John 9:13 - Ellicott's Commentary On The Whole Bible

They brought to the Pharisees. — More exactly, They bring... The present tense speaks of what they did, as the writer thinks of it in actual occurrence. Their question in the previous verse, and the fact stated in the following verse, seem to indicate that they did this in the spirit of opposition to our Lord. They may have been influenced also, as the parents were, by the agreement of the Jews to excommunicate any who should confess Christ (John 9:22). By the term, “to the Pharisees,” we are not to understand the Sanhedrin, which did not meet on the Sabbath, and which is not spoken of by St. John as simply “the Pharisees,” but a body of the leading Pharisees who were the most bitter foes of Christ, and who seem at this time to have formed practically a permanent committee of the Sanhedrin, always ready to take counsel or action against Him. (Comp. Notes on John 7:32; John 7:45; John 7:48.)