Greek word · G5186
τυφλόω
typhloō
to blind
To make blind, deprive of sight. Used literally and, more often in Jewish and Christian writing, for the mind: to make someone unable to perceive what is in front of them.
Appears 3 times in 3 verses of the Greek New Testament. ·
What it means
τυφλόω, -ῶ
(τυφλός), [in LXX: Isaiah 42:19 (עִוֵּר), Tobit 7:7 א, Wisdom of Solomon 2:21 א * ;]
to blind, make blind: metaphorically, John 12:40 (LXX, καμμύω), 2 Corinthians 4:4, 1 John 2:11.†
(AS)
From G. Abbott-Smith, A Manual Greek Lexicon of the New Testament (1922), via STEPBible.org (CC BY 4.0).
In depth
- Range of meaning
To make blind, deprive of sight. Used literally and, more often in Jewish and Christian writing, for the mind: to make someone unable to perceive what is in front of them.
- Against the English
"Blinded" is accurate. English readers can miss how deliberately John chose it. Neither the Hebrew of Isaiah 6:10 ("smear over / shut their eyes") nor the Greek Septuagint ("they shut their eyes") uses the word "blind".
- Used elsewhere in the period
Rare in the Greek Bible. In the Septuagint it is used of bribes that "blind the eyes of the wise" (Isa 42:19 has a related adjective; compare the bribe sayings of Exod 23:8 and Deut 16:19, which use the image of blinding). In the NT: 2 Cor 4:4 ("the god of this age has blinded the minds of unbelievers") and 1 John 2:11 ("the darkness has blinded his eyes").
- Range of meaning
To make blind. Used figuratively of dulling the mind's ability to understand.
- Against the English
English "has blinded" (BSB, KJV, WEB) is accurate. YLT's "did blind" keeps the simple past tense of the Greek.
- Used elsewhere in the period
Only three times in the NT: John 12:40 (quoting Isa 6:10, "He has blinded their eyes"), 2 Cor 4:4 ("the god of this age has blinded the minds"), and here. Testament of Dan 2:4 (Jewish writing of the period, later Christian editing) calls anger a blindness that stops a man seeing anyone's face truly.
Similar words
Where it appears
John · 1
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John 12:40 τετύφλωκεν He has blinded
“He has blinded their eyes and hardened their hearts, so that they cannot see with their eyes, and understand with their hearts, and turn, and I would heal them.”
Here: Perfect tense: "he has blinded", an action done in the past whose result still holds. They are blind now. The verb is rare (in the NT only here, 2 Cor 4:4 and 1 John 2:11) and picks up John's long theme of sight and blindness from chapter 9.
2 Corinthians · 1
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2 Corinthians 4:4 ἐτύφλωσεν has blinded
The god of this age has blinded the minds of unbelievers, so they cannot see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.
Here: The verb is in the simple past tense ('blinded'), looking at the act as a whole. The result is a state of not seeing, which is why English often renders it 'has blinded'. Blinding here is a picture for the mind failing to perceive.
1 John · 1
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1 John 2:11 ἐτύφλωσεν has blinded
But whoever hates his brother is in the darkness and walks in the darkness. He does not know where he is going, because the darkness has blinded his eyes.
Here: Aorist tense, the simple past: "blinded". The damage has been done. Living in darkness has taken away his ability to see at all, so he is worse off than a man who simply has no lamp.
Word data: STEPBible.org (CC BY 4.0), main text only.