of the synagogue anyone who confessed Him as Christ (John 9:22).

The man's view of Jesus grows each time he is pressed. First Jesus is "a man that is called Jesus" (John 9:11). Here He is "a prophet." Later He is one who must be "of God" (John 9:33). Finally, meeting Jesus face to face, the man says, "Lord, I believe. And he worshipped him" (John 9:38).

The Pharisees move the other way. The more they question, the less they see, until Jesus says, "they which see might be made blind" (John 9:39). In this chapter, the man's honest answers about Jesus, even small ones, led to more light.