Literature. — Ecce Homo, ch. vi. ; Bushnell's Neio Life, ser- mon on ' Spiritual Dislodgements ' ; Longfellow's The Sifting of Peter. J. R. LeGGE.
SIGHING. — The exjiression of trouble by means of involuntary respiration. This exjiression is used in connexion with our Lord twice, both times in St. Mark's Gospel. It is expressed in 7** by the word aTevd^w — in the LXX the equivalent of n^x — • and in 8^^ by the compound dvaarevd^w. In both instances the words appear in this Gospel alone, and only in these passages. The expression is evi- dently meant to convey the fact of the Lord's sympathy with men. In the first, the healing of the deaf and dumb man, our Lord felt the burden of the disease which He was about to cure. And here the expression is associated with prayer on His part : 'And, looking up to heaven, lie sighed.' In the second, where a stronger expression is used through the compound, the Pharisees are asking for a sign, and He 'sighed in his spirit,' evidently thinking of the speedy appearance of the sign for which they asked, and mourning over the terrible nature which it would bear. On the ' groaning ' of Jn IP^*- ^8 see Anger in vol. i. p. 62^.
W. H. Rankine.
SIGHT. — Christ rejoiced in His power of re- storing sight to the physically blind (see below), and points to it as a most fitting exercise for One sent of God (Mt IP, Lk 7^^-^^; see also art. Sign). When He speaks of Himself as Deliverer, in terms borrowed from the prophets (combining Is 6P and 42^"'^), one of the chief features of the commission He announces is the recovering of sight to the blind (Lk 4^8"^^). 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 (Jn 14", cf. IG'^"^^- ^^ I'jz. 6. 25-26j_ 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 (Mk S^^).
In Mt 6^'^ and Lk 1 1^"^" 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 body — the lamp (\vxvos) of the body. If the eye be unperverted ( ' single,' or, liter- ally, ' simple,' dTrXoOs), the whole body is lighted for all the work it has to do. If 'evil' (irovr)p6^), the whole body is darkened, and every part of the complex activity is rendered inefficient if not im- possible. So of the inward, mental and spiritual eye. The power of vision is central. If that
* Note that the point of the comparison lies in tlie shaking. Satan aims at destruction ; Jesus is thinking of purification as the real result. Christ conies with His fan to get rid of chaff (Mt 31-') ; Satan sifts in order to get rid of wheat. For, as Thomas Fuller says somewhere, when Satan comes with his sieve, he desires to find the chaff and not the wheat.
capacity to see things as they are be unimpaired, the man (!an be and do that for Avhich 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 Mt IS^^""- see Parable, p. 315 f. ; and on Jn 19^"ff- see Seeing.
In our Lord's healing of the multitude which the Go.spels on several occasions record, cases of blind- ness 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 conta- gious. 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., afl'ection of the nerves. Mt 12'-^ 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 nerv- ous tissue which controls the organs of vision, hearing, and speech ; and the mental disorder is organically connected with the cerebral disorganiza- tion.
As a rule, the cases of loss of sight are not suf- ficiently described to enable us to know what par- ticular cause produces the blindness. Mt 9-'-^i 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 catai'act (Jn 9). The feature of our Lord's cure of the blind is narrated in the above instances — His touching of the eyes. The blind man of Bethsaida (Mk 8-2"-^). was treated similarly. Twice Jesus laid His hands upon the blind eyes. Also He spit upon his eyes — having 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 Jn 9 we note that Jesus speaks concerning the cure to be wrought. His words in Jn 9^'^ 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 un- naturally 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.