Note 5 at Jn. 9:7: The pool of Siloam was a rectangular reservoir 58 by 18 feet and up to 19 feet deep which was probably built in the time of Hezekiah (2 Ki. 20:20; 2 Chr. 32:30) and cut out of rock. It was located in the southeast corner of Jerusalem in Jesus' day, and was at the termination of a tunnel 400 yards long that came from a spring in the Kidron Valley named Gihon. Other Old Testament references to this pool are Nehemiah 3:15 and Isaiah 8:6.

Note 6 at Jn. 9:7: There was a specific reason why Jesus spat on the ground, made clay and anointed this man's eyes, and then told him to go to the pool of Siloam and wash. Faith has to be acted on (Jas. 2:17-20).

This man was unlike most of the people that Jesus healed in that he didn't approach Jesus and ask for healing. If he had, that would have been quite a step of faith in itself considering that anyone who openly believed that Jesus was the Christ was automatically excommunicated from the Jewish synagogue (v. 22). Rather, this man had taken no step of faith towards Jesus as healer. He had instead been brought to Jesus' attention by His disciples.

Jesus did this, not as some have suggested, just to be different, but to give this man a way of acting in faith. The pool of Siloam was over a half mile away from where Jesus encountered this blind man as he was leaving the temple grounds. This man could have succumbed to embarrassment, written the whole thing off as foolish, wiped the clay from his eyes, and resumed begging. The fact that he obeyed Jesus' instructions reveals that there was faith in his heart. Jesus didn't heal people without demanding any faith from them. Faith always had to be present in both the person administering healing and in the one receiving healing, or in an intercessor who is standing in for them (see note 4 at Jn. 5:8, p. 97; see note 2 at Lk. 7:13, p. 116; see note 2 at Mk. 6:5, p. 163).