John 9:2,3 - Coke's Commentary on the Holy Bible

His disciples asked him, saying, &c.— Some have thought that the Jews, having derived from the Egyptians the doctrines of the pre-existence and transmigration of souls, (see Wis 8:19-20.) supposed that men were punished in this world for the sins that they had committed in their pre-existent state. From the account which Josephus gives of this matter, it appears that the Pharisees believed that the souls of good men only went into other bodies, whereas the souls of the wicked, they thought, went immediately into eternal punishment,—an opinion somewhat different from that which the disciples expressed on this occasion. For, if they spake accurately, they must have thought that, in his pre-existent state, this person had been a sinner, and was now punished for his sins then committed, by having his soul thrust into a blind body. Nevertheless, from what they say, we cannot certainlydetermine whether they thought that, in his pre-existent state, this person had lived on earth as a man, which is the notion that Josephus describes; or, whether they fancied he had pre-existed in some higher order of being, which was the Platonic notion. The disciples might possibly have been acquainted with these principles; and might have put the question in the text, on purpose to know our Lord's decision on so curious a subject; though, for my own part, I am rather inclined to think that the disciples were men of too little erudition to have imbibed notions of this sort. "The apostles,"saysTheophylact,afterChrysostom,"hadnotreceivedthosetrifling notions of the Gentiles, that the soul can sin in a pre-existent state, and so be punished in another body for the faults committed ina former one: for, being plain fishermen, it is not to be supposed that they had heard these things, which were the doctrines of the philosophers." Several kinds of diseases, particularly blindness, were esteemed by the Jews to be the punishments of sin; and our Lord's disciples, from the address which he made to the paralytic at the pool of Bethesda, ch. John 5:14 might be confirmed in this prejudice, and ask him whether, as this man was born blind, he must not be supposed to be punished for the sins of his parents. Another opinion was imbibed by the Jews during their captivity, that all their sufferings descended upon them for the crimes of their fathers, and were wholly unmerited on their part. It was this opinion which drew from the divinely-inspired pen of Ezekiel that severe remonstrance and animated vindication of the ways of Providence in his 18th chapter. Some remains of this opinion might have possessed the minds of the apostles. They fancied that they saw in the man born blind, a case which could not be accounted for, but by supposing him to suffer for a parent's guilt. Master, who did sin, this man or his parents, that he was born blind? The question they thought admitted but of one reply; the crime must precede the punishment: the punishment in this case commenced before there could be any personal guilt in the sufferer: it must therefore descend from the parent's sin. But our Lord shewed them that the case admitted of a very different solution; Jesus answered, neither hath this man, &c. "Suffering is not in this case the effect of sin. This private calamity is permitted for a public good, to give me an opportunity of displaying to the world that divine power by which I act." See ch. John 11:4.