John 9:1

Καὶ παράγων. “And as He passed by,” possibly, as Meyer and Holtzmann suppose, on the occasion just mentioned (John 8:59), and as He passed the gate of the Temple where beggars congregated; but the definite mention that it was a Sabbath (John 9:14) rather indicates that it was not the same day. See on John 10:22. εἶδεν … γενετῆς. “He saw a man blind from birth,” an aggravation which plays a prominent part in what follows. And first of all it so impresses the disciples that they ask τίς … γεννηθῇ; Their question implies a belief, repudiated by Jesus here and in Luke 13:1-5, that each particular sickness or sorrow was traceable to some particular sin; see Job passim and Weber's Lehren d. Talmud, p. 235. Their question seems also to imply that they supposed even a natal defect might be the punishment of the individual's own sin. This has received five different explanations: (1) that the pre-existence of souls had been deduced from Wis 8:20, “being good, I came into a body undefiled”; (2) that metempsychosis was held by some Jews (so Calvin, Beza, and see Lightfoot, p. 1048); or (3) that the unborn babe might sin, see Genesis 25:26; Luke 1:41-44; or (4) that the punishment was anticipatory of the sin; or (5) that the question was one of sheer bewilderment, putting all conceivable possibilities, but without attaching any very definite meaning to the one branch of the alternative. A combination of the two last seems to fit the mental attitude of the disciples. The alternative that the man suffered for his parents' sin was an idea which would naturally suggest itself. See Exodus 20:5, etc. ἵνα τυφλὸς γεννηθῇ; ἵνα expresses result, not purpose; and the form of expression is “the product of false analogy, arising from imitation of a construction which really expresses purpose” (Burton, Moods, 218, 219).