to look up: to lift the eyes and turn one's gaze upward
TranslatabilityDirectCertaintySettled
This is the plain, physical meaning: someone raises their eyes toward something above them. The front part of the word carries the idea of "up," and the rest of it means "to look," so the whole word says "look up."
Most often the Gospels use it for Jesus lifting his eyes to heaven at a solemn moment, especially before he blesses and breaks bread. In the feeding of the crowds he looks up to heaven and gives thanks, and he does the same when he heals a deaf man. The gesture frames the act as a prayer directed to the Father.
It is also used for an ordinary glance upward:
Jesus looks up and sees Zacchaeus in the tree
looks up and sees the rich dropping gifts into the treasury
the women on Easter morning look up and see that the stone has been rolled away
Mat 14:19Mrk 6:41Mrk 7:34Mrk 8:24*Mrk 16:4Luk 9:16Luk 19:5Luk 21:1
2
to receive sight: for a blind person to come to see
TranslatabilityApproximateCertaintySettled
The same word carries a second meaning because its front part can mean not only "up" but "again," so it also says "to see again," that is, to gain or recover sight. In this sense it is the standard word for the healing of the blind.
Blind men call out to Jesus asking to receive their sight, and at his word they immediately see: the two blind men near Jericho, blind Bartimaeus, the beggar in Luke, and the man born blind in John who washes and comes back seeing. Jesus also names this healing as a mark of his mission, echoing the prophets:
the blind receive sight
the lame walk
the dead are raised
The book of Acts extends it to Saul of Tarsus. Blinded on the road to Damascus, he is told through Ananias that he will receive his sight, and when the scales fall from his eyes he sees again.
Adds the direction of the gaze: raising the eyes upward, as when Jesus lifts his eyes to heaven before a blessing or a healing.Mrk 6:41Mrk 7:34Luk 9:16
Carries the sense of getting sight back: a blind person coming to see, or receiving sight again.Mat 11:5Mrk 10:51Luk 18:41Act 9:12
Both
Both name the physical act of seeing with the eyes, and they stand side by side when someone describes what they now perceive.Mrk 8:24Jhn 9:15
Only this word is used for a blind person seeing again. Here it names no direction of gaze at all but a change of condition: it is what a blind man begs for, what Jesus grants, and what the healed man reports afterward.Mrk 10:51Mrk 10:52Luk 18:43Jhn 9:11Act 9:18
It carries the upward look to heaven that opens a prayer. In every feeding scene the sequence is the same: he takes the loaves, lifts his eyes to the sky, then blesses and breaks them, so the raised eyes are part of the act of thanking God.Mat 14:19Mrk 6:41Mrk 7:34Luk 9:16
Outside prayer it is a plain lift of the eyes to whatever is higher up or further off: a man in a tree, wealthy donors at the temple treasury, a heavy stone already rolled back from a tomb.Luk 19:5Luk 21:1Mrk 16:4
Both
Both are ordinary verbs of physical seeing with the direction of the gaze packed inside the word itself, so the reader is told where the eyes went and not merely that someone saw something.Luk 21:1Mrk 11:11
In the gospels both mark a deliberate pause in the story. The look comes first and the words or the action follow from it, so the narrator uses the glance to slow the scene down before the important moment.Mrk 6:41Luk 6:10
Neither has a single English verb to match it, so both come across as "look" plus a small word for the direction, rendered "looked up" for the one and "looked around" for the other.Mrk 16:4Mrk 9:8
This word sweeps the eyes in a circle, over a ring of people seated all around or over everything a building contains, so what it takes in is a whole group or a whole scene rather than one point.Mrk 3:34Mrk 11:11Luk 6:10
The sweeping look can be a search, and the sentence then reports what the search turned up: Jesus scanning a crowd for the person who touched him, or the disciples turning about and finding nobody left but Jesus.Mrk 5:32Mrk 9:8
Because the look is aimed at people and sizes them up, a writer can attach a mood to it. One such look is made "with anger" and grief at hard hearts, and another weighs the disciples before a hard saying about money.Mrk 3:5Mrk 10:23
anablepō in the other biblical languages
פָּקַחHebrew“to open”the Hebrew verb for opening the eyes, the Old Testament way of speaking about giving sight to the blind that the Gospel healings echo
Its plain sense is to look up, to lift the eyes upward. It is the word for Jesus raising his eyes to heaven before a blessing or a miracle.Mrk 6:41Luk 9:16Mrk 7:34
It means to regain sight, with the focus on the once blind person who now sees for himself. The subject is the one recovering vision, not an agent acting on his eyes.Mrk 10:51Luk 18:41Jhn 9:11Act 9:18
Both
Both describe sight given to the blind. The Hebrew word names the promise that the eyes of the blind will be opened; the Greek word reports its fulfillment as the blind receiving their sight.Isa 35:5Psa 146:8Mat 11:5Luk 7:22
It means to open a shut sense organ generally, so it can open the ears to hear as readily as the eyes to see.Isa 42:20
It becomes a plea for God to open his own eyes, that is, to turn his watchful attention on a situation and act.2Ki 19:16Isa 37:17Dan 9:18Jer 32:19
What scholars say about anablepō
The standard lexica (BDAG; LSJ) treat ἀναβλέπω as a single compound of ἀνά ("up" / "again") + βλέπω ("to look, see") that yields two established senses: (1) to direct the gaze upward, look up (frequent in the feeding and blessing scenes, and Lk 19:5; 21:1; Mk 16:4), and (2) to regain or gain sight, the fixed term for healing the blind in the Synoptic and Johannine narratives and in Acts. The dual sense is possible because ἀνά supports both "upward" and "anew," and it converges in healing contexts: at Mk 8:24 the aorist participle ἀναβλέψας stands where the man's sight is being restored, and interpreters divide over "looked up" versus "his sight returned." EDNT (s.v.) notes the same range and that ἀναβλέπω need not imply prior sight, as the born-blind man of John 9 shows.