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Now early in the morning he [Jesus of Nazareth, around AD 30] came again to the temple courts [Jerusalem]. And all the people were coming, and he sat down and began to teach them. Now the scribes and the Pharisees brought to him a woman caught in adultery. And standing her in the middle, they said to him, testing him, “Teacher, this woman was caught in the very act of committing adultery! Now in the law, Moses commanded us to stone such women. So what do you say?” (Now they were saying this to test him, so that they would have an occasion to bring charges against him.) But Jesus, bending down, began to write with his finger on the ground, taking no notice. And when they persisted in asking him, straightening up he said to them, “The one of you without sin, let him throw the first stone at her!” And bending down again, he wrote on the ground. Now when they heard it, being convicted by their conscience, they began to depart, one by one, beginning with the older ones, and Jesus was left alone—and the woman who was in the middle. So Jesus, straightening up and seeing no one except the woman, said to her, “Where are those accusers of yours? Does no one condemn you?” And she said, “No one, Lord.” So Jesus said, “Neither do I condemn you. Go, and sin no more.” (From John’s biography of Jesus, chapter 8, Lexham English Bible)
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The above incident is not what it seems. Yes, Jesus was extremely popular with the people. All the people were coming and … he began to teach them. Yes, the scribes and Pharisees … the male, religious, authoritative and legally-trained hierarchy wanted … to bring charges against him. Why? You probably know envy yourself.
Maybe the hierarchy planned the whole thing in detail… Anyway, they brought the woman, she caught in flagrente delicto, to Jesus in the temple courts. Their law, given by the LORD God through Moses some 1,300 years earlier, stated this: “If a man is found lying with a married woman, then they shall both die; both of them, the man who lay with the woman and the woman also, so you shall purge the evil from Israel.” (Deuteronomy 22:22)
So – why didn’t the male, religious, authoritative, legally-trained hierarchy bring the man along to Jesus? Why not? Maybe you know that as well?
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And, along with that failure they managed to mis-quote the law. The law required both the woman and the man to be stoned. But they said, Moses commanded us to stone such women. Why the mis-speak? Maybe you know that too?
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OK. What else about this incident is not what it seems? Something quite big actually. The hierarchy in Jerusalem were, as it were, living a lie.
Their relationship as the people of the LORD God of Israel (they being Israelites) had come to an awful shameful end (for their predecessors) in 587 BC. At that time Jerusalem and all Judea (as well as, earlier, the whole of northern Israel) had been rejected by the LORD God for unfaithfulness to him and to his law. The neo-Babylonian Empire had dealt the death blow that year. That Empire’s successor was the Medo-Persian Empire followed by the Greek Empire (Alexander the Great) and Rome. This AD 30 hierarchy was no hierarchy at all. It derived what little authority it had from the Roman military.
But perhaps the $64k. question is: What was Jesus writing on the ground? Bending down? Twice?
Do you think he was writing the sixth of the Ten Commandments? “You shall not commit adultery.” Or Deuteronomy 22: 22 (see above)? Neither of those would fit at all well into the actual outcome of the incident.
Back in 587 BC (see above), a prophet named Jeremiah was experiencing first-hand the wrath of the LORD towards Israel. In the middle of it all (note that the adulterous woman was twice stated in the above incident as being in the middle) Jeremiah wrote this wonderful truth.
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O LORD, the hope of Israel, all who forsake you shall be put to shame; those who turn away from you shall be written in the ground, for they have forsaken the LORD, the fountain of living water. (Jeremiah 17:13)
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Did Jesus write Jeremiah 17: 13 in the ground? I don’t know. … But the male, religious, authoritative and legally-trained hierarchy left the scene – as did everybody else. Did they know what they themselves had done and were then continuing to do?
Jeremiah, immediately before writing verse 13 wrote this, maybe for this dear woman. A glorious throne set on high from the beginning is the place of our sanctuary. She found that sanctuary in AD 30 in the LORD Jesus Christ, the one who bending down from above had come to save her.
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