John 9:2

John 9:2. And his disciples asked him, saying, Rabbi, who did sin, this man, or his parents, that he should be born blind? It is not said that the disciples were moved to pity, but it is not right to assume the contrary. That Jesus had looked on the blind man would be enough to raise their expectation of a cure; but expressly to relate this might well seem needless. Whatever feeling, however, the sight may have stirred in them, it recalled a problem which was very familiar to the thought of the Jews, and which repeatedly meets us in the Scriptures of the Old Testament, the connection between personal sin and bodily suffering or defect. Here was a signal example of physical infirmity: what was its cause? The question seems to show a conviction on their part that the cause was sin; but the conviction may have been less firm than the words themselves would imply. In assuming that the blindness was the consequence of sin they were following the current theology of their time: but how was this dogma to be applied in the case before them? Who had sinned? Was it the man himself? Or had his parents committed some offence which was now visited upon their child? (comp. Exodus 20:5; Exodus 34:7; Numbers 14:18; Numbers 14:33; Jeremiah 32:18). The passages to which we have referred throw light on the latter alternative; but what is the meaning of the former, as the man was born blind? It is not necessary to discuss the various explanations that have been given, some of which seem wholly improbable. Three only need be mentioned, as having apparently some sanction from what we know of Jewish thought in the apostolic age. (1) We are told by Josephus that the Pharisees held the belief that, whereas the souls of the wicked are eternally punished, the souls of the righteous pass into other bodies. Hence it has been maintained that the Pharisees held the doctrine of the transmigration of souls; and the passage before us is frequently explained accordingly. If, however, we compare all the passages in which Josephus refers to tenets of the Pharisees respecting the state of man after death, it will at least appear very uncertain that such a meaning should be attached to his words as quoted above. It is very possible that the historian is there referring entirely to a state of being beyond the limits of this world's history; or that, in the attempt to present the belief of his countrymen in a form familiar to the Roman conquerors, he has used language which conveys an erroneous impression. At all events we cannot assume that the transmigration of souls was a tenet widely embraced by the Jewish people of that age, without far stronger evidence than we now possess. (2) The philosophic doctrine of the pre-existence of souls was certainly held by many Jews at the time of which we are speaking. As early as the book of Wisdom we find a reference to this doctrine (see chap. John 8:19-20), and passages of similar tendency may easily be quoted from Philo. Yet it seems improbable that an opinion which was essentially a speculation of philosophy, and was perhaps attractive to none but philosophic minds, should manifest itself in such a question as this, asked by plain men unacquainted with the refinements of Greek thought. (3) It seems certainly to have been an ancient Jewish opinion that sin could be committed by the unborn child; and that the narrative of Genesis 25, appearing to teach that the odious character of a supplanter belonged to Jacob even before birth, gave the authority of Scripture to such a belief. On the whole this seems to afford the best explanation of the question of the disciples: Was the sin so severely punished committed by this man himself, in the earliest period of his existence, or have the iniquities of his parents been visited upon him? (On the word Rabbi, see chap. John 1:38.)