SEV Biblia, Chapter 9:2
Y le preguntaron sus discípulos, diciendo: Rabí, ¿quin pec, ste o sus padres, para que naciese ciego?
Clarke's Bible Commentary - John 9:2
Verse 2. Who did sin, this man, or his parents] The doctrine of the transmigration of souls appears to have been an article in the creed of the Pharisees, and it was pretty general both among the Greeks and the Asiatics. The Pythagoreans believed the souls of men were sent into other bodies for the punishment of some sin which they had committed in a pre-existent state. This seems to have been the foundation of the disciples question to our Lord. Did this man sin in a pre-existent state, that he is punished in this body with blindness? Or, did his parents commit some sin, for which they are thus plagued in their offspring? Most of the Asiatic nations have believed in the doctrine of transmigration. The Hindoos still hold it; and profess to tell precisely the sin which the person committed in another body, by the afflictions which he endures in this: they profess also to tell the cures for these. For instance, they say the headache is a punishment for having, in a former state, spoken irrevently to father or mother. Madness is a punishment for having been disobedient to father or mother, or to one's spiritual guide. The epilepsy is a punishment for having, in a former state, administered poison to any one at the command of his master. Pain in the eyes is a punishment for having, in another body, coveted another man's wife. Blindness is a punishment for having killed his mother: but this person they say, before his new birth, will suffer many years' torment in hell. See many curious particulars relative to this in the AYEEN AKBERY, vol. iii. p. 168-175; and in the Institutes of Menu, chap. xi. Inst. 48-53.
The Jewish rabbins have had the same belief from the very remotest antiquity. Origen cites an apocryphal book of the Hebrews, in which the patriarch Jacob is made to speak thus: I am an angel of God; one of the first order of spirits. Men call me Jacob, but my true name, which God has given me, is Israel: Orat. Joseph. apud ORIG. Many of the Jewish doctors have believed that the souls of Adam, Abraham, and Phineas, have successively animated the great men of their nation. Philo says that the air is full of spirits, and that some, through their natural propensity, join themselves to bodies; and that others have an aversion from such a union. See several other things relative to this point in his treatises, Deuteronomy Plant. Noe-De Gigantibus-De Confus. Ling.-De Somniis, &c.; and see Calmet, where he is pretty largely quoted.
The Hindoos believe that the most of their misfortunes arise out of the sins of a former birth; and, in moments of grief not unfrequently break out into exclamations like the following:-"Ah! in a former birth how many sins must I have committed, that I am thus afflicted!"I am now suffering for the sins of a former birth; and the sins that I am now committing are to fill me with misery in a following birth. There is no end to my sufferings!" Josephus, Ant. b. xvii. c. 1, s. 3, and War, b. ii. c. 8, s. 14, gives an account of the doctrine of the Pharisees on this subject. He intimates that the souls of those only who were pious were permitted to reanimate human bodies, and this was rather by way of reward than punishment; and that the souls of the vicious are put into eternal prisons, where they are continually tormented, and out of which they can never escape. But it is very likely that Josephus has not told the whole truth here; and that the doctrine of the Pharisees on this subject was nearly the same with that of the Papists on purgatory. Those who are very wicked go irrecoverably to hell; but those who are not so have the privilege of expiating their venial sins in purgatory. Thus, probably, is the Pharisean doctrine of the transmigration to be understood. Those who were comparatively pious went into other bodies, for the expiation of any remaining guilt which had not been removed previously to a sudden or premature death, after which they were fully prepared for paradise; but others who had been incorrigibly wicked were sent at once into hell, without ever being offered the privilege of amendment, or escape. For the reasons which may be collected above, much as I reverence Bishop Pearce, I cannot agree with his note on this passage, where he says that the words of the disciples should be thus understood:-Who did sin? This man, that he is blind? or his parents, that he was born so? He thinks it probable that the disciples did not know that the man was born blind: if he was, then it was for some sin of his parents-if he was not born so, then this blindness came unto him as a punishment for some crime of his own. It may be just necessary to say, that some of the rabbins believed that it was possible for an infant to sin in the womb, and to be punished with some bodily infirmity in consequence. See several examples in Lightfoot on this place.
