Leviticus 20:10 “‘If a man commits adultery with another man’s wife—with the wife of his neighbor—both the adulterer and the adulteress are to be put to death.
Deuteronomy 17:6-7 On the testimony of two or three witnesses a person is to be put to death, but no one is to be put to death on the testimony of only one witness. The hands of the witnesses must be the first in putting that person to death, and then the hands of all the people. You must purge the evil from among you.
Deuteronomy 22:22 If a man is found sleeping with another man’s wife, both the man who slept with her and the woman must die. You must purge the evil from Israel.
John 8:2-9 At dawn he appeared again in the temple courts, where all the people gathered around him, and he sat down to teach them. The teachers of the law and the Pharisees brought in a woman caught in adultery. They made her stand before the group and said to Jesus, “Teacher, this woman was caught in the act of adultery. In the Law Moses commanded us to stone such women. Now what do you say?” They were using this question as a trap, in order to have a basis for accusing him.
But Jesus bent down and started to write on the ground with his finger. When they kept on questioning him, he straightened up and said to them, “Let any one of you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.” Again he stooped down and wrote on the ground.
At this, those who heard began to go away one at a time, the older ones first, until only Jesus was left, with the woman still standing there.
First of all, what was the trap? There are several possibilities:
- Under Roman law, capital punishment could only be carried out by the Roman justice system. In this way were Jesus to condemn her, he’d be breaking Roman law, and, similar to the “should we pay taxes” trap, the Jews use this against him.
- The Jewish Law requires at least two witnesses and it is those witnesses who must throw the first stones (Deut 17:6-7). The witnesses are not mentioned and therefore may not have been present or even existed. Stoning the woman without witnesses would also constitute a breaking of the law and could be what Jesus referred to as “whoever is without sin”, as sin is any infraction of the Law. Deut 19:15-19
- Similar to reason 2, the Law requires both the man and the woman explicitly to be stoned. Jews, who meticulously followed the Law, interpreted this law as they both must be stoned together at the same time. Even though the law does is not clear about this, it makes sense as this would be an even greater spectacle and warning to the Jewish community. Even without this interpretation of the law, the man is not mentioned and therefore Jesus could judge them as sinning for this reason as well.
- Lastly, they may have known Jesus was a “merciful savior”, and that if he condoned their judgement, he would appear unmerciful. This is the modern interpretation of this passage, but I believe it is by far the least likely. There’s no evidence that Jesus ever went “easy” on the Law. In fact, he couldn’t have and still have fulfilled the Law himself.
Was Jesus merciful? Absolutely! Would he rather not be put in this situation? Probably not, but everything happens for a purpose and I believe this event occurred so that Jesus could love the Pharisees and point out how they themselves were incapable of following the Law and therefore needed a savior.
A small detail at the end of the story is the order that the Pharisees left. From my study of their customs, the young typically left first followed by the more experienced older folks. The reverse order seems to imply the old Pharisees got Jesus’ message and decided it was not lawful to stone the woman. The younger, more prideful ones didn’t want to give in but had to after their elders left.
The Law only has its desired effect if the individual dedicates their life to following it fully. This why John the Baptist and Jesus began their ministries both saying, “repent for the Kingdom if God is near”: because they would not be ready for or ultimately accept a savior where there was no need for one. In other words, if one could be right with God through obedience to the Law, they would not need a savior.
This is precisely why Jesus was so hard on the Pharisees. Whereas the regular Jewish person knew their shortcomings and deeply felt their separation from God, the Pharisees thought they had found a way to actually observe the Law by following their Pharisaical traditions which would keep them from ever coming close to the bounds of breaking a law (i.e. sinning). But it was inevitable that their rules would conflict with each other and a real law of God would be broken. Jesus points out an example of this in Mat 15. Therefore it is our modern interpretation of what it means to observe the Law that leads to misunderstandings of Jesus’ interactions with the Pharisees.
Not necessarily important but still interesting is what did Jesus write on the ground? For whatever reason, John either chose not to write it in his book or perhaps he couldn’t see what was written and Jesus never told him. I do believe Jesus wrote words, not just doodling, since word in the Greek in this verse is καταγράφω (kata-grah-foh), which means, “to write, with a possible implication that what is written is an accusation”. Some think he was writing the individual sins of those gathered, like “Rabbi Simone: ate pork, Rabbi Shamiel: didn’t tithe”. Boy that would be convicting, but very unlikely. I think it was more general pertaining to the sins of the group at hand, like writing Deut 17:6 or perhaps a phrase from it like “two witnesses throw the first stones” or “the woman and the man”. In the passage Jesus actually stoops down and writes twice, once in verse 6 and again in verse 8, so perhaps he wrote both Deut 17:6-7 and 22:22. Just like when Jesus said “before Abraham was born, I am!” in John 8:58 was a conspicuous reference to Yahweh, writing in the ground could be a reference to Exo 31:18, where God explicitly used his finger to write the ten commands on the stone tablets. You might think this far-fetched, but Jesus was very intentional and the writers of the Gospels rarely included superfluous details (if at all).