Jesus refers to another tragic occurrence, suggesting that He was acquainted with both. His ears were open to all current news, and His mind prompt to point the moral. The fact stated, otherwise unknown to us. ὀφειλέται, word changed, in meaning the same as ἁμαρτωλοὶ, moral debtors paying their debt in that dismal way.

The utterances of Jesus on this occasion do not bear on the general question: how far may lot be viewed as an index of character? which was not then before His mind. He assumed that the sufferers in the two catastrophes were sinners and even great sinners, so acquiescing in the popular view, because He wanted to point a lesson for the whole nation which He regarded as fast ripening for judgment. From the saying in the Teaching on the Hill concerning the Father in Heaven giving sunshine and rain to evil and good alike, it is evident that He had risen not only above popular current opinion, but even above the O.T. view as to the connection between physical and moral good and evil. That saying implies that there is a large sphere of Divine action within which moral distinctions among men are overlooked, that good may come to had men and evil to good men. To our Lord it would not have appeared impossible that some of the best men in Israel might be involved in the two calamities here mentioned.

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Old Testament