John Gill's Bible Commentary
Ver. 2. And his disciples asked him , etc.] It may be that some of the twelve apostles, or others of his disciples, might put the following question to him on sight of this blind man, who by some means or another knew was born blind: saying, master, who did man, or his parents, that he was born blind ? the first of these questions, whether the man himself had sinned before he was born, which might be the occasion of his blindness, proceeds not upon the doctrine of original sin, though the Jews then believed that; (see Gill on Romans 5:12); since that was common to all men, and therefore could not admit of such a question; but either upon the notion of transmigration of souls into other bodies; and so the disciples might ask whether this man had sinned in a pre-existent state when in another body, which was the reason of this blindness, or of his being put into a blind body. This notion, Josephus says f411 , was embraced by the Pharisees; though, according to him, it seems, that they only understood it of the souls of good men; and if so, this could lay no foundation for such a question, unless these disciples had given into the Pythagorean notion of a transmigration of all souls, which was to be known by defects, as blindness, etc. 412 ; or else this question proceeded upon a principle received by the Jews, that an infant might do that which was faulty and criminal, and actually sin in the womb; of which Dr. Lightfoot has given instances: the second question proceeds upon the methods which sometimes God has taken with men, by visiting the iniquities of the fathers upon the children; or, as the above learned writer observes, upon a notion the Jews had, that a child might suffer for what the mother did whilst it was in the womb; or on another, which prevailed among them, that there should be neither merit nor demerit in the days of the Messiah; that is, that neither the good deeds, nor bad deeds of their parents, should be imputed to their children, neither the one to their advantage, nor the other to their disadvantage: and therefore since he the Messiah was come, they ask, how this blindness should come to pass? what should be the reason of it?
Matthew Henry Commentary
Verses 1-7 - Christ cured many who were blind by disease or accident; here he cure one born blind. Thus he showed his power to help in the most desperat cases, and the work of his grace upon the souls of sinners, which give sight to those blind by nature. This poor man could not see Christ, but Christ saw him. And if we know or apprehend anything of Christ, it is because we were first known of him. Christ says of uncommon calamities that they are not always to be looked on as special punishments of sin sometimes they are for the glory of God, and to manifest his works. Ou life is our day, in which it concerns us to do the work of the day. We must be busy, and not waste day-time; it will be time to rest when ou day is done, for it is but a day. The approach of death should quicke us to improve all our opportunities of doing and getting good. What good we have an opportunity to do, we should do quickly. And he tha will never do a good work till there is nothing to be objected against will leave many a good work for ever undone, Ec 11:4. Christ magnifie his power, in making a blind man to see, doing that which one woul think more likely to make a seeing man blind. Human reason cannot judg of the Lord's methods; he uses means and instruments that men despise Those that would be healed by Christ must be ruled by him. He came bac from the pool wondering and wondered at; he came seeing. Thi represents the benefits in attending on ordinances of Christ' appointment; souls go weak, and come away strengthened; go doubting and come away satisfied; go mourning, and come away rejoicing; go blind, and come away seeing.
Greek Textus Receptus
και 2532 CONJ ηρωτησαν 2065 5656 V-AAI-3P αυτον 846 P-ASM οι 3588 T-NPM μαθηται 3101 N-NPM αυτου 846 P-GSM λεγοντες 3004 5723 V-PAP-NPM ραββι 4461 HEB τις 5101 I-NSM ημαρτεν 264 5627 V-2AAI-3S ουτος 3778 D-NSM η 2228 PRT οι 3588 T-NPM γονεις 1118 N-NPM αυτου 846 P-GSM ινα 2443 CONJ τυφλος 5185 A-NSM γεννηθη 1080 5686 V-APS-3S
Vincent's NT Word Studies
2. This man, or his parents. It was a common Jewish view that the merits or demerits of the parents would appear in the children, and that the thoughts of a mother might affect the moral state of her unborn offspring. The apostasy of one of the greatest Rabbis had, in popular belief, been caused by the sinful delight of his mother in passing through an idol grove.
